At a federal hearing on Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began revealing the details of the case against Donald Trump, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and 17 other co-defendants.
The hearing focused on Meadows’ petition to transfer his case to federal court and for the case to be thrown out, according to CNN. Meadows is claiming that the actions for which he is being prosecuted were performed as part of his position as Chief of Staff, therefore making him immune to prosecution.
“If Mr. Meadows had absented himself from Oval Office meetings or refused to arrange meetings or calls between the President and governmental leaders, that would have affected his ability to provide the close and confidential advice that a Chief of Staff is supposed to provide,” wrote Meadows’ lawyers in a court filing, according to CNN.
This trial is significant as it is the first time details have been released regarding the alleged racketeering conspiracy in Georgia in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Similarly, the federal hearing offered a glimpse of the alleged evidence prosecutors have against Trump and the 18 other co-defendants.
The District Attorney’s Office claimed in a court filing that Meadows had violated the Hatch Act by arranging and joining a phone call in which then-President Donald Trump allegedly urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes that would sway the state’s results, as reported by NBC News.
Prosecutors noted that “Federal law prohibits employees of the executive branch from engaging in political activity in the course of their work,” per NBC.
“An evaluation of the actions named in the indictment makes clear that all of them were intended to ‘interfere with or affect’ the presidential election in Georgia and elsewhere in order to somehow transform Mr. Trump from an unsuccessful candidate into a successful one,” stated the District Attorney’s Office in another filing, per CNN.
During Monday’s hearing, Meadows acknowledged that the Hatch Act is relevant in this case but added that “there are some differences of opinion on how it should apply,” according to ABC News.
Following a nearly four-hour-long testimony from Meadows, Raffensperger testified about the pressure from Trump to reverse the election results, saying that “outreach to that extent was extraordinary,” per ABC.
One of the final questions prosecutors asked Raffensperger was, “Did Trump win?”
“No, he did not,” responded Raffensperger, per ABC. “He lost the election in the state of Georgia.”
Following the hearing, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones did not rule whether the case should be moved to a federal court, but he said he would make a ruling as quickly as possible.
If Jones agrees that the case should move to federal court, it does not necessarily mean he will agree that the charges should be dismissed entirely.
