Mark Meadows, the former Chief of Staff at the White House, is taking steps to dismiss criminal charges in Georgia related to his involvement in the efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election led by then-President Donald Trump. He argues that his actions should be protected from state prosecution because they were done as part of his role as a federal official.
In a document submitted to a U.S. district court in Georgia, which spans 37 pages, Meadows claims that the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution shields him from state prosecution for acts conducted within the reasonable boundaries of his federal duties. His legal team stated that his actions as Chief of Staff, including a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, were within his responsibilities.
Meadows’ defense also invokes the protection of the First and 14th Amendments of the Constitution. This legal move follows his recent attempt to shift the case from Georgia’s Fulton County to a federal court.
Last week, Meadows and former President Trump were among the individuals listed in a grand jury indictment that accused them of knowingly participating in a 41-count conspiracy to reverse the 2020 election outcome in Georgia, where Democrat Joe Biden emerged victorious. The indictment claims that Meadows played a role by making false statements about the election, conspiring with Trump to disrupt the certification of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and attempting to influence the pace of signature verification in Fulton County. The indictment also points to a phone call in which Trump urged Raffensperger to find additional votes to overturn his narrow loss; Raffensperger declined to comply.