This isn’t going the way that Mark Meadows thought it would. After all, he left a safe GOP seat in the House to become Trump’s last Chief of Staff. Why a seasoned politician would want to take the last slot in the revolving door of Trump Chiefs of Staff is beyond me. But different strokes for different folks.
Meadows made a basic miscalculation. He confused his proximity to the President with Being the President. The job of the Chief of Staff is to control the flow of information and people getting access to the Oval Office, not to dictate policy for the President.
And now Mark Meadows finds himself in the crosshairs of Fulton County DA Fani Willis for his role in thing to use his authority to overturn the results of the Georgia presidential election. And she isn’t buying his I vas chust followink orders bullsh*t.
Meadows is terrified of Fulton County GA, and DA Fani Willis. Fulton County is well outside of his Washington DC sphere of influence, and DA Fani Willis is showing no signs of any deference to the DCA power structure.
So Meadows did what any silk boxers DC power player would do, and copped a mook. He filed a motion with the 11th Circuit Appellate Court in Georgia to have his case severed and moved to federal court, away from all of those other lowlifes. Simple problem, his motion sucked.
In his motion, Meadows claimed that he was a federal officer, dispatching his duties, and therefore entitled to protection under federal law. One small problem with that. Meadows wasn’t a federal officer, he was a federal appointee. The law was written for real federal law enforcement officers, DEA, FBI, ATF wo ran into trouble serving duly issued search and arrest warrants. Meadows had his motion shot down most riki-tik.
But here’s where the stupidity of both Meadows and his high process counsel look like morons. Meadows announced that he would file an appeal to the 11th Circuit Court. Announcing something doesn’t mean jack sh*t legally, you have to file it. Then Meadows went back before his original hearing judge, and asked him to issue a stay on his ruling to allow the appellate court time to rule.
Which is moronic on the face. The whole purpose of requesting a stay on a ruling is because you believe that your appeal has a better than 50-50 chance of succeeding. But the district judge was emphatic that Meadows had no valid claim. Why would he stay his own motion to give Meadows breathing room? The stay request should have been filed with the appellate court at the time they made the appeal. Which as far as I know, Meadows still hasn’t officially done.
Maybe because Meadows already knows that he’s in for cold comfort from the 11th Appellate Court. While being known as a conservative court, it took them less than two weeks to issue a scathing rebuttal to Traffic Court Judge Aileen Cannon in the case Trump filed asking for her to appoint a Special Master. Their rebuke to the Clown Judge was the sort seldom seen in judicial circles. Which may be the reason that Meadows’s lawyer hasn’t actually filed the official appeal yet. The 11th Circuit Court, as conservative as it is, has shown a very short attention span for cases promoting either obviously unconstitutional abortion laws, as well as GOP gerrymandering and other GOP chicanery. Meadows has no friends there. Nor does he in the Supreme Court, which won’t touch this with fire tongs.
Mark Meadows if going to go to trial in Georgia. And he’s going to go to trial with the best possible defense he has already shot down by a federal court, and possibly a federal appellate court. From where I’m sitting, the only real remaining question is, does Mark Meadows want to stare 20 years of hard time in a Georgia prison in the face, or does he want to roll on Traitor Tot? Just how stupid is he?
“Just how stupid is he?”
Well, he IS a Republican.
I know right? Just take a look at the ‘pubes in the H.O.R. to see just how stupid one can actually be.
His brief to remove his case to Federal court included comments on each of the items in the indictment.
How stupid?
The court’s response was: well Marky, ya’all didn’t have bring in each of these items since I can’t actually rule on whether or not you’re guilty on each of the ‘cuz that’s up to the jury, BUT SINCE YOU MENTIONED ‘EM (I spit my coffee when I read that line!!!), here’s why none of them support your brief to remove and why each of them clearly shows you were acting outside your CoS responsibilities. Oh, and while we’re at it, you testified that you’ve read the Hatch Act; well, ya’all violated that, too, per yer own testimony.
THAT stupid.
The comment by north of you paraphrasing the court’s response to Meadows’ petition brought to mind the scene in the Paul Newman movie “Absence Of Malice” where the mid-level management type played by Wilfred Brimley sweeps into the local DA’s office from DC to clean up the legal and political mess created by overzealous prosecutors and investigators overstepping bounds and skirting legal principles in manufacturing what turned out to be a bogus case against a one-time low-level hood, played by Newman.
Brimley’s character used the same folksy but terse delivery of take-downs of the various malfeasant participants that made the scene powerful, and I thought it the high point of the film.
Mark Meadows is the Sgt. Schultz of the GOP.
Looks like his silk boxers didn’t prevent zipper catching skin. “Smirk” (in the tradition of ‘Lil’ Blue Sock)