Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows filed in the Northern District of Georgia to move his charges listed in the ex-president’s fourth indictment to a federal court, where he reportedly plans to ask a judge to dismiss his case under federal law.

“Mr. Meadows is entitled to remove this action to federal court because the charges against him plausibly give rise to a federal defense based on his role at all relevant times as the White House Chief of Staff to the President of the United States,” attorneys for Meadows wrote in the 14-page filing on Tuesday.

Meadows is one of 18 co-defendants named in former President Donald Trump’s Fulton County, Georgia, indictment following a criminal investigation into Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis pursued charging individuals under Georgia’s RICO Act, which allows prosecutors to connect various crimes committed by multiple defendants and argue that they were working together toward a criminal goal — and were part of a “criminal enterprise.”

In the 41-count indictment brought against Trump and his allies, Meadows faces charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute and for soliciting an official to violate their oath of office.

The indictment alleges that Meadows, Trump, and others “unlawfully solicited, requested, and importuned” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, citing a phone call where the former president reportedly tried to pressure the state official to find 11,780 votes.

Meadows denied any wrongdoing in assisting Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results.

“Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President,” the filing states. “One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things.”

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The filing argues the indictment “is precisely the kind of state interference in a federal official’s duties that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits,” which the core of the section states the Constitution and federal laws take priority over any conflicting rules of state law.

Attorneys for Meadows also reportedly stated in the filing that while the former chief of staff intends to file a separate motion to dismiss the indictment, the request to move into federal court would delay state court proceedings.

“Even if the Court is not prepared to dismiss outright at this early stage, however, justice requires granting removal and halting any further state-court proceedings against Mr. Meadows,” the filing said. “That will allow for the timely consideration of Mr. Meadows’s defenses, including his federal defense under the Supremacy Clause, without requiring him to defend himself in state court simultaneously.”

When the indictment was first revealed Monday, the Trump campaign released a statement slamming Fulton County DA Fani Willis as a “rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments.” Willis, the campaign said, “strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign.”

Ryan Saavedra contributed to this report.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen served up some laughs — as well some concerns — in talking about her experience dining on a dish with hallucinogenic mushrooms in China.

In an interview on Monday, CNN’s Erin Burnett pressed Yellen to talk about her experience eating “magic mushrooms” with a group of people at a Beijing restaurant earlier this summer.

“The person who had arranged our dinner did the order and there was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later,” Yellen said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explains eating a dish that contained “magic mushrooms” on her recent trip to China:

“There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later.” pic.twitter.com/WFRe92hHT8

— The Recount (@therecount) August 15, 2023

An amused Burnett asked Yellen if she had any visions, perhaps when she was sleeping. Through a fit of giggles, Yellen insisted that she did not start tripping.

“I read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact,” the secretary said. “But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms — the restaurant and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.”

Some people reacted to the exchange on social media with glee and humor — including NPR correspondent David Gura making a economics joke about how the “effects were transitory” — while others expressed uneasiness or ridiculed the Biden administration official.

“A Biden cabinet member was served hallucinogenic mushrooms in China? Can’t make this stuff up,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said in a post to X.

“Intelligence officers use psychedelics to compromise their targets,” Eric Garland, a self-described geopolitical analyst with nearly 300,000 followers on X, said in a post. “If they targeted Janet Yellen as part of an operation, diplomatic punishments should be swift and harsh.”

Steve Guest, a conservative commentator, observed, “Joe Biden’s America: The Treasury Secretary gets booked on CNN to talk about shrooming while in China,” while the Republican National Committee’s Jake Schneider quipped, “This is a very serious administration.”

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Yellen made the trip to China in early July. She ate at the restaurant — part of a Yunnan food chain called Yi Zuo Yi Wang — shortly after landing in Beijing, according to CNN, which also reported the restaurant later posted to the Chinese social media platform Weibo to share that staff said Yellen “loved” the mushrooms “very much. She ordered four portions of jian shou qing (a Yunnan wild mushroom species). It was an extremely magical day.”

During her interview with the secretary, Burnett noted the chain’s wild mushroom dish has been selling out in locations around China ever since Yellen’s meal at the restaurant “set off a frenzy.”

While in China, Yellen set her focus on discussing issues such as economic competition, national security, and “climate finance.” By the end, she insisted the talks were “productive.”

But Yellen garnered some criticism with the emergence of video footage showing her bowing repeatedly to a Chinese official during the visit to Beijing.