Some of Donald J. Trump’s co-defendants within the election interference case in Georgia started turning themselves in on Tuesday, whereas others tried to get the sprawling legal case moved out of state court docket and into federal court docket.

Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, and David Shafer, the previous head of the Georgia Republican Party, every filed motions on Tuesday asking to have the case moved to federal court docket, simply as Mark Meadows, the previous White House chief of workers, did final week. Those motions lay the groundwork for what would be the first main authorized struggle within the case, which was filed in Superior Court in Atlanta final week.

Most of the defendants, together with Mr. Trump, plan to show themselves on this week, as ordered by Fani T. Willis, the district lawyer of Fulton County, Ga., who’s main the investigation. But Mr. Clark filed a request on Tuesday for an emergency keep, in a bid to keep away from turning himself in on the infamous Atlanta jail the place the defendants are being processed. Mr. Meadows made the same request later within the day.

Another outstanding Trump ally, John Eastman, turned himself in on Tuesday and was booked on the jail. Mr. Eastman, a chief architect of Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse his 2020 election loss, stated in a press release that the indictment “represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”

“As troubling,” the assertion continued, “it targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something attorneys are ethically bound to provide.”

State legal prosecutions may be eliminated to federal court docket underneath a federal statute that permits for such a change of venue if the case includes federal officers and pertains to actions taken “under color” of their workplace. The time period refers to issues achieved in an official capability or as a part of official duties.

Last month, a federal decide rejected Mr. Trump’s efforts to have one other state legal case towards him eliminated to federal court docket. That case, in New York, facilities on Mr. Trump’s function in hush-money funds to an actress in pornographic movies. In his order, Judge Alvin Ok. Hellerstein wrote: “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts.”

If the motions for elimination of the Georgia case are profitable, the defendants would in all probability then argue in federal court docket that they shouldn’t be charged for state crimes, and would base that argument on the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that federal legal guidelines usually take priority over state legal guidelines.

Three of the 19 defendants charged by Ms. Willis had been federal officers on the time of the election: Mr. Trump, Mr. Clark and Mr. Meadows. Mr. Meadows filed a movement on Friday asking a decide to dismiss the costs towards him, based mostly on the Supremacy Clause; on Tuesday, he requested a federal court docket to both “immediately” allow elimination or permit him to keep away from arrest in Fulton County till a listening to on his elimination request early subsequent week.

Mr. Meadows included in his submitting an e mail to his lawyer from Ms. Willis, through which she rejected the concept of letting Mr. Meadows delay turning himself in. “Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction,” she wrote, describing the almost two weeks she had given Mr. Meadows and his co-defendants to give up as “a tremendous courtesy.”

Mr. Clark’s lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, argued in a authorized submitting that his shopper “was a high-ranking U.S. Justice Department official at all relevant times applicable to the Fulton County Action,” including that “the allegations therein relate directly to his work at the Justice Department as well as with the former President of the United States.”

The Fulton County jail is underneath investigation by Mr. Clark’s former employer, the Department of Justice, for allegations of “unsafe, unsanitary living conditions,” using “excessive force and violence,” and a failure to supply sufficient well being companies to detainees.

Mr. MacDougald wrote in a separate movement that “Mr. Clark should not be forced to enter and stay in that jail for any reason.”

Judge Steve C. Jones of United States District Court in Atlanta ordered Ms. Willis’s workplace on Tuesday to answer to the movement for an emergency keep by Wednesday at 3 p.m.

The racketeering indictment obtained by Ms. Willis laid out eight methods the defendants are accused of making an attempt, as a part of a “criminal enterprise,” to reverse the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election: by mendacity to the Georgia legislature, mendacity to state officers, enlisting or appearing as faux pro-Trump electors to bypass the favored vote, harassing election staff, soliciting Justice Department officers, soliciting Vice President Mike Pence, breaching voting machines and interesting in a cover-up.

Mr. Shafer was by no means a federal official, however he was certainly one of 16 Georgia Republicans who sought to forged false Electoral College votes in favor of Mr. Trump on Dec. 14, 2020, after Joseph R. Biden’s victory within the state had been licensed by state officers.

Mr. Shafer’s legal professionals made a novel authorized argument that their shopper had the appropriate to take away the case to federal court docket as a result of, as a “presidential elector,” he was “acting under the authority of the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act,” and was doing so “at the direction of the President and other federal officers.”

Removal to federal court docket would broaden the jury pool for a possible trial. Instead of drawing jurors simply from Fulton County, the place 26 % of voters selected Mr. Trump within the 2020 election, they’d be drawn from a 10-county area that features Fulton together with extra suburban and exurban counties the place Mr. Trump received slightly below 34 % of the vote.

Quite a few authorized specialists say that shifting the Georgia case to federal court docket wouldn’t permit Mr. Trump to pardon himself, if re-elected, after a conviction within the case. The Constitution grants presidents the facility to pardon “offenses against the United States,” however the crimes charged within the Georgia case, wherever they’re tried, are offenses towards the state of Georgia, stated Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional legislation knowledgeable at Georgia State University.

Mr. Meadows, in his submitting final week, stated that actions he took — together with his involvement in a January 2021 cellphone name between Mr. Trump and the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, that was a spotlight of the Georgia investigation — fell inside the scope of his duties as chief of workers to the president.

A listening to on Mr. Meadows’ request is scheduled for Monday at 10 a.m. earlier than Judge Jones, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama.

The filings in federal court docket from Mr. Shafer and Mr. Clark provide among the most forceful pushback to this point towards Ms. Willis and her prosecution.

Mr. Shafer’s submitting asks the federal courts to “bar” the case, which, Mr. Shafer says, “seeks to criminalize the actions of persons acting pursuant to federal authority to achieve the purposes of the national government.”

The submitting continues: “Neither the state of Georgia nor any of its localities has the authority to prosecute Mr. Shafer for these actions, and this court should exercise its clear authority to correct this injustice and halt this unlawful and unconstitutional attempted prosecution now.”

Mr. Shafer’s bond was set at $75,000 on Tuesday. The bonds for Mr. Eastman and for Jenna Ellis, one other of Mr. Trump’s former legal professionals, had been set at $100,000, and for Michael Roman, a former Trump marketing campaign aide, at $50,000.