District Attorney Fani Willis has rejected a request by attorneys representing former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to delay his surrender to the Fulton County jail until a hearing is held on whether his case will be moved to federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 28 in Meadows’ request to move his case from Fulton County to federal court..
On Tuesday, Meadows filed an emergency motion in federal court asking for the immediate removal of his case to federal court or for an order prohibiting District Attorney Fani Willis from arresting him before the scheduled hearing.
Willis set a deadline of Friday at noon for defendants to surrender at the jail.
In the filing, attorneys for Meadows argued and provide emails that show Willis has rejected their request to defer Meadow’s arrest until after the hearing is held on Monday.
Attorneys for Meadows state that they offered to meet with Willis immediately after Monday’s hearing in federal court to discuss the best path forward based on the outcome of the hearing, including a surrender in Fulton County. On Tuesday morning, Willis rejected the proposal in an email.
“I am not granting any extensions. I gave 2 weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction,” Willis said in the email. “The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy. At 12:30 p.m. on Friday I shall file warrants in the system. My team has availability to meet to discuss reasonable consent bonds Wednesday and Thursday.”
Attorneys argued that Meadows “is differently situated” from the other defendants because he is a former federal official, who has a pending notice of removal that is set to be heard on Monday.
