Mark Meadows in a police booking mugshot released by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
Fulton County Sheriff’s Office | via Reuters
A federal judge on Friday rejected a request by Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his Georgia election conspiracy criminal case to federal court in Atlanta.
The decision means that Meadows’ case will remain in Fulton County Superior Court, a Georgia state court in Atlanta.
Meadows was indicted with Trump and 17 other co-defendants last month by a grand jury in that court on charges related to their efforts to reverse former President Donald Trump’s loss in Georgia’s 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Judge Steve Jones in a lengthy order in Atlanta federal court said that Meadows has not met his burden to show that moving his case there from Fulton County court was proper under a statute related to removing legal cases against federal officers from state courts.
Jones noted that just one of the eight allegedly overt criminal acts committed by Meadows, asking Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pennsylvania, for phone numbers for the leaders of Pennsylvania’s legislature on Trump’s behalf “could have occurred within the scope of Meadows’ federal office.”
“The actions at the heart of the State’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures,” Jones wrote.
“Meadows himself testified that working for the Trump campaign would be outside the scope of a White House Chief of Staff,” Jones added.
Trump’s lawyer on Thursday told a Fulton County judge in a filing that the former president might soon seek to have his own case transferred to federal court. Several other defendants in the case already have made such requests.
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