Mark Meadows wants to move charges in Arizona’s fake electors case to federal court

PHOENIX (AP) — Former Donald Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows wants to move his charges in Arizona’s fake electors case to federal court, just as he unsuccessfully tried to do last year in an election subversion case in Georgia.

In a court filing made available on Wednesday, attorneys representing Meadows in Arizona asked a federal judge to move the case to U.S. District Court, arguing Meadows’ actions were taken when he was a federal official working as Trump’s chief of staff. They also said they would later seek a dismissal of the charges in federal court.

U.S. District Judge John Tuchi, who was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, has scheduled a Sept. 5 hearing to consider Meadows’ request.

Meadows 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. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

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.

The Arizona indictment also says Meadows confided to a White House staff member in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election.

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 decision.

In their filing, 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 President Trump or seeking to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts by the president’s campaign.”

Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office, which filed the charges in state court, declined Thursday to comment on Meadows’ request.

Mel McDonald, a former county judge in metro Phoenix who also served as the U.S. Attorney for Arizona during President Ronald Reagan’s first term, said Meadows has a better chance than any of the defendants in the Arizona case in moving their case to federal court because the allegations center on a federal election and because of Meadows’ work as a federal official.

“It does have some federal fingerprints on it,” McDonald said.

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, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and four other lawyers connected to the former president.

Earlier this month, former Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with 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.

A court filing last week by the Arizona attorney general’s office revealed that the grand jury that filed the case wanted to consider charging the former president but a prosecutor urged against doing that.

The prosecutor had cited a U.S. Justice Department policy that limits the prosecution of someone for the same crime twice and didn’t know whether authorities had all the evidence needed to charge Trump at that time.

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.