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The Excerpt

Mark Meadows testifies Georgia election call 'part of my role' under Trump

The Excerpt

USA TODAY

News, Daily News

4.11.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen explains why former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows argues his Georgia charges should be moved to federal court.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is five things you need to know Tuesday, the 29th of August, 2023.

0:20.0

Today, Mark Meadows and his push to move charges from Georgia to federal court.

0:25.0

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former White House Chief of Staff, testified yesterday as he continues his push to move his criminal racketeering charges from court in Georgia to federal court.

0:53.0

I spoke with USA Today Justice Department correspondent Bart Janssen for more.

0:58.0

Bart, thanks for hopping on. Thanks for having me. Trump's former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows is a prominent co-defendant in this Georgia case.

1:06.0

Bart, as a refresher, what's the indictment actually say about him and what he's been charged with?

1:12.0

The indictment's pretty narrow dealing with Mark Meadows as a high profile figure as he was in the Trump White House.

1:19.0

He was the chief of staff, so he calls himself sort of a traffic cop of what issues get to Trump, what meetings are scheduled, how long they last, all that sort of stuff.

1:30.0

Well, one of the things that he arranged was the January 2nd, 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger.

1:41.0

And this was the call where Trump asked Raffensberger to find him 11,780 votes, which was how many he needed to win the state.

1:52.0

So that has been taken to be an invitation to election fraud. And we're going to have to see how the criminal case plays out.

2:00.0

But Meadows arranged the call and he led off the call. He participated in the call.

2:07.0

So he was charged in the overall indictment with part of the racketeering, part of being this overarching criminal organization.

2:16.0

But the only specific charge against him is solicitation of a public official to violate his oath of office.

2:24.0

And that's a reference to the call, basically asking Raffensberger to betray his office.

2:30.0

And a hearing was held yesterday surrounding Meadows. What did that hearing center on, Bart?

2:36.0

Well, Meadows is asking to move his charges from Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta, Georgia to federal court in Georgia.

2:48.0

And if he were to get to federal court, he's also asking the federal court to dismiss the charges because under both the moving the case and in considering the case at the federal level, Meadows is arguing that he was just carrying out his duties of office.

3:05.0

And that there is a provision in the Constitution called the Supremacy Clause. And there is federal law saying basically barring or hindering states from charging federal officials so that state level people can't interfere with the federal government unnecessarily.

3:23.0

It stems from a civil war era law to not have states basically still trying to retaliate against federal officials applying federal policy.

3:34.0

But so in this case, Mark Meadows is saying, I was chief of staff. I'm performing the duties that Trump is assigning me.

3:42.0

Their wide-ranging duties might sound odd to have, you know, lining up a call with a state secretary of state as part of your White House duties.

...

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