Willis opposing attempts by Meadows, Clark to block Georgia arrests

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) on Wednesday urged a judge to reject two of former President Trump’s co-defendants’ attempts to block their arrests.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark have both mounted efforts to prevent Willis from arresting them if they don’t voluntarily surrender by her Friday deadline.

Both men are seeking the pause as they attempt to move their charges from state court to federal court, with the hopes of asserting constitutional immunity and other defenses to get their counts dismissed. 

Willis charged Meadows, Clark, Trump and 16 others in state court last week over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

After the grand jury voted on the indictment, Meadows quickly filed a notice to move his charges to federal court. Clark followed days later along with another co-defendant, David Shafer.

Shafer has surrendered voluntarily, but both Clark and Meadows on Tuesday went a step further and asked a federal judge to prevent their arrests. 

Meadows has a Monday hearing scheduled for which court his case should proceed in. But Willis declined to extend her Friday surrender deadline for Meadows, indicating she planned to immediately issue an arrest warrant if he does not appear, court filings show.

To protect him from being arrested, Meadows asked the judge to immediately permit his case to move ahead in federal court without the hearing. Alternatively, he asked for an order preventing his arrest before he heads to court on Monday.

“Absent this Court’s intervention, Mr. Meadows will be denied the protection from arrest that federal law affords former federal officials, and this Court’s prompt but orderly consideration of removal will be frustrated,” Meadows’ attorney, John Moran, wrote in court filings.

Clark’s request is legally distinct from the one from Meadows, however. 

Meadows is attempting to move only the charges against him to federal court. Clark is trying to move to federal court the charges and the special purpose grand jury, which previously heard evidence in the probe and recommended charges. Those jurors, however, did not vote on the indictment.

Clark claims the special grand jury was technically a civil proceeding, not criminal. 

When a party lodges an attempt to move their civil case to federal court, the state proceedings are automatically paused. But if it is criminal, the state proceedings continue until the judge determines the case should move ahead in federal court.

Clark argues that means the state proceedings and arrests should have been automatically paused when he filed his move attempt. Alternatively, he asked the judge to block his arrest on the same legal grounds as Meadows.

“The [special purpose grand jury] Proceedings were used as an investigative tool and as a lead-in to the criminal charges and the two sets of proceedings are thus inextricably linked to one another,” Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougald, wrote in court filings.