will25u said:
Yeah, that's not surprising. Meadows' argument was pretty thin. It doesn't cite any substantive executive branch authorities. It doesn't claim Meadows believed he was working on upholding the Voting Rights Act or anything else, or cite the Take Care clause or anything like that. But rather, as I said the other day, takes the "I was doing what my boss told me to do" approach. It argues setting up meetings and phone calls on behalf of the President was part of his job, but it doesn't connect the purpose of those meetings to an official government purpose.
We'll see. The removal law provides the benefit of doubt to the defendant. (As it should). But, an evidentiary hearing does need to be held here to help parse out whether Meadows was truly, colorable-y acting in an official capacity or a political/campaigning capacity.
That Meadows was offering to have the Trump campaign fund some of the things he was calling about, suggests he was in campaign mode and not executive branch governance mode. That most of the folks involved in the efforts weren't government employees certainly doesn't suggest these were actual official government efforts.
I don't think it quite passes the sniff test that these folks were doing this in official capacities. They were doing it for Trump the candidate to get re-elected, and that by definition isn't an official government capacity.