Politics
On Mark Meadows’ removal bids, the Supreme Court may have the last word
Mark Meadows lost his latest attempt to move his state criminal charges to federal court. If that sounds familiar, it may be because the former Trump White House chief of staff previously lost that battle at multiple levels of the court system in his Georgia case.
This latest loss came in the more recently charged Arizona casewhich is also related to alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election. Meadows has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Still, when it comes to the broader question of Meadows’ quest to have his state charges proceed in federal court, the Supreme Court may have the last word. In fact, after failing thus far at the trial and intermediate appellate levels in his Georgia attempt, Meadows has a petition pending with the justices. A response from Fulton County prosecutors is due at the end of the month, after which Meadows can file a final reply brief before the justices consider whether to take up his appeal.
Still, when it comes to the broader question of Meadows’ quest to have his state charges proceed in federal court, the Supreme Court may have the last word.
If the high court does so, that could also have implications for Meadows’ Arizona removal bid, which was rejected by a federal trial court Monday. The charged conduct against Meadows in Arizona is unrelated to his official duties as White House chief of staff, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi wrote in rejecting Meadows’ claim. “Therefore, because the Court concludes that the conduct charged in the State’s prosecution does not relate to Mr. Meadows’s color of former office, the Court must remand this case to state court,” Tuchi wrote.
Arizona falls under a different federal appeals court than Georgia. So if Meadows appeals the Arizona denial, it’s possible that the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could reach a different result than the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit. But if the Supreme Court takes up Meadows’ appeal in the Georgia case, then that could set a national standard applying to both cases — and to the law of removal generally.
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Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore the government-run Voice of America’s operations after it had effectively been shut down a year ago, putting hundreds of employees who have been on administrative leave back to work.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth gave the U.S. Agency for Global Media a week to put together a plan for putting Voice of America on the air. It has been operating with a skeleton staff since President Donald Trump issued an executive order to shut it down.
A week ago, Lamberth said Kari Lake, who had been Trump’s choice to lead the agency, did not have the legal authority to do what she had done at Voice of America. In Tuesday’s decision, Lamberth ruled on the actions she had taken to respond to Trump’s order, essentially shelving 1,042 of VOA’s 1,147 employees.
“Defendants have provided nothing approaching a principled basis for their decision,” Lamberth wrote.
There was no immediate comment on the decision by the agency overseeing Voice of America. Lake had denounced Lamberth’s March 7 ruling, saying it would be appealed. Since then, Trump nominated Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, to run USAGM. That requires Senate approval, a step that was not taken with Lake.
Patsy Widakuswara, Voice of America’s White House bureau chief and a plaintiff in the lawsuit to restore it, said she is deeply grateful for the decision.
“We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year,” she said.
“We know the road to restoring VOA’s operations and reputation will be long and difficult,” she said. “We hope the American people will continue to support our mission to produce journalism, not propaganda.”
Voice of America has transmitted news coverage to countries around the world since its formation in World War II, often in countries with no tradition of a free press. Before Trump’s executive order, VOA had operated in 49 different languages, broadcasting to 362 million people.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore the government-run Voice of America’s operations after it had effectively been shut down a year ago, putting hundreds of employees who have been on administrative leave back to work.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth gave the U.S. Agency for Global Media a week to put together a plan for putting Voice of America on the air. It has been operating with a skeleton staff since President Donald Trump issued an executive order to shut it down.
A week ago, Lamberth said Kari Lake, who had been Trump’s choice to lead the agency, did not have the legal authority to do what she had done at Voice of America. In Tuesday’s decision, Lamberth ruled on the actions she had taken to respond to Trump’s order, essentially shelving 1,042 of VOA’s 1,147 employees.
“Defendants have provided nothing approaching a principled basis for their decision,” Lamberth wrote.
There was no immediate comment on the decision by the agency overseeing Voice of America. Lake had denounced Lamberth’s March 7 ruling, saying it would be appealed. Since then, Trump nominated Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, to run USAGM. That requires Senate approval, a step that was not taken with Lake.
Patsy Widakuswara, Voice of America’s White House bureau chief and a plaintiff in the lawsuit to restore it, said she is deeply grateful for the decision.
“We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year,” she said.
“We know the road to restoring VOA’s operations and reputation will be long and difficult,” she said. “We hope the American people will continue to support our mission to produce journalism, not propaganda.”
Voice of America has transmitted news coverage to countries around the world since its formation in World War II, often in countries with no tradition of a free press. Before Trump’s executive order, VOA had operated in 49 different languages, broadcasting to 362 million people.
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