Fani Willis flattens Mark Meadows' demand not to be arrested and teases potential warrant
Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis told Mark Meadows that she isn't playing around when it comes to the deadline for those indicted to surrender to the jail.
Meadows is begging the federal court to rush their ruling on whether or not to take over his case. He's got a preliminary hearing on Aug. 28, but that's three days after the deadline set to turn himself in.
So, Meadows' lawyer asked Willis for an extension on the self-report deadline until after the hearing.
Willis isn't interested.
"Good Morning Mr. Moran," Willis writes in a reply to Meadows' lawyer's email. "I am not granting any extensions. I gave 2 weeks fo people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy. At 12:30 pm on Friday I shall file warrants in the system. My team has availability to meet to discuss reasonable consent bonds Wednesday and Thursday."
Meadows' motion explains to the state of Georgia, "...the Court can effectuate relief by issuing an order to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis— who is a party to the matter before the Court—prohibiting her from arresting or causing the arrest of Mr. Meadows before the Monday hearing."
The motion also says:
"Absent this Court's intervention, Mr. Meadows will be denied the protection from arrest that federal law affords former federal officials, and this Court's prompt but orderly consideration of removal will be frustrated."
The motion goes on to cite his reasons for moving his case to federal court, claiming that because he was being paid by the federal government he was acting as a federal official and thus his case should be in federal court.
Speaking to MSNBC about the matter, former senior prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, explained that it isn't how the law works. If Meadows robbed a Georgia bank, he used as an example, Meadows couldn't claim he should be tried in federal court because he's a federal official.