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A federal judge on Wednesday responded to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow’s request to have his arrest in Georgia delayed.
Meadows’ legal team filed a request to extend the Aug. 25 deadline imposed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, as did lawyers for Jeffrey Clark, another Trump administration official. But in a pair of six-page rulings, Atlanta-based U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones denied their requests, according to Politico.
“Meadows and Clark had both pleaded with Jones to prohibit District Attorney Fani Willis from arresting them by a Friday deadline for the 19 defendants to turn themselves in. Both men say their cases should be handled — and ultimately dismissed — by federal courts because of their work for the Trump administration,” the outlet reported.
Jones, an Obama appointed, concurred with Willis’ argument regarding the legal framework governing the transfer of state criminal cases to federal court, which he said emphasizes that state court proceedings are explicitly allowed to proceed while a federal judge assesses the appropriateness of moving the case into the federal system, Politico noted.
“Until the federal court assumes jurisdiction over a state criminal case, the state court retains jurisdiction over the prosecution, and the proceedings continue,” Jones wrote.
“The clear statutory language for removing a criminal prosecution … does not support an injunction or temporary stay prohibiting District Attorney Willis’s enforcement or execution of the arrest warrant against Meadows,” Jones added in his decision to refuse Meadows’ request.
The judge pointed out that the pertinent section of federal law can lead to situations where defendants are not only apprehended but, at times, even brought to trial while petitions to transfer their cases to federal court are still under consideration.
“The Court’s research has found that [the statute] has been followed even in cases where a criminal defendant, who had filed a notice of removal in federal court, was required to proceed to trial in the state court,” Jones noted.
Less than two hours prior to Jones’ decisions, Willis filed documents with the court vehemently opposing the efforts of Meadows and Clark to issue an immediate stay. She argued that there is no valid foundation for a federal court to interrupt state proceedings solely due to the urgent petitions for the transfer of cases initiated by two of the defendants.
“Federal courts have repeatedly denied requests to interfere in state criminal prosecutions,” Willis’ team argued in a 13-page response to the filing by Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff for the then-president’s final nine months in office. “Generally, only in cases of proven harassment or prosecutions taken in bad faith without hope of obtaining a valid conviction is federal intervention against pending state prosecutions appropriate.”
Her team also argued that even Trump himself “voluntarily agreed to surrender himself to state authorities, while other defendants have already surrendered.”
One of them was former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer.
Giuliani spoke to reporters in New York City as he prepared to take a flight south.
“I am fighting for justice. I have been from the first moment I represented Donald Trump, and as a man who has now been proven innocent several times,” he said.
“I don’t know how many times he has to be proven innocent, and they have to be proven to be liars. Actually, enemies of our republic, we are destroying rights, sacred rights,” the former federal prosecutor said.
“They are destroying my right to counsel, my right to be a lawyer. They’re destroying his right to counsel. It’s not accidental they’ve indicted all the lawyers. Never heard of that before in America. All the lawyers indicted,” he said.
“Now, whether you dislike or like Donald Trump, let me give you a warning. They’re gonna come for you. When the political winds shift, as they always do, let us pray that Republicans are more honest, more trustworthy, and more American than these people in charge of this government,” he added.
