By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on September 8, 2023
Today, a federal judge in Atlanta issued an Order rejecting a bid by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to remove his Georgia state RICO case to federal court in that city. Meadows was indicted on state racketeering charges, along with Donald J. Trump and 17 other co-defendants.
The racketeering case brought against Trump, Meadows, and the other 17 defendants is being prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, who specializes in criminal RICO cases.
Today's adverse ruling was a blow to Meadows and the overall defensive effort in this RICO case.
Meadows’ motion to remove the case to federal court was lightweight, ill-conceived, amateurish, and counter-productive.
The pretrial losses for Donald Trump (and his co-defendants) in his Atlanta, New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami criminal cases are mounting faster than anything I have seen in my nearly five-decades long legal career.
The defense lawyering in these cases have been stunning weak, totally lacking in creativity, and downright embarrassing. Law students could do a better job of representing Trump and the 18 Georgia RICO co-defendants in the Georgia case.
The criminal defense teams in Trump's four cases have been running a clown show since day one.
Based upon the rate and severity of defeats Donald Trump and his co-defendants are suffering during the pretrial proceedings in his criminal cases, Trump’s fate in these cases will be sealed in about 90 days.
The self-inflected pretrial mistakes and miscues are killing Trump's chances of winning any one of his four criminal cases. His co-defendants are likely doomed, as well.
What is more, Donald Trump will likely become the first criminal defendant in history to lose on all 91 felony counts against him, which I believe would establish a record in the annals of American jurisprudence.
I never thought criminal defense attorneys could botch a high-profile case like Donald Trump's in record time. Trump is NOT losing these cases because of politics. He is losing them because of the mistakes and miscues of the defense lawyers in these cases. None of these lawyers could have earned a spot on my elite criminal defense team in U.S. v. Richard Scrushy.
The judge not only threw out the motion, he mentioned that it failed to meet a very low bar to be moved to a federal court. The legal maneuvering is starting to become embarrassing. I'm not sure these attorneys can be taken seriously anymore.