Trump's Former Chief of Staff Testifies

 

Mark Meadows, Former Chief of Staff (NYT)

This Monday, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was put on the stand in Georgia state court; a risky move made in an attempt to get his racketeering case moved to federal court.

In order to move his case to federal court, the defense must prove that the acts carried out by Meadows, regarding threatening officials in the state of Georgia over votes, were done under his express federal duty, and were not in any way a political act. If he succeeds, the defense can then argue in federal court that due to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which states that federal law trumps state law, his state charges should be dismissed (PBS). This would not only affect his case, but could set an example affecting the cases of the other defendants surrounding Trump's RICO indictment.

Meadows struggled on the stand when state prosecutors pressed him on a phone call he organized between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. When asked about why he organized the phone call, he claimed that he "did not recall" the specific circumstances, and simply followed orders from Trump to set it up. He testified that to his knowledge, the call was regarding alleged election fraud in the state (ABC). In that same call, Trump infamously asked Raffensperger to "find" 12,000 more votes in Georgia, enough for him to win the state, and potentially change the course of the election (WPO), a statement the prosecution interprets as threatening a state official to violate his oath of office, enough to indict Meadows with a racketeering charge. 

His unconvincing attempts to distance himself from Trump's conspiracy via lack of recall were further undermined by Raffensperger's own testimony of the phone call and its surrounding events. Raffensperger, a Georgia Republican, testified that he received earlier calls from Meadows--which he avoided--before picking up the phone call with Donald Trump. He further testified that what he expected to be an investigation into election fraud was indicative of "a campaign call"-- an act that would fall well outside of both Meadows' and Trump's federal duty (WPO). He also recalled threats made to his family and his employees when Trump went public with his unfounded allegations of Georgia voter fraud, further implying that the call was not part of Trump's federal duty, but part of his campaign efforts (NYT).

A courtroom sketch of Meadows on the stand (CNN)

In their motion to move the case to federal court, Meadows' defense attorneys argued that organizing the phone call was solely an act of investigating election fraud (The State of Georgia v. Meadows), and was well within his federal duty. At this point, the phone call itself is seemingly damning evidence that Trump did attempt to subvert the presidential election in Georgia, explaining why Meadows so desperately tried to state he had no knowledge of its true purpose.

Beyond legal implications, Meadows' testimony relates both to our study of the Constitution and of power in government. The purpose of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is to stop state law from subverting the functions of the federal government, something arguably essential to any federation. However, Meadows' defense's attempts to use the Supremacy Clause makes a dangerous claim about the nature of the federal government: that part of the executive branch's express duty is to carry out political acts to keep its own members in power. That claim further implies that even if they break state laws, power exerted by federal officials via the leverage of their office, though not specifically protected by the Constitution, is implicitly protected by the Constitution--an implication many would argue grossly subverts the nature of formal power within our federal government. As we covered in class while studying the 4Ps, there tends to be an overlap between the use of formal power in government and its political implications, with the Meadows case questioning to what extent the two should be intertwined. With regard to what we covered on Hobbesian views of humanity and how it relates to checks and balances, this case could show a prime example of a government official acting in egregious Hobbes-like self-interest, and a state-court system subsequently checking that behavior, with hopes that no one demagogue could take over control of our democracy -- though that outcome remains to be seen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/us/trump-georgia-meadows.html

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.319225/gov.uscourts.gand.319225.45.0_1.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/29/mark-meadows-struggles-distance-himself-trumps-plot/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/georgia-2020-election-hearing-mark-meadows/meadows-testifies-about-raffensperger-call-102623974?id=102611178

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-meadows-testimony-in-georgia-could-help-shape-case-against-trump

Edit: added clarification to the end of the last paragraph to more explicitly connect it to in-class material.

Shooting at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    

    On August 28, 2023, a graduate student by the name of Tailei Qi shot his faculty advisor, Zije Yan, inside a science building at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On the 29th, police arrested and charged the student with first-degree murder. Law enforcement is still currently searching for a motive and a weapon. Tailei Qi appeared in an Orange County Superiority Court with his court date scheduled for September 18, 2023. Until further information is revealed about the case, it is extremely vague what Qi's motive for committing such a horrific act to Zije Yan, a respected professor, and scientist whose personality was described to be laidback and reserved. Multiple students and colleagues of Yan mourned his death, with many in panic and fear of the incident that had happened on their campus. The shooting paralyzed the campus with fear, with students and faculty reacting in shock, horror, and anger to the incident of violence. 

    Students who attended the university spoke about how frightening the experience was and that they didn't feel safe on their campus. McMichaels, a student at UNC, said that "You're always in that position where you're like it couldn't be me and then when it is, you're kind of shocked. It's horrifying" (WUNC). Furthermore, another student, Hoos, who was only a quarter mile away from the shooting, shared her experience as well: "Everybody talking about being nervous the entire time, the nervousness of somebody coming in and banging in the door" (WUNC). Other students took the opportunity to organize rallies and protests in light of the shooting, advocating for pro-gun-control legislation to prevent incidents like these from happening more in the future. "Students chanted Yan's name Wednesday and raised signs that read 'learning not lockdowns,' 'this is my reality,' and '1 death by guns is 1 too many" (Washington Post).

    

    Politicians also used the shooting to push for their own agendas about the issue of guns in America, with many on both sides of the aisle shedding light on their perspectives. North Carolina Representative Renee Price's perspective on the matter is one that is pro-gun-control legislation: "Another shooting, another killing... Because we have too many guns, weapons out in the open" (Daily Tar Heel). Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from the same state, says that "we must continue to work together to protect our schools, confront the nation's mental health crisis, and keep firearms out of the wrong hands" (Daily Tar Heel). As seen before, the two perspectives of the opposing parties essentially, in rather simplistic terms, that guns are the problem vs. people are the problem. Democrats in the US generally believe that limiting access to these weapons would prevent such violent and destructive incidents from happening, whereas Republicans generally believe that it is not the availability of guns that is the issue, but it is the situations in which people commit these violent acts like their mental health that should be dealt with. Personally, I believe that there should be more gun-control legislation because while prioritizing mental health is important, people who have mental health issues commit such awful acts because of how easy it is to acquire a firearm in the US. By making it harder to get access to these tools that would inflict harm easier, these people in need of mental help wouldn't be so willing to use a gun to exact their emotional instability and instead resort to other sources of letting out their feelings. 

Nolan S.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2023/08/30/university-shooting-north-carolina-chapel-hill/de58249a-4782-11ee-b76b-0b6e5e92090d_story.html

https://www.wunc.org/news/2023-08-28/its-horrifying-unc-chapel-hill-students-and-faculty-react-to-campus-shooting

https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2023/08/city-political-response-to-shooting-republicans-democrats

https://apnews.com/article/university-north-carolina-chapel-hill-shooting-a5eb7268934f7f416b7cfa2e2e3e24db