Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former chief of staff and one of Trump's 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case, on Thursday dropped his stay request to pause his prosecution, the Hill reported.
The move comes after U.S. District Judge Steve Jones this week denied Meadows' prior request to move the case to federal court.
Meadows, charged with violating Georgia's racketeering law, or RICO, and soliciting the violation of oath by a public officer for his alleged actions in an effort to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results in Trump's favor, on Thursday also dropped his bid to move his charges to a federal court.
"The Court acknowledges that there is a public interest in protecting federal officers from state interference under the Supremacy Clause," Steve Jones said in a filing published Wednesday. "The Court, however, has already determined that Meadows failed to show he is entitled to federal removal under the federal officer statute because he was not acting in the scope of his federal office at the time of the acts alleged."
Meadows is one of five defendants in the Georgia 2020 election case attempting to move their trials to federal court, which would allow them to try to assert immunity and get the charges dismissed.
"The State's prosecution of Mr. Meadows threatens the important federal interest in providing the President of the United States with close, confidential advice and assistance, firmly entrenched in federal law for nearly 100 years," attorneys Joseph Englert, George Terwilliger, John Moran, and Michael Francisco argued in late August.
If such a prosecution move forward, it would give "rise to precisely the sort of state interference in federal affairs the Supremacy Clause [of the U.S. Constitution] prohibits," they added.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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