Appearing to contradict former President Donald Trump’s primary public defense in the classified documents case, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any “standing order” from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
I think I’m a little confused, but let me try and work through it.
If someone from Florida (Florida Man) went to Wisconsin, and attempted to muddle in a Wisconsin election, that would be a crime in Wisconsin, and Florida Man would be charged in Wisconsin. A pardon for such a crime would need to come from the state of Wisconsin.
If Florida Man was a state of Florida employee, they would not have any grounds to have the Wisconsin case removed to federal court. If Florida Man was a federal employee in Florida, then whether they had grounds to have the case moved to federal court would depend on the actions they were charged with, and if those actions were in the course of their job as a federal employee. In either case, removed to federal court or not, the charges remain state charges, and any pardon or commutation would need to come from the state where the charges were filed.
Back to Meadows: Mark Meadows is still trying to play both sides, even now. He was certainly very careful about how far across the line he was dipping his toes when Trump was still in office. That’s why he can claim that while he was a federal employee (White House Chief of Staff), the actions he is being charged with (arranging meetings, making phone calls, etc.), were his actions as WHCoS, and gain the grounds to have his case removed to federal court.
It’s also important to remember that each defendant’s request to removed to federal is handled separately. Because of that, I would also expect that each trial would be separate, as opposed to trying all federally removed cases together. Since we’re talking about GA RICO charges, it becomes highly likely that if one defendant is convicted of GA RICO in federal court, others will go the same way.
Other defendants are not as lucky as Meadows. Guiliani is a perfect example. Even though he has previously made th overt claim that he was Trump’s personal attorney, and his actions were taken in that context (going to Ukraine to try and get them to charge Hunter Biden with … something?), now he’s trying to say that he wants his case removed to federal. He is not on any federal payroll, and he wasn’t when Trump was in office, either. Beyond that, the actions he is charged with wouldn’t be ones taken in the course of a federal position even if he’d had one. They were taken for the benefit of Trump personally, attempting to overturn an election for Trump.
Trump himself shouldn’t get his case removed to federal court, as the actions he is charged with are not ones which were taken in the course of his position as president. But we’re in all sorts of uncharted territory, so who knows how that will play out.
My edit above was because I realized that if a case is removed to federal, the federal judge gains the power to rule on the case, and dismissing a case is ruling on it.