'As successful as his tenure': Mark Meadows roasted after Fani Willis denies extension to self-surrender

22 August 2023

Legal experts are reacting to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' Tuesday smackdown of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' request for an extension to the August 25th noon self-surrender deadline.

Seventeen co-defendants were indicted along with Meadows and ex-President Donald Trump for their suspected Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act conspiracy to steal Georgia's sixteen Electoral College votes following Trump's landslide loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Meadows and his defense team maintain that his case should be tried in federal court because Meadows worked for the Executive Branch when the forty-one felonies that Willis alleges in her criminal complaint were committed. But Willis disagrees, writing to Meadows' attorney Mark Moran at 6:25 a.m.:

Good Morning Mr. Moran, I am not granting any extensions. I gave 2 weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy. At 12:30 p.m. on Friday I shall file warrants in the system. My team has availability to meet to discuss reasonable consent bonds Wednesday and Thursday.

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According to Politico's Kyle Cheney, "Meadows and [Jeffrey] Clark argue that the charges against them in Georgia were purely rooted in their Trump administration roles. Meadows arranged phone calls and meetings for Trump with officials in Georgia about the 2020 election results, and he visited Georgia after the election to review audit proceedings as they were underway."

Cheney continues, "Clark drafted a letter to the states that would have advised them to convene their legislatures to consider appointing alternate slates of presidential electors — part of an effort by Trump to deploy the Justice Department in service of his bid to stay in power. The letter, however, was never sent amid resistance from top Justice Department and White House attorneys."

Cheney further notes on X of Meadows' petition to the United States District Court of the Northern District of Georgia that "just like in Florida (and very *unlike* in DC, thankfully), Georgia federal district court intends to make it as difficult as possible to cover next week's crucial removal hearing on Meadows/Fani Willis charges."

Cheney is not the only person to comment on Meadows' mounting misfortunes.

The anti-Trump Lincoln Project: "Boom."

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin: "The email from Fani Willis to Mark Meadows' lawyer, as quoted in the motion he just filed to preclude his arrest this week, is fire."

Lawfare correspondent Anna Bower: "Willis said no."

Former Department of Veterans Affairs employee Allison Gill (Mueller, She Wrote): "Mark Meadows is arguing that he should get an extension to self-surrender because he's better and more important than most criminal defendants. I'm not kidding."

Former Republican Congressman David Jolly of Florida: "I believe today that Mark Meadows has sung like a canary already to Jack Smith."

Georgetown University School of Law professor and former US Solicitor General Neal Katyal: "Unfortunately for Mark Meadows' motion ', I haven't been able to find the federal law or constitutional provision that made interfering in a lawful election a part of his job in the White House. I think Mark Meadows' motion today will be about as successful as his tenure in the White House: that is to say, nothing good will come of it."

View Cheney's full report at this link.

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