OAN’s Daniel Baldwin
8:43 AM – Wednesday, September 13, 2023
A federal judge denied former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ request for an emergency stay on the decision to send his case back to state court.
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U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones, who declined to move Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO case to federal jurisdiction last week, ruled against Meadows’ request to pause his order pending an appeal from the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
But Jones ruled that Meadows “has not shown he is entitled to an emergency stay.”
Meadows is currently appealing the decision to deny moving his case out of state court. Jones, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, argued that Meadows’ actions fell outside the scope of his role as chief of staff when organizing the Jan. 2nd, 2021 phone call between former President Donald Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger.
“Meadows’s participation on the January 2, 2021 call was political in nature and involved the President’s private litigation, neither of which are related to the scope of the Office of White House Chief of Staff,” Jones wrote. “The Court finds that these contributions to the phone call with Secretary Raffensperger went beyond those activities that are within the official role of White House Chief of Staff, such as scheduling the President’s phone calls, observing meetings, and attempting to wrap up meetings in order to keep the President on schedule.”
When appealing this decision, Meadows’ attorneys wrote that Jones “egregiously erred” in his ruling to deny the former chief of staff’s request to move the case to federal court. The appeals court has yet to respond to Meadows’ request.
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