By Andrew Chung
(Reuters) - Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has failed in his bid to move his Georgia 2020 election interference criminal case out of state court and into the potentially friendlier venue of federal court, as the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed his request on Tuesday.
The justices turned away an appeal by Meadows, a former Republican congressman, of a lower court's decision rejecting his effort to have his case heard in federal court.
Prosecutors in Georgia's Fulton County in 2023 indicted Meadows along with Trump and other allies in a sweeping racketeering case accusing them of conspiring to overturn Trump's 2020 loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump won the Nov. 5 U.S. election and is set to return to the presidency on Jan. 20. Both Meadows and Trump have pleaded not guilty.
Meadows has sought have the case heard in federal court under a U.S. law that lets federal officials transfer cases involving their official duties out of state courts. Meadows has argued that the Georgia charges involved his responsibilities as chief of staff and that he has defenses that can be mounted under federal law.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones rejected Meadow's bid. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in December 2023, ruling that the law cited by Meadows "does not apply to former federal officers, and even if it did, the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to Meadows's official duties."
Moving the case to federal court could give Meadows a friendlier jury pool because such a trial would draw from a larger and more politically diverse area than Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold. Meadows would also be able to argue in federal court that he is immune from state prosecution because the charges involve actions arising from his duties as a federal official.
Mounting an immunity defense is critical, his lawyers told the Supreme Court in a filing, as it is "the principal protection federal officers enjoy against the whims of literally thousands of state and local prosecutors."
Unlike charges brought by federal prosecutors, Trump when he resumes his duties as president will not be able to scuttle a criminal case in state court. But his lawyer has already said he will seek to pause any legal activity related to Trump based on an argument that a president should not face the burden of a criminal prosecution while in office.
Trump and some of his co-defendants have asked a Georgia appeals court to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the lead prosecutor, from the case over her alleged misconduct stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a former deputy.
If that effort fails, the case would be able to proceed against Meadows and the other co-defendants, Legal experts expect that the case against Trump would not proceed while he serves a second four-year term as president.
Meadows is a former Republican congressman who served as chief of staff during the last roughly 10 months of Trump's first term as president.
Prosecutors have accused him of arranging calls and meetings in which they have said Trump pressured election officials to change the vote count in his favor, including a call in which the then-president urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to deliver him the state.
Prosecutors have argued that those acts were not "necessary and proper" duties for a U.S. president and his chief of staff. Meadows has said they were part of his portfolio as Trump's top White House aide.