Taking the stand on his own behalf in Georgia, former Trump administration White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows answered questions for hours in a pre-trial attempt by his lawyers to get his trial removed to federal court from state court.
Meadows, named a co-conspirator in the sprawling election meddling case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, claims that his actions as contemplated in the Georgia indictment were executed as part of his duties as Chief of Staff and therefore should be scrutinized — if at all — in a federal court.
Much of Meadows’s testimony reportedly focused on defining the scope of Meadows’s official duties, and on how his actions on behalf of Trump’s post-election goals either fit or exceeded the reasonable parameters of his role as Chief of Staff. Meadows and his lawyer, George Terwilliger, sought to portray this role as so wide-ranging as to include almost anything the President might request.
The role of Chief of Staff is so broad, according to Meadows’s argument, that Terwilliger had to reach for a violent, potentially homicidal example of an act that would fall outside its auspices: “If he shot a demonstrator in Lafayette Park, that would obviously be outside the scope of his duties,” Terwilliger reportedly said. (The reference may be to the clearing of protestors in Lafayette Park with tear gas for a Trump visit there as POTUS.)
Meadows had been, until his Georgia pre-trial testimony, a voice largely unheard amidst the pileup of Trump’s legal troubles, despite his close proximity to the former President during the post-election period at issue in the election meddling cases brought by both Special Counsel Jack Smith and Willis.
As the New York Times reported: “While Mr. Meadows’s strategy of targeted assistance to federal prosecutors and sphinxlike public silence largely kept him out of the 45-page election interference indictment that Mr. Smith filed against Mr. Trump in Washington, it did not help him avoid similar charges in Fulton County, Ga.”
It wasn’t immediately clear that Meadows’s pre-trial testimony before U.S. District Judge Steve Jones helped him in his efforts to get the case moved out of state court. Jones said he would take his time with a decision. (For those looking at possible politics at play in any decision, it may be notable that the Georgia native Jones is an Obama appointee who was confirmed by the Senate 90-0.)
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