Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, is asking the appeals court to reconsider moving his election interference case in Georgia to federal court, weeks after a federal appeals court denied that request. But now, Meadows has recruited former Solicitor General Paul Clement to represent him — a massive development, as Clement has unparalleled experience winning cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Meadows, one of 18 codefendants charged in the election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, alongside Trump, was indicted as part of the investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. He was charged on two counts — “soliciting an official to violate their oath of office” accompanying the RICO charge, as Breitbart News reported. He surrendered in Fulton County hours before Trump and has pleaded not guilty.
The indictment itself was wildly controversial, listing several mundane activities as “overt act[s] in furtherance of the conspiracy.” One of those instances listed in the indictment involved Meadows sending a text message to a U.S. representative, simply asking for the number for the speaker and leader of the Pennsylvania legislature.
In August, Meadows quickly filed a motion to remove the Georgia prosecution to federal court “citing a federal law known as a removal statute that allows an ‘officer of the United States’ facing charges in state court to transfer the proceedings to federal court if the alleged behavior falls under their governmental duties,” as Breitbart News detailed. The federal appeals court denied it in December:
In an opinion written by Judge Bill Pryor — a conservative former Alabama Attorney General and George W. Bush appointee — the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the law only applied to current government officials. That ruling, while not surprising, is a blow not just to Meadows but Trump, former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark, and other defendants separately seeking to move their charges to federal court.
This artist’s sketch depicts Paul Clement standing while speaking to the Supreme Court, November 3, 2021, in Washington. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)
But the battle is not over, as Meadows is asking an appeals court to reconsider, with the help of newly enlisted Paul Clement, who wrote that the panel’s decision is “profoundly wrong – it defies text, precedent, and common sense – and profoundly consequential.”
“Before the cavalry of Congress is called in to fix the statute, the full court should consider whether the error lay instead in the panel’s concededly novel holding that the critical procedural protection of federal-officer removal ends long before substantive immunity expires,” he wrote, continuing:
The panel’s alternative holding that a White House Chief of Staff’s actions in the West Wing do not even “relate to” his official duties equally merits en banc review. While the actual adjudication of a federal immunity defense on the merits may require parsing of the Chief of Staff’s role and studied consideration of the boundaries of his official duties—precisely the kind of questions that belong in federal court—the jurisdictional inquiry is designedly far more straightforward. The federal removal statute is to be liberally construed, the removing officer’s version of events is to be credited, and a single removable issue suffices. Moreover, to further tip the scales in favor of removal, Congress expressly amended the statute in 2011 to allow removal not just of suits “for” official acts, but of actions “relating to” official acts. The panel decision ignores all that and by demanding a close “causal nexus” to official duties opens a circuit split and negates Congress’ 2011 amendments.
Nothing in the federal-officer removal statute compels either of the panel’s conclusions, let alone both of them. Indeed, the notion that a former White House Chief of Staff is not entitled to a federal forum to defend himself against criminal charges related to his work for the President of the United States is at odds with everything the federal-officer removal statute has long been understood to accomplish. The Court should grant rehearing en banc.
The case is Georgia v. Meadows, No. 23-12958, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
