The ruling by U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones in the Atlanta-based Northern District of Georgia represents a setback for Meadows, who had asked for removal under a federal law that allows people charged with crimes while carrying out their official duties to be prosecuted in federal court, even in cases involving state law and state prosecutors.

Meadows had hoped a move to federal court could lead to a quick dismissal of the case against him because he had argued to Jones that as a federal officer, he is immune from prosecution for acts taken in the course of his normal work.

The sweeping indictment filed last month in Fulton County, Ga., alleges former president Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants, including Meadows, operated a vast criminal enterprise for the purpose of illegally reversing Trump’s defeat against Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

The Meadows decision was the first major ruling in the Georgia case, which will feature a regular rotation of appearances by the defendants in state and federal courtrooms to litigate pretrial issues in the coming weeks — a reminder of the case’s complexity and the potential for delays before it can be heard, ultimately, by a jury.

Jones’s decision is also not good news for four other co-defendants who have sought to move their cases to federal court. Jones said during Meadows’s Aug. 28 hearing that he expected his ruling to serve as precedent for other cases. While Trump has not sought removal, the decision would appear to bode poorly for him, too, should he choose to do so.

Jones’s ruling represents a victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, who will retain her home-field advantage by keeping the case in Fulton County Superior Court, where she knows the judges and where the trial will be governed by familiar state, not federal, procedures.

Had Meadows prevailed, Jones’s next step would have been to consider his request to dismiss the case outright under a legal principle similar to the one he used to argue for removal — that he is immune from prosecution because he was acting as a federal officer.

Now, Meadows’s case will proceed in Fulton County Superior Court with no opportunity to make that argument — though he has the option to appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit, a notably conservative court that could view the issue differently from Jones, whom Barack Obama appointed to the bench. Ultimately, Meadows could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the issue.

Trump argued he reimbursed lawyer Michael Cohen for making the payments to Daniels after he took office to protect his presidency and thus was acting as a federal official. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein found that the charges pertained to Trump’s personal life and did not involve his official duties as president.

The four defendants in the Georgia case who have also sought to move their cases to federal court are former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, former Georgia Republican Party chairman David Shafer, Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still (R) and Cathy Latham, the former GOP chair for Coffee County and a member of the Georgia Republican Party’s executive committee. Shafer, Still and Latham served as pro-Trump electors in 2020, and Latham was also charged for her alleged role in allowing outsiders to copy the hard drives of sensitive election equipment in Coffee County.

The 98-page indictment sought by Willis describes a series of acts Meadows took in the weeks after Trump lost the presidential election, including meeting with state lawmakers in Michigan and Pennsylvania and visiting a Georgia site where signatures on absentee ballots were being verified. It alleges those efforts were part of what Willis has charged was 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 a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) on Jan. 2, 2021. During the call, Trump said he wanted to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss to Biden.

At an Aug. 28 hearing, Jones appeared skeptical of Meadows’s claim that he was simply “trying to land the plane” — participating in meetings and phone calls at which Trump and others discussed how to reverse his Georgia defeat primarily to keep Trump on schedule.

At the same hearing, prosecutors noted that in an email to Trump campaign aide Jason Miller, Meadows said, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.” They also showed how Meadows referred to “we” during the Raffensperger call. Meadows testified that he was using the word “we” too loosely and he meant the campaign, not including himself.

At one point, Jones pressed Meadows’s lead attorney, George J. Terwilliger III, 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 essentially said no, describing Meadows as an “alter ego” of Trump who was consistently acting as a “federal authority” of the executive branch.

That claim quickly drew a rebuke from Donald Wakeford, an assistant Fulton County district attorney, who said the federal Hatch Act makes clear there is a limitation — by expressly prohibiting government officials from using their roles to influence an election. Wakeford said Meadows saw “no distinction” between his White House work and the Trump campaign.

The day after the hearing, Jones asked the two sides to file briefs explaining their views on whether the law allows for removal if even a single action cited in the indictment is protected by removal provisions, or if all the actions must be. Willis argued they all must be, while Meadows’s attorneys argued the opposite.

One factor that federal removal does not change is the eligibility of defendants for a federal pardon. Because the case will be tried under Georgia statutes, not federal ones, Georgia will retain jurisdiction of the possibility of a pardon, several legal experts said. And in Georgia, that power rests with an appointed board, not the governor. So even if Trump is reelected in 2024, he would not have the power to pardon the Georgia defendants.