Mark Meadows Is 'Toast', Legal Analyst Says

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, was met with skepticism by a panel of judges on Friday as his lawyers argued to move his Georgia election interference case to federal court, with one legal analyst saying he's "toast."

Meadows is charged alongside former President Trump and 17 other co-defendants for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. The former chief of staff is seeking to move his case from state to federal court, saying that his duties listed in the indictment brought by prosecutors in Fulton County fall within the scope of his duties to Trump. Meadows has maintained his innocence in the case.

Moving the case could potentially broaden Meadows' jury pool to a less Democratic-heavy area of Georgia and allow the charges to be overseen by a federal judge. Meadows' first attempt was blocked by a judge in September, sending his argument before a three-judge panel with the 11th Circuit Appeals Court.

On Friday, the appeals panel again raised questions about Meadows' argument, and legal analysts agreed that it was likely his request to move the case would be shot down once again.

"Meadows is toast," Anthony Kreis, a legal analyst and law professor at Georgia State University School of Law, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday. "[Chief Judge William] Pryor was very skeptical. Other judges too. Body language. Questions. It'll be a hard loss."

"The 3-judge panel made it pretty clear that their construction/interpretation of the federal removal statute is pretty much completely in line with the State of Georgia's position," echoed lawyer and political commentator Katie Phang on X. "I predict Meadows loses before this appellate court."

Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during the Obama administration and legal analyst, also posted on X that she predicts Meadows to lose his appeal argument.

"The statute means what it says," she added.

Newsweek reached out to Meadows' attorney via email for comment.

Meadows' argument was centered on a federal law that allows federal officers to remove civil actions or criminal prosecutions from state court if the alleged actions fall under the duty of their federal positions.

Pryor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, showed doubt that former federal officials could move their charges to federal court, adding that the law may be applied differently if it was a current officer.

"It might well be that Congress could rationally assume there's a heightened reason for removal where you're dealing with a current officer, because it involves ongoing operations of the federal government," Pryor said during the oral argument Friday. "But we ordinarily have a presumption of a separate sovereign of a state and its courts are equally faithful to the Constitution and the law, and can be trusted."

Judge Robin Rosenbaum, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, also questioned Meadows' lawyers on the boundaries of his duties to Trump, saying that it "just cannot be right" that all actions listed in the racketeering indictment truly fall under the job description of a chief of staff.

All three judges did offer some pushback against Georgia prosecutors' arguments on Friday, raising questions about the "chilling effect" that could occur on current federal officials by allowing state prosecutions of former federal employees. During his opening statements, George Terwilliger III, Meadows' attorney and former deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, said he would have done his job in federal office differently "if I knew the moment I stepped down, I could be charged in a state court."

Fulton County prosecutor Donald Wakeford said, however, that such a "chilling" effect would be a good thing to hold current federal officials to.

Kreis wrote Friday in a separate X post that the panel's concern about subjecting federal government officials to state prosecution after leaving office "was one place I thought Meadows could've scored points."

"The federal judiciary is more independent than most state trial court judges, which really does make the venue matter no matter how competent the judges or how much faith we place in prosecutorial discretion," he added.