Meadows and Clark’s request to evade arrest in Georgia election case denied by judge.
Judge Denies Requests to Avoid Arrest in Fulton County
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones has denied the requests made by Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark to avoid arrest in Fulton County while their requests to move the case to federal court are pending.
Both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark have been named as defendants in an indictment against former President Donald Trump, the two former federal officials, and 16 others. They are charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for their actions in the former president’s challenge of the Georgia election results.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges that their actions constituted a “criminal racketeering enterprise” and has given the 19 defendants until noon on Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender or face arrest.
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Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark have filed motions for emergency relief, arguing that state criminal proceedings should not continue while they expect their case to be moved to federal court. However, Ms. Willis has responded in opposition, calling their arguments “baseless,” “meritless,” and ”improper.”
After reviewing the response, Judge Jones denied the emergency requests, emphasizing that no comment or ruling had been made on the requests to remove the case. The only thing denied at the time was the pause in proceedings, which would have allowed Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark to avoid arrest.
Mr. Clark has confirmed that he will be voluntarily surrendering before the deadline.
“The filing of a notice of removal of a criminal prosecution under Section 1455 ‘shall not prevent the State court in which such prosecution is pending from proceeding further,'” Judge Jones wrote in his order denying Mr. Meadows’s request, echoing Ms. Willis’s arguments.
The order on Mr. Clark’s request was a brief paragraph, but the order on Mr. Meadows’s request was six pages, citing a scheduled upcoming hearing as rationale.
The court had already ordered an evidentiary hearing with both parties on Aug. 28 regarding the notice of removal. Mr. Meadows’s lawyers pointed out that cases have been removed without such a hearing, but the judge did not find the precedents cited in the emergency motion to have similar agreements.
“Section 1455’s statutory language makes clear that an evidentiary hearing is to be conducted once a summary remand order has been entered,” Judge Jones wrote. “As Meadows’s arguments and cases cited to the contrary are not persuasive, the Court denies Meadows’s request for the Court to decide its jurisdiction over his criminal case before holding an evidentiary hearing.”
Legality
Ms. Willis had opposed the requests in a 13-page response, citing Section 1445, which outlines the process required for removals and does not prevent state proceedings from taking place while a removal request is pending, only a state conviction.
Both defendants, along with defendant David Shafer, who served as an alternate elector in Georgia after the 2020 election, had argued they were acting as federal officers and thus immune to state prosecution under the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding,” the Constitution reads. This has generally been taken to mean that federal laws take precedence over state laws, and federal officers are therefore not bound by state laws and courts.
Mr. Meadows, as former chief of staff to President Trump, was a high-ranking federal official. Mr. Clark, who served as assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division and later acting head of the Civil Division in the DOJ under President Trump, is likewise a high-ranking official, whose charges include issuing a DOJ statement. Mr. Shafer, as an alternate elector whose role was created by Congress’s Electoral Count Act, argued that Congress has jurisdiction over his actions, not a state court, and that at the very least he was acting “under color of a federal official,” which also allows him the same immunity.
The defendants have further argued First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment defenses.
Bond Agreements
More than a dozen defendants have already set bo
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