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ATLANTA — Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final White House chief of staff, testified in a federal courtroom in Georgia on Monday that he helped question the 2020 presidential election results out of a federal interest in “free and fair elections” intended to build national trust in the outcome and bring on a peaceful transfer of power.

Over nearly four hours of testimony, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/" target=_blank>Meadows defended his participation</a> in meetings and phone calls described by prosecutors as part of a plot to subvert Joe Biden’s victory, repeatedly insisting there was a “federal nexus” to all of his actions. He said his duties managing the president’s calendar and extricating him from lengthy meetings necessitated participating in hundreds if not thousands of conversations each month.

“Having open questions [about the election] continued to be a roadblock for initiating other plans,” Meadows testified. He added: “I just needed to land the plane.”

Meadows, who along with Trump and 17 others was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/15/trump-indicted-georgia-explained/" target=_blank>indicted in Atlanta this month</a>, is seeking to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/28/mark-meadows-federal-court-trump-georgia-election-case/" target=_blank>move his case from state to federal court</a>, claiming that he was acting as a federal officer. U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones said the case will probably set precedent and that he will issue a decision “as soon as possible.”

Jones said the state case will proceed — meaning that, for now, Meadows will have to appear for his scheduled arraignment in Fulton County Superior Court on Sept. 6 along with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/15/georgia-indictment-charges/?itid=ap_hollybailey" target=_blank>other defendants</a>.

A photo of Trump, with photos of Mar-a-Lago documents, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, money and a map of Georgia by his face. 

viz-trump-criminal-cases-tracker

Donald Trump has been indicted in four cases. The Washington Post is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/trump-investigations-indictments/" target=_blank>keeping track of where each Trump investigation stands</a>. Here is a breakdown of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/trump-charges-jan-6-classified-documents/" target=_blank>all 88 charges Trump faces</a>.

Meadows’s appearance Monday made him the first Trump associate to testify in open court about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2023/trump-georgia-election-investigation/?itid=ap_amygardner" target=_blank>actions the former president took after the 2020 election</a>. As Trump faces <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/trump-investigations-indictments/?itid=lk_inline_manual_1" target=_blank>four criminal indictments</a>, including two focused on his attempts to stay in power after the election, Meadows’s testimony provided a preview of what could come in the months ahead.

Meadows has also filed a motion in federal court to have the case dismissed altogether, which will be heard only if his arguments for removal prevail.

The Monday hearing focused heavily on Meadows’s participation in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-urges-georgia-secretary-of-state-to-find-votes/2021/01/03/aba64f5f-8c3c-490f-af34-618ccea732d7_video.html" target=_blank>Jan. 2, 2021, phone call</a> between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), during which Trump said he wanted to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss to Biden, and a trip Meadows took to Georgia in December 2020 to witness a state-run audit of absentee ballot signatures in the Atlanta suburbs.

Photo by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office

Anna Cross led the questioning for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. She sought to show that Meadows was doing far more than managing Trump’s time, particularly on the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_10" target=_blank>Raffensperger call</a>, when the former chief of staff told Georgia’s top elections official: “There are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted.”

Meadows explained on the stand that he has a habit of using the word “we” expansively, and said in this instance he was referring to the campaign and not the White House. He also said his goal on the call was to resolve a dispute — the Trump campaign was suing Raffensperger at the time. One witness described the call as a “settlement negotiation,” since three lawyers working with the campaign were on the call.

Jones, the judge, appeared skeptical of that argument. When Raffensperger later took the stand, Jones interrupted questioning to ask one himself: Was there any discussion of a settlement negotiation?

No, Raffensperger replied, adding that he viewed the call as inappropriate because of the pending litigation.

“I’ve seen candidates lose and have a recount, but outreach to this extent was extraordinary,” Raffensperger said.

Meadows also said he did not know that three of the lawyers on the line — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitchell-trump-resigns-firm/2021/01/05/ea5364b4-4f9e-11eb-b96e-0e54447b23a1_story.html" target=_blank>Cleta Mitchell</a>, Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman — had participated in a campaign lawsuit against Raffensperger.

George J. Terwilliger III, Meadows’s lead attorney, repeatedly insisted his client was operating “under the color” of his job as chief of staff in every interaction cited in the Georgia indictment.

Jones later pressed Terwilliger about whether he believed there to be any “limitation” to what his client was allowed to do in his job as Trump’s chief of staff. Terwilliger described Meadows as an “alter ego” of Trump and insisted that he was consistently acting as a “federal authority” of the executive branch.

That claim was criticized by Donald Wakeford, an assistant Fulton County district attorney, who said Meadows flouted the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/13/what-is-hatch-act-why-did-kellyanne-conway-get-accused-violating-it-so-egregiously/" target="_blank">federal Hatch Act</a>, which prohibits government officials from using their official roles to influence an election. He said Meadows saw “no distinction” between his White House work and the Trump campaign.

Meadows said he served as a gatekeeper for Trump and kept some people with less plausible claims of fraud away from him. He said he did not believe all the allegations, but he did believe there were questions about whether signature verification of absentee ballots had occurred properly in some of the larger counties.

Meadows was not required to attend Monday’s hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in downtown Atlanta, and a murmur spread through the crowded courtroom when he walked in with his lawyers.

Under questioning from his own attorney, Meadows repeatedly described the post-election atmosphere at the White House as chaotic. He testified that because he was viewed as someone who had “the ear of the president,” he received a deluge of phone calls and emails, including from those raising questions about the outcome of the 2020 election.

“It felt like my phone number was plastered on every bathroom wall in America,” Meadows said of the calls.

The courtroom was packed with reporters and lawyers for other defendants in the case, including defense attorney Steve Sadow, a new addition to Trump’s legal team. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/09/fani-willis-fulton-county-georgia-trump-investigation/" target=_blank>Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis</a> (D) did not attend the hearing but a half-dozen prosecutors from her office did. Meadows greeted several of them with a smile and handshake.

If Meadows wins his removal, attorneys for his co-defendants are expected to try to argue the ruling applies to everyone charged in the case.

Four of<b> </b>the defendants have followed Meadows’s lead and sought to move their cases to federal court: Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, former Georgia Republican Party chairman David Shafer, Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still, who was part of a pro-Trump slate of electors in 2020, and Cathy Latham, another alternate elector who is also charged for her alleged role in a breach of election data in a rural county where she served as chair of the local GOP. Shafer, Still and Latham argue that although they were not federal employees, they took actions at the direction of the president, making them federal officials.

Trump has not yet filed to remove his case to federal court. Another co-defendant, former New York mayor <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/23/rudy-giuliani-georgia-jail-surrender/" target=_blank>Rudy Giuliani</a>, said last week he would also seek to move his case to federal court, though he has yet to file.

Given that Meadows was a White House official working on behalf of the sitting president at the time, if a federal judge is not persuaded by his argument, the others may have a tough legal road ahead.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/14/indictment-document-trump-georgia/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13" target=_blank>The 98-page indictment</a> approved by a grand jury this month<b> </b>describes acts by Meadows in the weeks after Trump lost the presidential election, including meeting with state lawmakers in Michigan and Pennsylvania and visiting the Georgia site where signatures on absentee ballots were being verified. It alleges those efforts were part of an illegal racketeering conspiracy to overturn the results. The indictment alleges that Meadows also illegally solicited a public official to violate his oath by joining Trump on the Raffensperger call.

On several occasions Meadows claimed to have no knowledge of the Trump campaign’s efforts to contest the election results. When questioned about an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump and Michigan state lawmakers, Meadows said that he didn’t know that the campaign was contesting the results in that state.

In one White House meeting cited in the indictment between Trump and Pennsylvania lawmakers, Meadows disputed that he attended the meeting other than to inform three of them that they had tested positive for the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> and would have to leave without seeing the president.

Hilbert also testified Monday, but he declined to answer several questions, citing attorney-client privilege.

Meadows was repeatedly pressed by prosecutors on why he had visited a suburban Atlanta facility where state officials were auditing ballot signatures. Meadows insisted he had traveled there on his own volition as a White House chief of staff because he was already in Georgia visiting his two adult children for Christmas. He said he read about the site in the paper and arranged with his Secret Service detail to visit the facility so that he could have firsthand information to give Trump, who was concerned about the Georgia recount. Meadows repeatedly insisted it did not cross the line into political work for the Trump campaign and said he communicated only with Trump and White House lawyers about it.

During the Georgia visit, Meadows met the investigator overseeing the audit. The next day, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-call-georgia-investigator/2021/03/11/c532ea2e-827a-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html" target=_blank>Trump called her</a>. In a text message included in the indictment, Meadows wrote on Dec. 27, 2020, inquiring if “there was a way to speed up Fulton county signature verification in order to have results before Jan 6 if the trump campaign assist financially” — a message Willis’s team could use to argue that Meadows was acting on behalf of Trump’s campaign.

Meadows claimed that Trump’s effort to find fraud in the 2020 election took a small fraction of his time — “for me, it was not a top paramount issue” — with many other important tasks on his plate. They included negotiating the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, pushing the National Defense Authorization Act through Congress, developing at-home tests for the coronavirus — “which we were myopically focused on” — as well as issuing presidential pardons and preparing for a “peaceful transfer of power.”

Meadows also noted that following the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a>, 2021, Capitol riot, he held a daily phone call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley to assess fresh threats and “to see if any of our adversaries were coming after us.”

Megan Varner

2016 Oklahoma Book Award

2017 American Meteorological Society Lewis J. Batten Award for Distinguished Reporting

2017 Deadline Club Award for Feature Photography

2021 World Press Photo Interactive of the Year

2024 Pulitzer Price for National Reporting 

The Mercy of the Sky

University of Oklahoma

Holly Bailey is a national correspondent for The Washington Post based in Atlanta and covering the South. She joined The Post in 2019 as a national political reporter covering the 2020 presidential campaign. She was part of The Post team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series examining the rise of the AR-15.

Holly Bailey

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2022

Toner Prize, 2022

George Polk Award, 2022

University of Pennsylvania, BA in history

Amy Gardner has worked at The Post since 2005 and currently covers voting on its Democracy Team. She is part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. She is a 1990 graduate of The University of Pennsylvania and lives in Arlington, Va., with her husband, Bob. They have two sons.

Amy Gardner

Mark Meadows, ex-Trump chief of staff, testifies in Georgia

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Hearing to move the Fulton County case to federal court in the 2020 election case at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta, Georgia

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