A federal appeals court Monday denied Mark Meadows’ appeal to move his election interference case in Georgia to the federal court, a decision with significant implications for Donald Trump’s own Fulton County court fight. The former chief of staff to Trump sought to move the Fulton County, Georgia, indictment against him to federal court, citing a federal law known as a removal statute that allows an “officer of the United States” facing charges in state court to transfer the proceedings to federal court if the alleged behavior falls under their...

When Donald Trump was indicted in Georgia, the former president wasn’t alone: He was one of 18 people charged with participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Among those included in the indictment was former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who pleaded not guilty. But that wasn’t all he did. Meadows and his defense counsel have also tried to get the case against him moved to federal court. A lower court rejected the Republican’s argument, and as my MSNBC colleague Jordan...

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected an attempt by Mark Meadows to move an election interference case against him from Georgia to federal court, ruling that Meadows, Donald Trump’s one-time White House chief of staff, had not demonstrated that his alleged criminal conduct was related to his duties under the former president. The three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to uphold a lower court opinion from September. The panel wrote witheringly in its 47-page opinion, authored by a Bush-appointed conservative judge, that the federal...

A three-judge panel on Monday spurned Mark Meadows’ attempt to transfer his Fulton County, Georgia election subversion case to a federal court. The former White House chief of staff’s legal team contended that because the charges stem from his duties in the Trump administration, a federal court should adjudicate the charges against him. “Meadows cannot have it both ways. He cannot shelter behind his testimony about the breadth of his official responsibilities, while disclaiming his admissions that he understood electioneering activity to be out of bounds,” Chief Judge William Pryor...

ATLANTA — A federal appeals court on Monday unanimously rejected an effort by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move the Georgia election interference case against him from state to federal court. Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling from September that found Meadows had not proven his alleged conduct charged as part of the sweeping criminal racketeering case was related to his official duties as former president...

On Monday, a federal appeals court rejected Mark Meadows's bid to remove a state criminal case against him to federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th District ruled that the federal officer removal statute does not apply to former federal officers, and therefore no longer covers Mr. Meadows, but urged Congress to amend the text of the statute as this ruling as far-reaching ramifications. Mr. Meadows was chief of staff for former President Donald Trump, and both men and 17 others were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia,...

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Mark Meadows—former President Donald Trump’s one-time chief of staff—cannot move his Georgia charges to federal court, affirming a lower court’s September ruling. In the Monday ruling, Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that Meadows’ case must stay in Georgia as the federal-officer removal statute Meadows’ team argued applied actually does not apply to former officials and, even if it did, Pryor wrote the criminal action was “not related to Meadows’s [sic] official duty.” The ruling was unanimous and came just three days...

The 3-0 decision was authored by the court’s conservative chief judge, William Pryor. Had the agreed with Meadows and transferred the charges to federal court, it could have upended the case against Trump and all of the defendants, causing significant delays and even a potential ruling that the matter could be dismissed altogether because of its relationship to Trump’s authority as president. Instead, the panel ruled that a law permitting federal officials to transfer state-level charges into federal court applies only to current government officials, not former ones like Meadows....