Judge denies Trump ex-chief Meadows’ bid to avoid arrest in Georgia

A judge on Wednesday denied former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to quickly move the Georgia election interference case to federal court to be able to avoid arrest.

The order from Judge Steve Jones in U.S. District Court in Atlanta got here shortly after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis urged the judge to reject Meadows’ request.

Meadows, who served under former President Donald Trump, had a previously scheduled hearing for Monday morning on his request to maneuver the case out of state court. But Meadows’s attorney filed an “emergency motion” asking the judge to bypass that hearing and assume jurisdiction over Willis’ case ahead of a Friday deadline for his give up at a Fulton County jail.

The motion also proposed a second option: that the federal court could simply issue an order barring Willis from arresting Meadows prior to next week’s hearing.

The judge denied each proposals.

Meadows’ arguments and cases cited in his bid to skip next week’s hearing were “not persuasive,” Jones wrote in a six-page order. Jones also ruled that “there are strong countervailing reasons” not to dam the district attorney from enforcing the arrest warrant against Meadows.

In a court filing earlier Wednesday, Willis called Meadows’ requests “baseless” and “meritless.”

The previous White House chief of staff’s effort is actually “a plea to this Court to forestall the defendant from being arrested on the fees lawfully brought by the State of Georgia,” Willis wrote.

“Such a request is improper,” the DA said.

Meadows is certainly one of 19 co-defendants, including former President Donald Trump, ordered to give up by noon on Friday on charges stemming from Willis’ probe of efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in Georgia.

Quite a few defendants, including former Recent York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman, have already been booked and released.

Trump himself has said he’ll give up on Thursday.

Willis had previously refused to present Meadows an extension on his arrest deadline.

“I’m not granting any extensions. I gave 2 weeks for people to give up themselves to the court,” Willis wrote in an email Tuesday morning. “Your client is not any different than every other criminal defendant on this jurisdiction.”

Meadows is charged within the indictment with one count of racketeering and one count of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. The latter count is expounded to Meadows’ participation in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call through which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to undo Biden’s win within the state.

In her court filing Wednesday, Willis noted that Meadows “doesn’t allege that his prosecution is taken in bad faith, that there isn’t a hope of obtaining a sound conviction, or that it’s being taken to harass the defendant.”

“The defendant is solely requesting that this Court prevent him from being lawfully arrested as any criminal defendant could be after indictment on felony charges by a grand jury,” Willis wrote.

She said that his claim for various treatment attributable to his status as a former federal officer “is baseless.”

Meadows “has did not exhibit he has suffered irreparable harm warranting federal intervention in his case and has cited no authority authorizing this Court to forestall his lawful arrest,” she wrote.

Earlier Wednesday, Kenneth Chesebro, one other co-defendant within the Georgia case, filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court demanding a speedy trial.