Former Trump administration chief of staff Mark Meadows was ordered by a South Carolina judge on Wednesday to appear before a grand jury investigating attempts to coerce election officials in Georgia to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
The case was presided over by Judge Edward Miller, a county judge in South Carolina, because prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, sought to use a state law in South Carolina that would require Meadows, who lives there, to comply with their order to testify.
Miller deemed Meadows a “material and necessary” witness for the investigation, adding that “the state of Georgia is assuring not to cause undue hardship to him” in compelling him to appear as a witness.
On Tuesday, Meadows’s lawyer called for the subpoena to be blocked. Meadows’s legal team has argued that he doesn’t have to comply with the order because the investigation, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, isn’t yet a criminal inquiry.
In court, Meadows’s lawyer has said that the South Carolina law that Georgia prosecutors were attempting to use didn’t apply to him, and continued to push executive privilege claims that Meadows and other allies to former President Donald Trump have promoted in the past. They also argued that the investigation was based on partisanship rather than the law.
Miller expressed skepticism over those arguments. “This is not a political hearing,” he said to Meadows’s lawyer in response to the claim that the subpoena was motivated by politics.
Meadows’s lawyer has indicated that he plans to appeal the ruling, a process which could take months.
Willis opened the investigation in Fulton County after a recording of Trump with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was made public. In the audio recording, Trump tries to coerce Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to overturn President Joe Biden’s Georgia win in the 2020 presidential election, threatening the state official with potential legal repercussions if he doesn’t act. It is illegal to coerce, threaten, command or otherwise compel an official to engage in election fraud under Georgia state law.
Meadows was listening in on the call as it was happening, meaning that he likely has a unique understanding of Trump’s mindset before, during and after the call. As the call was taking place, Meadows was also texting an aide to Raffensperger, who told him that the call was not good for either side.
“Need to end this call. I don’t think this will be productive much longer,” the aide said in her text to Meadows.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy