Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Jeffrey Clark was acting “squarely” within his federal authority when he drafted and advocated for the Department of Justice to send a letter to the Georgia legislature concerning the 2020 election, according to former Attorney General Edwin Meese. Additionally, “the prosecution of the President and an AAG” represents “a major affront to federal supremacy never before seen in the history of our country,” Meese further opined in the 19-page affidavit he filed in a federal court on Saturday in support of Clark’s efforts to remove the Fulton County indictment to federal court.
Meese’s affidavit adds gravitas to Clark’s already-strong argument for removal of the criminal case to a federal court, a question federal Judge Steve Jones will consider during a hearing Monday morning.
A little over a month ago, a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, returned a sprawling indictment against 19 defendants, including former President Donald Trump. That indictment charged the defendants with various supposed crimes related to “alleged postelection interference with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.”
Soon after Fulton County’s get-Trump prosecutor Fani Willis announced the charges, Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Clark, and three alternate presidential electors for Trump sought to “remove” the criminal case from the state court to a federal district court.
While federal courts in nearly all circumstances lack “jurisdiction” or the power to hear a case involving the state’s prosecution of an alleged violation of the state’s criminal code, the “federal officer removal statute” provides an
