A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected former Trump administration chief of staff Mark Meadows‘s request for it to weigh his effort to move his state criminal charges in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case to federal court.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit declined to hear Meadows’s bid, which marks another blow to his efforts to have his case tried in federal court. Meadows has pushed to move his charges to federal court on the grounds that he was acting in his official capacity as chief of staff when the allegedly illegal actions took place. If Meadows doesn’t appeal, it means he will face racketeering charges brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in state court.
“The petition for rehearing en banc is denied, no judge in regular active service on the court having requested that the court be polled on rehearing en banc,” the unsigned, one-page order said.
Whether Meadows will seek to appeal the rejection to the Supreme Court is unclear. The Washington Examiner contacted attorneys for Meadows.
Meadows was indicted alongside former President Donald Trump and other defendants last year over their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, including a charge for his role in facilitating Trump’s phone call to the Georgia secretary of state in January 2021, during which Trump asked the secretary of state to “find” a specific number of votes needed to offset his defeat.
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The former White House chief of staff filed to transfer the case to federal court in hopes of dismissing the charges on federal immunity grounds but had the request rejected by a U.S. district court. Meadows then appealed to the 11th Circuit, where a three-judge panel later ruled against him just three days after hearing oral arguments in the case.
“Federal-officer removal under section 1442(a)(1) 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’ official duties,” 11th Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor wrote in December.
