Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is requesting that a federal appeals court reconsider his twice-rejected bid to move his Fulton County election interference case to federal court.
In a court filing late Tuesday, the onetime Republican congressman requested a rare “en banc” hearing before all 12 judges on the conservative 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“A White House chief of staff facing a local prosecutor’s indictment based on actions taken in the west wing should not be a close call,” his legal team argued. “No chief of staff has ever had to defend his west wing actions in state court.”
The move came a little more than two weeks after a three-judge panel on that same court unanimously rejected Meadows’ argument, ruling that he had no right as a former federal official to move the proceedings.
The judges ruled that the events that gave rise to the Fulton County indictment were “not related to Meadows’ official duties” as then-President Donald Trump’s top White House aide, and that the case should stay in Fulton Superior Court.
“Simply put, whatever the precise contours of Meadows’s official authority, that authority did not extend to an alleged conspiracy to overturn valid election results,” the judges wrote just three days after a mid-December hearing.
Meadows’ petition called the panel’s decision “profoundly wrong.”
“It defies text, precedent, and common sense,” he wrote.
In August, Meadows was indicted on racketeering charges alongside Trump, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and 16 others. He was charged with an additional felony: soliciting Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to violate his oath of office during the infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Trump. During the call, the then-president asked the secretary to “find” him 11,780 votes, enough to overturn Georgia’s results.
If he’s successful in moving the case to federal court, Meadows would receive a broader — and slightly more conservative — jury pool. He’s also hoping that federal judges would be more receptive to arguments of immunity. Cameras also aren’t permitted in federal court, whereas Fulton proceedings will be live-streamed on YouTube.
It’s unlikely that the full 11th Circuit will take up the case. En banc hearings are unusual and require at least seven of the judges to vote to hear the case. Not only that, but the three-judge panel that heard Meadows’ arguments last month is ideologically diverse, including one of the court’s most conservative jurists and two Democratic appointees, which could make it less likely that others will feel compelled to revisit the issue.
The case is expected to eventually wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meadows recently hired Paul Clement, a U.S. solicitor general during the second Bush administration and a Supreme Court specialist, to join his legal team.
Staff writer Bill Rankin contributed to this article.
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