WASHINGTON, DC – Mark Meadows’ prosecution in Georgia will continue in state court as the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Meadows’ petition for review on Tuesday, though the justices might be waiting for an opportunity to review President-elect Donald Trump’s prosecution in New York raising the same issue.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has degenerated to something of a cartoon character of incompetence and conflicts of interest as she wages lawfare against President Trump and others associated with him, shamelessly insisting that giving her unqualified boyfriend a lucrative contract to prosecute President Trump under absurd legal theories – a boyfriend who then spent some of that contract money on her for vacations – is not a conflict of interest, while bragging in courtroom proceedings that she likes to drink hard liquor (Grey Goose vodka) and that her critics are racist or misogynistic.
The Georgia trial judge in President Trump’s case rendered the eye-rolling decision that while it would be improper for both Willis and her boyfriend subordinate to remain on the case, and the evidence that she was weaponizing law enforcement resources against a political opponent, yet somehow it was okay for the very-conflicted district attorney to stay on the case as long as she cut her boyfriend loose. That head-scratcher is now pending on appeal in Georgia.
But in the midst of that, the former president’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, petitioned to remove his prosecution arising from the same facts from heavily-Democrat Fulton County court to federal court, specifically the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
When a federal employee is prosecuted in state court for facts that intersect his federal role, federal law at 28 U.S.C. § 1442 allows that employee to transfer his case to a federal trial court, where the county prosecutor is still his opponent, but a federal judge presides over the case, applying federal rules and procedures with a federal jury.
Meadows tried to remove his case, but an Obama-appointed federal judge rejected the removal and ordered the case returned to state court in Fulton County. Meadows appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, but that court adhered to a prior precedent that held Section 1442 removals can only be claimed by current federal employees, so Meadows cannot take his case to federal court even though the facts in question occurred when Meadows was serving in the White House under President Trump.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the matter, citing a slew of legal authorities showing the Eleventh Circuit precedent was incorrect. In a surprising move, the court declined to take the case, though the order does not specify how many justices – if any – voted to take the case. Therefore the Meadows prosecution will continue to play out in the Georgia court system.
It is possible that the justices are waiting to see how Section 1442 arguments play out in another case: District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump in Manhattan.
Bragg is pushing ridiculous theories in what is widely acknowledged a politically motivated prosecution. He has gotten away with his abusive antics thus far because the trial judge in the case, Justice Juan Merchan, has allowed a host of constitutional violations to go unaddressed.
The prosecution of President Trump was unconstitutional from the outset, as Bragg’s indictment violated the Sixth Amendment by alleging that President Trump falsified business records while committing a second crime, but did not specify what that crime is. Merchan’s presiding over the case also violates the Due Process Clause of the Constitution because Merchan donated money to President Trump’s political opponents, which is evidence of bias against the defendant. Merchan’s instructions to the jury said that this second crime could actually be one of several crimes, and said that the jury need not agree on which crime it actually was, violating the Sixth Amendment requirement for jury verdicts to be unanimous in felony prosecutions.
On top of all of those violations of President Trump’s rights, Bragg essentially argues the root of the crime is a violation of federal campaign finance law, which would be yet another constitutional violation, because Bragg would be interpreting federal law differently than the federal government interprets federal law, which violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
President Trump’s lawyers in New York – Todd Blanche and Emil Bove – are attempting to remove the president’s case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asserting presidential immunity under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. United States. That removal attempt is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and from there could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The national interest in the prosecution of the former (and future) president is far greater than the national interest in Meadows, who like many others was being prosecuted only because he was associated with President Trump in what many call a politically motivated witch hunt. That, coupled with the manifest weakness of Willis’ Georgia case and the clear indications that her cases are coming off the rails, could explain the Supreme Court’s declining to take Meadows’ case at this time.
The case is Meadows v. Georgia, No. 24-97 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski is a lawyer who served in the White House and Justice Department. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @kenklukowski.