Dem
51
GOP
49
This was entirely expected, since the underlying argument was so weak, but now it is official: Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will be tried in Georgia for trying to interfere with the Georgia election results, as opposed to being allowed to remove his case to federal court. It took just three days from oral arguments to final decision, which tells you how shaky his case was.
There were two problems that Meadows could not overcome. The first is that the right of removal is apropos only in cases where a federal official is acting in their official capacity. Clearly, trying to overturn elections in Georgia is not part of the official duties of a White House Chief of Staff. So, Meadows lost big here.
The second problem is that the right of removal is typically only extended to people who are still in office. Meadows, obviously, is not. He also lost on this point, although the judges were considerably more reluctant. That is to say, the law is the law, but the justices think the law is flawed. To be more precise, the two Democratic appointee judges who helped decide the case wrote a concurring decision in which they implored Congress to change the rules, because the current setup raises the possibility of politically motivated state courts (or state officials) dragging their feet until a federal officeholder is out of office, and only THEN prosecuting them, thus depriving the officeholder of protections that might be entirely appropriate. For example, imagine a Black tax collector for the Port of New Orleans who ends his term on Jan. 3, 1913, and then is charged by the state of Louisiana with crimes conducted while in office on Jan. 4, 1913.
Still, the main issue is that Meadows was not "doing his job" when he mucked around in the Georgia elections, and so it's entirely just that he'll be tried in Georgia, by an Atlanta jury. Good luck, Mark. (Z)