Supreme Court rejects Mark Meadows’ request to move Georgia election subversion case to federal court

The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to let Mark Meadows move his Georgia election subversion case to federal court, effectively barring the former chief of staff during Donald Trump’s first term from claiming immunity from those charges.

The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to let Mark Meadows move his Georgia election subversion case to federal court, effectively barring the former chief of staff during Donald Trump’s first term from claiming immunity from those charges. Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who served as White House chief of staff late in Trump’s term, was indicted last year in Fulton County, Georgia, on racketeering and other charges tied to phone calls and meetings in which Trump leaned on state officials to change the outcome of the 2020 election in the state. Meadows has pleaded not guilty and Trump won election to a second term last week. Meadows wanted to have his case heard in federal – rather than state – court, where he would be able to raise immunity claims. Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger III says he still believes Meadows can fight for immunity from the charges, because of federal authority in the case. “We are confident that eventually Mr. Meadows’ Constitutional Immunity under the Supremacy Clause will lead to his exoneration in these politically motivated state prosecutions. The Supreme Court’s not hearing this case now only means that we will have to continue to assert his rights and his substantive innocence in state courts for the time being,” Terwilliger said in a statement Tuesday. “In the meantime, allowing the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to stand puts all former federal officers, including those soon leaving office, at risk of being left to the wiles of every politically hostile district attorney or state AG in the country without what for 200 years has been access to a federal court for a fair hearing.”