Trump works to delay and dismiss Georgia trial as alleged co-conspirators flounder

With less than a year to go before the proposed start date of a criminal conspiracy trial for allegedly attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump has Georgia on his mind these days. 

Just four months after a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and more than a dozen alleged co-conspirators on a host of election-related charges, including racketeering, conspiracy to commit forgery, perjury, and illegally breaching voting equipment, the former president has asked a judge to dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds in a motion filed Monday. Arguing that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' indictment "does not merely criminalize conduct with an incidental impact on protected speech" but instead "directly targets core protected political speech and activity," Trump's attorneys Steven Sadow and Jennifer Little claimed the former president's allegedly criminal behavior was, in fact, the "kind of core political speech the Founders envisioned" when crafting the First Amendment and other protections to begin with. Sadow has suggested at a recent pre-trial court appearance that a second motion to dismiss the case — this time on presidential immunity grounds — would be forthcoming as well. 

But while Trump readies his legal team to argue that the charges they face are fundamentally invalid, several of his similarly indicted allies have faced a number of ignominious setbacks along their respective legal trajectories — even as Willis hints to The Associated Press that more from their ranks could ultimately accept plea deals.  

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A 'targeted injunction' and a 'total body slam'

A request by former Trump administration Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to move his upcoming Georgia election fraud trial to federal court was forcefully denied on Monday, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that a statute allowing government officials to move trials to a federal court "does not apply to former federal officers, and even if it did, the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to Meadows's official duties."

Chief Judge William Pryor, the main author of Meadows' rejection, is a "legendary conservative jurist, extremely conservative" former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained on MSNBC.  As such, the ruling is "to put it mildly, a total body slam."

More pointedly, Meadows' rejection bodes ill for the former president himself, as it suggests that courts are "inhospitable to Trump's claims of immunity/supremacy clause defense," NYU law professor Ryan Goodman explained on X, formerly Twitter. 

Meanwhile, just days after the court found longtime Trump consigliere Rudy Giuliani liable for nearly $150 million in damages for defamation against Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, the pair filed a second lawsuit against the onetime New York City mayor this week, alleging he continued to defame them even after that verdict. While the plaintiffs have not requested additional damages in this latest suit, they have requested the court order him to end the "defamatory campaign" that led to their initial suit — in particular by reiterating to the press immediately after that ruling was handed down that his claims are nevertheless "supportable today." As such, Freeman and Moss have asked for a "targeted injunction" to stop repeating claims that "have already been found and held, conclusively, to be defamatory."

The election workers merely wanted Giuliani to take their names "out of his mouth," attorney Michael Gottlieb explained to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, adding that "he was unwilling to do it." 

'The most effective election interference in the United States'

In attempting to dismiss his client's prosecution as a First Amendment violation, Trump's attorney Sadow has claimed that by bringing the former president to trial, prosecutors would themselves be guilty of the very behavior of which they accuse Trump. 

Trump "not being able to campaign for president because he is in a courtroom defending himself," would represent "the most effective election interference in the United States" Sadow claimed in a court appearance this month. Trump has made "similar First Amendment arguments" in his federal election interference trial as well, The Hill noted. Federal Special Counsel Jack Smith has already requested the Supreme Court rule on whether Trump is covered by blanket presidential immunity, a question "that could be pivotal to Trump’s defense in Fulton County," according to Atlanta News First.