Fani Willis wins Supreme Court extension, but case against Trump – upended by her love affair – is in trouble

The Supreme Court's granting of an extension to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to file a racketeering motion underscores that her sprawling organized crime case against President Trump and 18 others faces numerous headwinds – some of her own making, others coming from above.

The Supreme Court postponed by a month, to September 30, the date on which Ms Willis was due to respond to a petition filed by one of her defendants, former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. That request to the Supreme Court argues that, given the justices' landmark immunity ruling and the office he once held, he should be tried in federal court rather than in Fulton County.

Mr Meadows, the American president's 29th chief of staff, is accused by Ms Willis of two crimes related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. He could have been charged by special counsel Jack Smith, but he was granted immunity from federal charges in exchange for his testimony. The Peach State allegations, however, were dropped before the Supreme Court's immunity ruling in Trump against the United States.

That ruling says official presidential acts are presumptively immune. Prosecutors bear a heavy burden to rebut such a presumption, but unofficial acts enjoy no such protection. Some acts that fall within the core of presidential prerogatives are entitled to “absolute” immunity. The responsibility for making those determinations rests with the trial judge. The presiding judge in this case, Scott McAfee, may soon follow in Judge Tanya Chutkan's footsteps and conduct that inquiry.

If Ms. Willis pursues the case – she faces hearings in December in the Georgia Court of Appeals on her disqualification for her secret affair with her special prosecutor, Nathan Wade – she will likely have to convince Judge McAfee that her post-case prosecution is defensible. TrumpHer office could argue that the 45th president's interactions with Georgia Secretary of State Bradley Raffensperger, for example, were not official acts.

First, however, Ms. Willis must deal with Mr. Meadows. Although the North Carolina man has served a president rather than himself, he still claims Trump Impact on his prosecution. He argues to the Nine that he is entitled to have his case transferred to federal court because “the threat of prosecutions against federal officers for acts related to their federal functions does not disappear when they leave federal office.”

The former adjutant to the 45th president has sought to escape Fulton County, a majority minority and Democratic district in inner-city Atlanta, where a jury may not be sympathetic to an arch-conservative representing a rural, predominantly white congressional district. Mr. Meadows' request was denied by both Judge McAfee and the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which denied his request for certior to the Supreme Court.

Now Mr Meadows writes to the judges: “It is hard to imagine a case in which the need for a federal forum is more pressing than in a case in which novel questions about the duties and powers of one of the United States' most important federal agencies must be resolved.”

Ms. Willis has tried to keep Meadows in state court at every turn, claiming his efforts to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election had nothing to do with his duties as chief of staff. Prosecutors prefer to try their cases in state court, where they are more familiar with juries and procedural rules. Federal courts are drawn from larger geographic areas and tend to be more politically and racially diverse.

That Ms. Willis requested a month's delay to consider these arguments may be a sign of the strength of Meadows' arguments. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia worried in 1988 about “weakening the presidency by diminishing the zeal of his aides,” who “typically have no political support base.” Now it is one of those aides, Meadows, who claims the staff immunity law is “underdeveloped.”

Meadows has hired one of the Supreme Court's most successful lawyers, Paul Clement, to argue his case. If the Nine decide to hear the case, Willis may have to balance her efforts to keep the former chief of staff in state court with her efforts to avoid her own disqualification. Trump argues that Willis' relationship with Wade and the trips they took together when he was on her office's payroll present a conflict of interest.

Trump et al. also claim that her rhetoric accusing her opponents of “playing the race card” amounts to jury poisoning. The former president, who may be watching Meadows' struggles, has not sought to take his own case to federal court. However, if the former chief of staff wins in the Supreme Court, Trump could soon follow in his deputy's footsteps.