A judge has denied a request from Mark Meadows, who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, to move the Arizona election-subversion-related prosecution against him from state court to federal court.
The ruling Monday by U.S. District Court judge John J. Tuchi in the district of Arizona is a further setback for Meadows, who unsuccessfully tried the same legal maneuver a year ago in a separate election interference case in Georgia.
Meadows has pleaded not guilty to nine felonies related to his alleged role in trying to subvert Joe Biden’s win in Arizona after the 2020 presidential election. He is one of 18 defendants indicted in April by a state grand jury, which determined that the defendants engaged in crimes including conspiracy, forgery and fraud when they tried to deliver the state’s 11 electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden.
In Monday’s ruling, the Arizona court found that Meadows had failed to “demonstrate that the conduct charged in the state’s prosecution relates to his former color of office as Chief of Staff to the President.”
“Although the Court credits Mr. Meadows’s theory that the Chief of Staff is responsible for acting as the President’s gatekeeper, that conclusion does not create a causal nexus between Mr. Meadows’s official authority and the charged conduct,” the court concluded.
Meadows’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
In both the Georgia and Arizona cases, Meadows had hoped a move to the federal court could lead to a quick dismissal of the case against him on the basis that as a federal officer he was immune from prosecution for acts taken in the course of his normal work.
“Mr. Meadows has the right to remove this matter because he has a federal defense of Supremacy Clause immunity to the State charge and Congress has provided that federal courts are the appropriate forum to adjudicate such issues,” his attorneys said in a July 26 motion. “The conduct giving rise to the charges in the indictment all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as White House Chief of Staff.”
In the Georgia case, Meadows has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court ruling that rejected claims that his alleged conduct was tied to his official federal duties.
Sanchez reported from Phoenix.