Acting White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows listens during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, DC April 18, 2020.
Al Drago | Reuters
Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows on Tuesday urged a federal judge to immediately move the Georgia criminal election interference case to state court to protect him from arrest, court filings show.
Alternatively, the federal court could simply issue an order barring Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from arresting Meadows this week, his attorney suggested in the 19-page filing.
Willis has already denied Meadows’ request for an extension, the filing says.
Meadows and 18 other co-defendants in the Willis case, including Trump, are facing a time limit on Friday.
At least two defendants have already done so: pro-Trump attorney John Eastman and Georgia bailiff Scott Hall were tried and released Monday.
Former President Donald Trump has announced that he will surrender on Thursday.
Meadows wants to move the case to federal court at the state level. A federal judge in the US District Court in Atlanta has scheduled a hearing for Monday morning at Meadows’ request.
But Meadows’ attorney, John Moran, argued in the latest court filing that if he were arrested before that hearing, his attempt to delay the case would be detrimental.
“Without the intervention of this court, Mr. Meadows will be denied the protections from arrest afforded by federal law to former federal officials, and this court’s speedy but proper consideration of a deportation will be thwarted,” Moran wrote.
The attorney wrote that Willis had already “flatly denied” a request to extend the deadline for his arrest to one day after the federal court hearing.
The file included an email from Willis, who wrote Monday morning: “I do not grant renewals. I gave people two weeks to face the court. Your client is no different from any other defendant in this jurisdiction.”
However, Moran argued that if the state criminal case were not dismissed, Meadows would be “irrevocably harmed.”
“He would be arrested, subject to state criminal law restrictions prior to the trial, and ultimately face the risk of criminal penalties,” the defense attorney wrote.
The request came two days after Meadows asked the federal court to dismiss charges stemming from Willis’ investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to redeem his defeat by President Joe Biden in the 2020 Georgia election.
Meadows faces indictment on one count of racketeering and one count of inciting an officer to violate an oath. The latter count is related to Meadows’ participation in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s win in the state.
