Federal Judge Steve Jones has ruled that several individuals who joined the slate of purported electoral college members backing Donald Trump from Georgia after the 2020 presidential election were not acting as federal officers, in the legal sense, when furthering these acts. Georgia was one of a slew of states nationwide where Trump allies put together claimed slates of electors for the now former president despite Joe Biden’s wins in these jurisdictions.
Jones ruled on the question in the context of a push from three such individuals in Georgia to move criminal charges they’re facing there to federal court. The group, David Shafer, Shawn Still, and Cathy Latham, were among those criminally charged alongside Trump himself by Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Shafer is a former chairman of the state GOP, and Latham was a local official in the party. Still, meanwhile, was elected as a state Senator.
If they’d been successful at moving the handling of their charges from Willis to federal court, it could have boosted arguments they should thereby be found immune from Willis’ criminal claims. In general, there are sometimes protections for certain officials completing their official duties from later legal consequence specifically tied to those actions — but casting claimed electoral votes wasn’t enough.
“Even though electors are engaging in a federal functions when they meet and cast their ballots, that is insufficient to make someone a federal officer. To find otherwise would convert all citizens who can lawfully vote into federal officers when they cast their ballot for U.S. House of Representatives,” Jones said, as highlighted by NBC News. The judge also more specifically tied what these individuals were doing to the now former president’s political aims of re-election — which were outside official responsibilities. “Private litigation is ‘unofficial conduct’ and falls outside of the ambit of the President’s exercise of executive power,” the judge added, as highlighted by POLITICO. Other defendants in this case who’ve also so far lost attempts at moving their charges to federal court include ex-officials Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark.
