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Excellent news. Of course they want want to move to Fed. Court, so they have the potential for presidential pardons. Fuck every one of these seditionist assholes.
State charges wouldn't be pardonable in Federal court, what it WOULD do is widen the jury pool outside Fulton County and block the TV cameras.
Getting jurors from outside Fulton county being the primary goal given how hard that county broke for Biden in 2020:
J. Biden Dem. - 73% - 380,212
D. Trump Rep. - 26% - 137,247
They wanted to move it to West Virginia to get a "more diverse jury pool" haha.
That's the Federal indictment brought by Jack Smith, not the State indictment brought by Fani Willis. Moving the Georgia case to Federal court would involve the Federal court district proximate to Fulton County, not relocation to a whole other state.
Also saying it was within his duties and having the judge agree would dismiss the case.
I think this was the strategy. “I was just following orders” aka ”I was just doing my job “
The first step would be getting the judge to buy the basic argument - and then try to use it to get off scott free.
Meadows incriminated himself for five hours on the stand. Getting cross examined under oath. What a collosal risk.
If he's got half a brain, he's calling Fani Willis this weekend and making a deal.
“The Court finds that the color of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff did not include working with or working for the Trump campaign, except for simply coordinating the President’s schedule, traveling with the President to his campaign events, and redirecting communications to the campaign,” Jones wrote. “Thus, consistent with his testimony and the federal statutes and regulations, engaging in political activities is exceeds the outer limits of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff.”
He also admits to violating the Hatch Act, under oath.
Re: Hatch Act violations:
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news-2664771297/
"“Not only that, but Meadows is saying ‘he would have yelled at me if I didn't do it.’ That alone is also a violation of the Hatch Act. It's not just that President Trump was involved in the false electoral scheme, but he's getting his chief of staff to do it. And the chief of staff knows if I don't do this he's gonna yell at me. That is a Hatch Act violation. One of the one of the only provisions of the Hatch Act that actually do apply to the president. You're not allowed to, as president, tell an employee or intimidate an employee into engaging in political activity on behalf of a candidate. What else is that?“"
Like the time trump held a campaign rally in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Actually, I'm wondering if Chesebro will beat him to it. It's pretty clear that Chesebro is desperate to avoid prison--first, the extremely quick request for a speedy trial, then his failed bid to avoid being linked with Powell. Whoever flips first will probably get the sweetest deal from Willis. It's obvious this decision will raise Meadows' stress level. As reluctant as Chesebro is to admit guilt, he's got to be worrying about what happens if someone else flips first, and given the number of co-defendants, it's pretty likely that at least some of them will try to.
I believe this is called “the prisoner’s delema”- and the beauty of it, is…. The judge doesn’t have to accept the plea bargain deal. They usually do… but they don’t.
Should have just let Trump yell at him.
edit:
"The DA's office countered that White House officials shouldn't be involved in political campaigns. “Federal law prohibits employees of the executive branch from engaging in political activity in the course of their work,” they noted, pointing to the Hatch Act, a law Meadows once told Politico “nobody outside of the Beltway really cares” about."
oof, I say oof, boy
For those wondering about the "I didn't want to get yelled at" defense, there's a good breakdown here:
What is the beltway?
It's the ring road that sounds Washington DC and it's inner suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. The designation is 495 of you are really curious about the road itself for some reason.
tehehe
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A judge on Friday denied former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' bid to move the Georgia criminal case against him to federal court, ruling that his alleged involvement in efforts to pressure state leaders to overturn the 2020 election results was not a part of his official duties as a government official.
State prosecutors, Jones said, had “put forth evidence that at various points during the time of the alleged conspiracy Meadows worked with the Trump campaign, which he admitted was outside of the role of the White House Chief of Staff."
The indictment in Fulton County alleges Trump, Meadows and the 17 others engaged in schemes aimed at subverting the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, a battleground state that was won by Joe Biden.
The conduct giving rise to the charges in the indictment all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as Chief of Staff,” Meadows’ lawyers wrote in a 14-page filing.
The law “bars a federal employee from ‘us[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election’” — exactly the conduct Meadows is charged with, prosecutors noted.
In his ruling, Jones agreed that "engaging in political activities exceeds the outer limits of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff.” He also declined to consider Meadows' immunity claim, since he found he was acting outside the scope of his duties.
The original article contains 722 words, the summary contains 241 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
He forgot to say “please”
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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