Former congressman and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who served during the final months of Donald Trump's presidency, was one of 18 people indicted alongside the former president for allegedly participating in a wide-ranging effort to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results.
The indictment names Meadows as part of a criminal enterprise that sought to illegally change the outcome of the election in favor of the former president, who is also facing new charges. Under Georgia's RICO (or racketeering) law, Meadows is accused of committing or participating in several acts as part of that conspiracy.
Meadows has filed to move his case from state to federal court, arguing that nothing he did was criminal, and that the actions he took that are now under scrutiny occurred while he was working at the federal level. In the same court filing, his lawyers also moved to dismiss the case entirely.
"The conduct giving rise to the charges in the indictment all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as Chief of Staff," the filing reads.
READ MORE: the full Georgia indictment against Trump and 18 allies
Long before the Georgia indictment, Trump's former top aide was a key figure in the House Jan. 6 committee's investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Testimony from witnesses including his assistant, Cassidy Hutchinson, and former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Marc Short revealed Meadows was aware Pence didn't have the power to delay or change certification of the results, as Trump said he did.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges Meadows also played a major role in her state, by working with others to overturn Biden's win in Georgia.
"Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," reads the indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani WIllis.
What charges does Meadows face?
Meadows was charged on two counts:
- Violation of the Georgia RICO act
- Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
What does the Fulton County indictment allege?
Meadows is one of 18 co-conspirators charged alongside Trump under the state's RICO law, which is often used to prosecute criminal organizations. Those racketeering charges — and the lengths to which Trump, Meadows and the other alleged co-conspirators went to keep Trump in power — comprise the majority of the 98-page indictment. Willis alleges the co-conspirators routinely lied about the results of the election publicly, solicited an alternate slate of electors to vote for Trump in the electoral college and harassed election workers, though Meadows himself is not directly implicated in those acts.
READ MORE: What you need to know about Rudy Giuliani's 2020 election charges
In comparison to Trump's former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and legal adviser John Eastman, Meadows is mentioned fewer times, and often cited as playing a supporting role, like seeking out phone numbers or joining a call, including a now-infamous conversation with Trump and former Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump asked Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes," enough for him to win Georgia. The indictment cites this when charging both with encouraging a public officer to violate their oath.
Meadows is accused of organizing other phone calls for Trump, texting a Georgia official about whether financial assistance from the Trump campaign would speed up a vote verification process and traveling to the state in an attempt to oversee an election audit that was not open to the public, all of which furthered the conspiracy, according to Willis.
Meadows is not directly charged with the effort to recruit an alternate slate of electors.
What is Meadows' connection to Trump?
This file photo from 2020 shows Donald Trump departing with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows from the White House in October 2020 to travel to North Carolina for an election rally. Photo by Al Drago/Reuters.
Meadows was closely aligned with Trump when he represented North Carolina's 11th congressional district. In early 2020, just before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, Trump replaced Mick Mulvaney – his acting chief of staff of more than a year – with Meadows.
Meadows fiercely defended Trump both before joining the administration and while serving as chief of staff, and was a central figure in the Jan. 6 hearings.
In a June 2022 public hearing, Hutchinson testified under oath that when Meadows was alerted to the violence at the Capitol, he did not take action. She said she overheard a conversation between Meadows and White House lawyer Pat Cipollone, who told Meadows felt they needed to do something because the mob was calling for Pence to be hanged.
Hutchinson said she heard Meadows say something like, "You heard it Pat, he thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it." Hutchinson added that Meadows said Trump didn't believe the rioters were doing anything wrong.
Meadows is not believed to be among the six co-conspirators included in special investigator Jack Smith's federal indictment of Trump.
What did Meadows do before working for Trump?
FILE PHOTO: Mark Meadows, then a Republican congressman from North Carolina, speaks to reporters in 2017 after meeting with House Freedom Caucus members. File photo by Jonathan Ernst/ Reuters
Meadows was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012 after winning an eight-person Republican primary.
Entering Congress during the tea party movement, Meadows was instrumental in rallying Republicans around the 2013 federal government shutdown over former President Barack Obama's signature health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act. The year before, Meadows made racist comments about Obama, saying he should "go back home to Kenya or wherever," for which he later apologized.
In 2015, he opposed the reelection of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as speaker of the House, and tried to remove him from office. Though the attempt failed, Boehner ultimately resigned months later, a move widely attributed to discord within the party.
READ MORE: Who is Mark Meadows and why is he important to the Jan. 6 hearings?
Between 2017 and 2019, Meadows chaired the House's Freedom Caucus, an ultra-conservative group of representatives he helped to found. During his tenure, he served on the House Oversight Committee, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Meadows was born at a U.S. Army hospital in Verdun, France, and was raised in Florida in a family he has described as poor. He graduated with an associate's degree from the University of South Florida and moved to North Carolina, where he opened a restaurant and later started a real estate company, according to a 2018 profile of him in the Tampa Bay Times.
After Trump left office, Meadows joined the Conservative Partnership Institute, which works to connect conservatives in Congress and support them in governing.