Judge rejects former Trump aide Mark Meadows’ bid to move Arizona election case to federal court

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has rejected former Donald Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, marking the second time he has failed in trying to get his charges moved out of state court.

In a decision Monday, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed a deadline for asking for his charges to be moved to federal court and failed to show that the allegations against him related to his official duties as chief of staff to the president.

Meadows, who faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what state authorities alleged was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, had unsuccessfully tried to move state charges to federal court last year in the Georgia case.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded not guilty to charges in Arizona and Georgia.

In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

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The decision sends Meadows’ case back down to Maricopa County Superior Court.

In both Arizona and Georgia, Meadows argued his state charges should be moved to U.S. district court because his actions were taken when he was a federal official working as Trump’s chief of staff and that he has immunity under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law trumps state law.

Prosecutors in Arizona said Meadows’ electioneering efforts weren’t part of his official duties at the White House.

Last year, Meadows tried to get his Georgia charges moved to federal court, but his request was rejected by a judge, whose ruling was later affirmed by an appeals court. The former chief of staff has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.

The Arizona indictment says Meadows confided to a White House staff member in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election. Prosecutors say Meadows also had arranged meetings and calls with state officials to discuss the fake elector conspiracy.

Meadows and other defendants are seeking a dismissal of the Arizona case.

Meadows’ attorneys said nothing their client is alleged to have done in Arizona was criminal. They said the indictment consists of allegations that he received messages from people trying to get ideas in front of Trump — or “seeking to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts by the president’s campaign.”

In all, 18 Republicans were charged in late April in Arizona’s fake electors case. The defendants include 11 Republicans who had submitted a document falsely claiming Trump had won Arizona, another Trump aide and five lawyers connected to the former president.

In early August, Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

Meadows and the other remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the forgery, fraud and conspiracy charges in Arizona.

Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.

Eleven people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors had met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state in the 2020 election.

A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.