Trump's aide Mark Meadows decides to move Fulton County case to federal court

A close aide of former US president Donald Trump and ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is not taking the case of Georgia elections subversion by Fulton County to the higher court in order to seek dismissal, filings showed Tuesday. 

Mark Meadows served while Donald Trump was the US President. He is also among those who were criminally charged Monday alongside the former president in order to avert the loss of Georgia state to the incumbent President Joe Biden.

In the court filings he submitted in the US District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, he maintained that he is entitled to bring a federal immunity defense because the Georgia state charges against him stem from his conduct as then-President Donald Trump's chief of staff.

The probe by a 26-member jury commenced when a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on 2 January 2021 was leaked in which the former president asked the official to "find 11,870 votes".

The allies of the four-time indicted Trump were also named as witnesses of the occurrence by the jury including Rudy Giuliani, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

According to the indictment, the 77-year-old along with 18 others was "illegally conspiring and attempting to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise" as he lost Georgia.

The accusations include making false statements and soliciting state legislatures, and high-ranking state officials, fabricating and disseminating false electoral college documents, intimidating poll workers, soliciting Justice Department officials, soliciting Mike Pence when he was vice president, illegally tampering with election machinery, and obstructionist acts.

The indictment stated: "Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favour of Trump."

"That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states."

Along with the people charged, the indictment also named 30 other unindicted co-conspirators.

Meadows was quoted in a CNN report that he intends to submit at a later date a more comprehensive request laying out why the case against him should be dismissed under federal law. 

Meadows argued that the federal court should move the charges out of state court, and into federal court, effectively halting the state-level proceedings against him.

"Even if the Court is not prepared to dismiss outright at this early stage, however, justice requires granting removal and halting any further state-court proceedings against Meadows," the filing said. 

"That will allow for the timely consideration of Meadows's defenses, including his federal defense under the Supremacy Clause, without requiring him to defend himself in state court simultaneously," it stated.