Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark requested Thursday a full panel of appellate judges in Atlanta take up his case at the same time as the former Trump White House chief of staff
Jeffrey Clark, a former senior Justice Department official charged alongside Donald Trump with election racketeering in Georgia, proposed a new twist on Thursday night in his ongoing push to get his portion of the Fulton County district attorney's felony criminal case moved over to federal court.
In a 69-page filing, Clark requested a full panel of judges on the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta take up his arguments to change jurisdictions at the same time they consider former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' parallel ask.
Both Clark and Meadows to this point have had no success in convincing lower court judges — or in Meadows' case also a three-judge 11th Circuit panel — that they can't be charged in state court for crimes that allegedly occurred in their capacity as federal officers.
"Mr. Clark’s case for removal of the criminal case against him is even strongerthan that of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows," attorneys Harry MacDougal and Catherine Bernard wrote on behalf of Clark. They added that their client "was involved only in quintessential federal government functions—giving legal advice and debating that advice inside the walls of DOJ and the White House."
Clark, 56, is seen as a possible second term Trump attorney general pick despite the criminal charges and a upcoming disciplinary hearings where he could lose his law license from the D.C. Bar. He has pleaded not guilty to two state felony charges in Georgia, described by District Attorney Fani Willis' indictment for helping Trump pursue a plan that would keep the president in the White House for another term based on election fraud grounds that Clark falsely claimed the Justice Department had observed in 2020.
Special Counsel Jack Smith also listed Clark as an unnamed and unindicted co-conspirator in the federal election-obstruction case against Trump in Washington, D.C., which is scheduled to begin March 4 but remains in limbo pending the outcome of the former president's bid to get the entire indictment tossed on grounds he had presidential immunity from criminal charges.
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In Georgia, a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit, including two Trump appointees, already ruled in December against Clark's motion to stay his portion of the Fulton County criminal case until it takes up his appeal. In that decision, the judges mentioned that Clark "cannot show any chance of success on the merits."
Thursday's filing from Clark proposes piggybacking onto Meadows ongoing legal battle to similarly get his case bounced to federal court rather than stand trial in Fulton County Superior Court alongside Trump and the remaining co-defendants.
Meadows lost in December before the 11th Circuit in a unanimous 3-0 ruling, and he asked in January for a new hearing in front of a full slate of a dozen federal judges.Clark on Thursday also gave the 11th Circuit a second option of taking up his case through an ordinary three-judge panel, which he noted would allow the court to consider issues "not present" in the former White House chief of staff's legal fight.
In his brief, Clark's lawyers took issue with the 11th Circuit's December opinion against Meadows, which for the first time weighed in on whether the statute for removing cases from state court also applied to former federal officers.
"This ruling upends the entire history of federal removal doctrine and practice and represents a shock to the system of federal officer removal," Clark's lawyers wrote. "We submit that the main reason run-of-the-mill federal officer removal precedent is being fundamentally rethought in this Circuit at this time is because President Trump and the controversies surrounding him are seen as a brooding omnipresence."
Clark's lawyers added: "That approach is contrary to a neutral application of the law (which should be President-blind) and, if it is not reversed by this Court en banc, we are confident it will eventually be reversed by the Supreme Court."
The former DOJ official's appeal seeks to overturn U.S. District Judge Steve Jones' late September decision by arguing the charges deal with actions he took while working for the U.S. government and so can only be handled in federal courts.
Georgia's prosecutors have found success in court by arguing Clark was operating outside of his official duties when he tried to push the false claims of election fraud.
There's also a third battle over whether three other co-defendants in the Georgia case should be allowed to move their case to federal court. Like Meadows and Clark, the so-called Georgia "fake electors" David Shafer, Cathy Latham and Shawn Still have lost in lower court and now are trying with the 11th Circuit.
In their own joint brief filed earlier Thursday, the trio argued to the 11th Circuit that Judge Jones' ruling should be reversed because "the state’s criminal prosecution is facially and conclusively preempted by the U.S. Constitution and federal law."