By Jack Queen

Charges against Donald Trump’s onetime chief of staff Mark Meadows over efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election will not be heard in federal court, a sign that similar bids by the former U.S. president and his co-defendants to move the criminal case to a more favorable venue will fail.

Friday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones denying Meadows' request to move his case from state to federal court is an early win for Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors, who in August charged Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn Trump's 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Trump, the frontrunnner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

Meadows is accused of arranging calls and meetings in which prosecutors say Trump pressured election officials to change the vote count in his favor, including a call where he urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to deliver him the state.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh)