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Jun 02, 2023

Mark Meadows stresses his tight working relationship with Trump during Georgia testimony 

Live Russia's war in Ukraine Live Trump 2020 election cases Live Tropical Storm Idalia By Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Isabelle D'Antonio and Elise Hammond, CNN From CNN's Jason Morris Former Trump White

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By Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Isabelle D'Antonio and Elise Hammond, CNN

From CNN's Jason Morris

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is fleshing out how his daily activities were all part of his role as chief of staff – a crucial point that his’ legal team is trying to argue to show his post-2020 election activities were part of his official duties.

Sometimes people would meet with him so he could “get in (Trump’s) ear and pass along their message,” Meadows added.

Meadows said that, at times, he was a principal player in the meetings, while other times he was more of an observer.

At the same time, Meadows testified that he had to allocate some of the president’s time to the campaign.

“There was a political component to certainly everything we did,” he said.

Meadows also described his daily workflow, saying, “You play offense and defense. And I found myself playing defense a whole lot.”

Jennifer Little, one of Trump’s attorneys in Georgia, was spotted in the overflow courtroom earlier, before Meadows took the stand. Trump is expected to file a similar motion as Meadows to move his case from state court into federal court.

From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Sara Murray and Dan Berman

Former President Donald Trump and the other 18 co-defendants will be arraigned in Fulton County on September 6 in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case, according to court filings.

Trump’s arraignment, where he will be expected to enter a non-guilty plea, will be held at 9:30 a.m. ET. Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani will be the second arraignment at 9:45 a.m. ET.

It’s not clear whether Trump or the co-defendants will appear in person for the arraignment. This court often allows arraignments via Zoom, or defendants can waive their arraignment appearances if the judge allows. It is also unclear at this point if cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.

Here's the full list of scheduled arraignment times (all times in ET):

From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand

Federal prosecutors have turned over almost all discovery – nearly 12.8 million pages – in the special counsel’s election subversion case against former President Donald Trump, prosecutors said in court Monday.

Those documents came in five large tranches, prosecutor Molly Gaston said, the most recent of which was given to Trump’s defense lawyers last night.

Of the millions of pages, 47,000 pages are considered “key” to the prosecution, Gaston said, describing those documents as a “road map” to how prosecutors will try the case.

The hearing is ongoing.

From CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Marshall Cohen

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is testifying at his hearing to move the state charges over 2020 election subversion efforts to federal court.

It’s highly unusual to have a defendant under oath at this stage of the proceeding.

Meadows said at Monday’s court hearing that part of his duties were meeting with state officials, which factors into his argument that his Georgia case should be moved to federal court.

“I don’t know if anyone was fully prepared for that type of job,” Meadows added.

Meadows is being questioned by his attorney, George Terwilliger.

Meadows is one of five of the 19 defendants who has sought to move their case to federal court. Harry MacDougald, a lawyer for former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, one of the defendants trying to move his case, was in the court’s overflow room.

Other lawyers with interest in the case are there to observe as well.

From CNN's Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz

A federal judge is rejecting trial dates proposed by both the Justice Department and Donald Trump in the election subversion case against the former president in Washington, DC, at a Monday morning hearing.

Prosecutors had requested that the trial begin in January, 2024, while Trump’s lawyers had asked for a date in April, 2026.

“These proposals are obviously very far apart,” said District Judge Tanya Chutkan from the bench Monday, and neither “are acceptable.”

Chutkan noted that setting a trial date would “not depend and should not depend on the defendants’ personal or professional obligations.”

The judge also noted that she was “aware that Mr. Trump faces charges in other state and federal criminal cases.”

Chutkan was clear she doesn't want to wait two years: "This case is not going to trial in 2026."

From CNN's Devan Cole

Disagreements between Donald Trump and special counsel Jack Smith over when the trial should start in the federal election subversion criminal case brought against the former president are at the center of a hearing underway Monday at the federal courthouse in Washington, DC.

In filings recently submitted by the two sides to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, a significant amount of daylight stood between them over when to begin the trial, with Smith proposing a January 2024 start date and Trump asking the judge to begin the trial years later, in April 2026.

Now, both sides will make their case to the judge in-person.

Smith’s team told Chutkan in a filing earlier this month that the trial should begin on January 2, 2024. They said their presentation of evidence in the trial would take “no longer than four to six weeks,” meaning that Trump may need to spend his weekdays in court before a jury in the crucial first two months of a presidential election year, as primary voting begins for Republicans.

Attorneys for the former president forcefully pushed back shortly thereafter, urging the judge to reject Smith’s proposal and saying the prosecutor sought an unusually “rapid” trial schedule.

“The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial,” they wrote in their filing.

Among other things, Trump’s team argued that Smith’s proposed timeline for the trial would conflict with the other criminal and civil cases in which the former president is a defendant, including the classified documents case brought by Smith, the hush money case in New York and the Georgia election subversion case.

In the Georgia case, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last week suggested an October 23, 2023, trial date, something Trump’s team also said they oppose.

Smith said in a filing to Chutkan last week that Trump was overplaying concerns about scheduling conflicts among his various criminal cases. His office offered to start jury selection a little later in December to accommodate for a hearing scheduling in the classified documents case in Florida.

Attorneys for the former president forcefully pushed back shortly thereafter, urging the judge to reject Smith’s proposal and saying the prosecutor sought an unusually “rapid” trial schedule.

“The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial,” they wrote in their filing.

Read more about today's hearing in the federal election subversion.

From CNN's Stephen Collinson

The hearing in Georgia that could yield major revelations in the state's 2020 election subversion case does not involve Donald Trump directly, but rather his former White House chief of Mark Meadows.

Meadows wants to get his case moved from state court to federal court, where he could have a better chance of getting it dismissed on the grounds that his actions following the 2020 election were within the scope of his duties as a federal official. Meadows and Trump are among 19 co-defendants in a vast racketeering case built by Willis.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who received the January 2021 call in which Trump asked him to “find” the votes to overturn the outgoing president’s loss to Biden in the crucial swing state, and two other lawyers who were on the call have been subpoenaed to testify.

Monday’s hearing is expected to serve as a preview for a later attempt by Trump to get his own case moved to federal court, where he may hope to get a more sympathetic jury pool. Extensive pre-trial litigation in the Georgia case could also end up frustrating attempts by Willis, who initially sought a March 2024 trial date, to bring the case before the 2024 election.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a vehement opponent of Trump in the GOP primary race, said on CBS “Face the Nation” Sunday that Meadows may have grounds for his case – but predicted it wouldn’t impact an ultimate verdict.

“I think that whether Mark Meadows wins that motion or doesn’t is not going to make a substantive difference on how ultimately a jury is going to be asked to make these decisions at the time of trial,” Christie said. Some experts have also warned that whatever the outcome of the Meadows case, it should not be seen as an inevitable foreshadowing of how the courts might respond to a similar request by Trump.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol in the previous Democratic-run House, said Sunday that Meadows could be unsuccessful in his effort to get his case moved to federal court. “There is no question that the state has the power to prosecute someone who is a federal official or a federal employee,” Raskin told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

“You can just think about a federal official employee who engages in a bank robbery or a murder, obviously the state would get to prosecute them,” Raskin argued. He added that the case would hinge on whether Meadows was “actually engaged in the work of the federal government and he was acting pursuant to a federal policy.”

From CNN's Tierney Sneed and Jeremy Herb

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who received the January 2021 call from former President Donald Trump to “find” the votes that would reverse his loss, has been subpoenaed to testify in Monday's hearing on the Fulton County case, along with an investigator in his office and two other lawyers who were present on the call.

US District Judge Steve Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, has shown that he would like to avoid a circus while also not giving short shrift to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' arguments to move the prosecution to federal court, Vladeck said. The orders the judge has already issued have hewed tightly to the relevant statutes and case law, and he has moved the proceedings along efficiently.

The judge is “by the book, which includes quickly and quietly,” Vladeck said.

Still, the hearing could feature some revelatory moments, as Willis appears to be preparing to put on the stand several witnesses to the pressure campaign Trump and Meadows are accused of applying to Georgia election officials.

In addition to Raffensperger, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis subpoenaed Frances Watson, who was chief investigator in the Georgia secretary of state’s office. According to the grand jury indictment, Meadows arranged a call between Trump and Watson, and texted Watson himself to offer Trump campaign funding toward speeding up a ballot review in Fulton County.

Willis also subpoenaed two lawyers who were on the Trump-Raffensperger phone call on Trump’s behalf: Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman.

“The central question is: Were Meadows and Trump acting in the context of … their federal positions, or were they just candidates for office or campaign staff acting in the state of Georgia?” said Elliot Williams, a CNN legal analyst and former Justice Department official. “Raffensperger will come to testify as to, ‘Maybe I actually think these guys were acting on behalf of the campaign, not the presidency.’”

From CNN's Piper Hudspeth Blackburn

Federal district Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia will hear requests from three of the 19 defendants hoping to move their Georgia election subversion cases out of state court.

The group, which includes former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is trying to get the case dismissed under federal law – a determination that may impact Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case against former President Donald Trump and others. Meadows and others will present evidence about whether to move the case, while the judge has allowed the state court case to proceed in the meantime.

Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, was confirmed by the US Senate in 2011 by a 90-0 vote. A former Superior Court judge, he grew up in Athens, Georgia, and graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1987.

So far, Jones has shown that he would like to avoid a circus while not giving short shrift to Meadows’ arguments, said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. The orders Jones has already issued have hewed tightly to the relevant statutes and case law, and he has moved the proceedings along very efficiently.

Jones is “by the book, which includes quickly and quietly,” Vladeck said.

Jones has overseen high-profile cases before.

In July, he declined to toss three lawsuits claiming that Georgia’s congressional and legislative districts were drawn in a way that discriminates against Black voters. He slated a trial on the matter for September.

In 2020, Jones blocked the state’s six-week abortion ban, which later took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In 2019, he rejected an attempt by a voting rights group to restore to the rolls 98,000 Georgia voters who had been removed after being classified as “inactive” after a new state law took effect.

In that case, Jones found that the 11th Amendment of the Constitution and the principles of sovereign immunity “do not permit a federal court to enjoin a state (or its officers) to follow a federal court’s interpretation of the State of Georgia’s laws.” Jones also determined that the group, Fair Fight Action, failed to show that its claim had a substantial likelihood of success.

Next, Jones will weigh movement in the case in which Trump is accused of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” that was part of a broad conspiracy to overturn his electoral defeat in Georgia. Trump, who faces 13 charges, is also expected to try to move the case to federal court, according to multiple sources familiar with his legal team’s thinking.