Have been hit the hardest. This is the first earthquake of such magnitude to hit the area in more than 100 years. Lets go right to nbc news Foreign Correspondent matt bradley. What do we know about the efforts that are underway . Yes so far we are seeing local authorities and the military trying to bring people out of the wreckage. As you, said the death toll is now at 8000. It was only a couple hours ago the death toll is at 800. A couple hours before it was at 600. As you know from the earthquake that happened in turkey back in february, they have a way of climbing very high after Rescue Workers are able to get in and extracting dead bodies. Thats when we start to see these numbers going up and up. As you mentioned this is a 6. 8 magnitude earthquake according to the geological survey. That is the strongest earthquake to strike this country and 123 years. As you mentioned, this was in the high atlas mountains. About 50 miles away from the historic city america. There was some damage to the center. This earthquake was so strong it was felt throughout the entire country. That is why we are starting to see so much of an increase in the death toll. The problem, is this region of morocco is quite remote, as you mentioned. The whole neighborhood has been flattened. And that is because the housing there just was not prepared for the magnitude earthquake of this size. We are starting to see it. We are seeing from the survey. There is homes built from adobe bricks. Other reinforced concrete. Its not really a good prescription for withstanding an earthquake of this magnitude. Thats why were seeing the numbers escalating. Theyre going to be going up as the days go on. As the rescuer goes on. Hopefully it will be like here in turkey. I was here back in february where we saw the astonishing site of people being brought out of their homes five, six, seven days buried alive but survived. That is the kind of we are going to be hearing of death and Family Members [inaudible] math we will check in with you a little later on. Let us know. Matt bradley covering the earthquake. In Fulton County others were indicted on criminal racketeering charges. We begin with brandnew developments in the cascade of legal actions there in the last 48 hours. Just late last, night a judge denied Mark Meadows Motion to remove his case from State Court To Federal court. This is an early and major loss for trumps former white house Chief Of Staff who try to make the argument that the actions for which he has been criminally charged were performed under his role as a federal official. Thats part of Donald Trumps official campaign or his subsequent campaign to deny the election and stay in Office Despite knowing he lost. That argument was rejected by the judge who wrote in his opinion, quote, in light of the states evidence that meadows undertook actions on behalf of the campaign during the time period of the alleged conspiracy, meadows was required to come forward with competent proof of his factual contention that his actions involving challenges to the outcome of georgias president ial Election Results where within his role as Chief Of Staff. His efforts fall short. Late last night, meadows filed notice that he will appeal the decision of the 11th Circuit Court of appeals. The question is still alive one. It could ultimately affect other defendants in the case. For others, jeffrey clark, david schaffer, sean still and cathy latham have filed the same motion to remove their cases to federal court. Donald trumps lawyers notify the court this week that they may seek to do the same thing in coming days. The judge and meadows case wrote that this decision does not affect the other defendants efforts. The failure of his case does not bode well for him. Thats because some legal experts believe that meadows, as the then Chief Of Staff to the president of the United States had the strongest argument for removing the case to federal court. Meanwhile, a newly Unsealed Grand Jury reports sheds some more light on the sweeping nature of trumps efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 president ial election. 19 people, as i, said were indicted in the criminal racketeering case brought by Fulton CountyDistrict Attorney fani willis last month. As we are learning, the Special Grand Jury that investigated the Election Interference identified and recommended twice as many people for indictment. In its final report, members of the grand jury recommended that 21 additional individuals Face Criminal Charges in the case. All of whom for one reason or another were not ultimately indicted by the prosecutors. The list of 21 individuals includes some bombshells and senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as well as the former United States senators at the time Kelly Loeffler and david perdue are among those who the Special Grand Jury are recommended for criminal charges. The National Security adviser Michael Flynn who once pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador was ultimately pardoned by trump was also on the list. As was borscht abstain, a trump aide who remains a close adviser to the president and the grand jury recommended the indictment of the current Lieutenant Governor bert jones who participated as one of the states 16 fake electors. A judge however blocked fani willis from Investigating Jones because of a Conflict Of Interest because willis had hosted a fundraiser a state agency has said it plans to appoint a Special Prosecutor to determine if Bert Ajou Nze should face charges. Graham, loeffler, and flint have all denied wrongdoing in response to the Special Grand Jurys report. Epstein has declined comment while purdue and jones have not come out with any public statements yet. The names are not particularly surprising, since all the people are known to be hardcore trump acolytes who were openly doing the former president s bidding. They werent charged in the end. The inclusion in the final report reflects the widespread efforts of Donald Trumps desperate and antidemocratic attempts to cling to power. A point was emphasized by the january six committees own investigations. Lets put this into perspective. These were senators and elected officials and white house aides who were exposed to criminal charges due to their associations with a failed and disgraced former. President and in turn, the reputations and legacies have been damaged. All because of their Blind Loyalty to one man. Joining me now is senior official reporter for politico, and fred smith junior, Professor Of Law at Emory University in atlanta, georgia. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Lets start with you, mark meadows who wanted his case moved from federal court to Georgia Court. Why he wanted to do it, and what his case was for doing it . Sure, federal officials who are actually conducting federal business cannot be tried and charged in state court for committing a crime. Thats as long as they were in official duties. And so long as theyve had a federal defense that they could launch. Hear what the judge found, judge jones, he found that although mark meadows was a federal official at the time this took place, he was not conducting official Government Business at the time that he was working to overturn the election. Part of the judges revisiting hinges on the hatch act. Which itself states that when individuals are engaged with official federal business, they cant be engaged in political activities. So to the extent that mark meadows was engaged in political activities, that was beyond the scope of his office. And josh, im not a lawyer so i dont want to say the case was weak, but i have the indictments in front of me. And they discuss the things in there that mark meadows did that seem well beyond the scope of anything that would be done by the Chief Of Staff. However, the judge in the case had put out a question to lawyers, and said if theres even one thing that he actually did that was part of his official duties, for which he is charged, would that be enough to move this to federal court. Either the judge was convinced that no it would not be, or that know everything hes alleged to have done was not Chief Of Staff level. Thats right, i sat through the all day hearing last week down there in atlanta, where meadowss lawyers made their case. And fani willis as prosecutors did their rebuttal. Meadows argument was very, very broad in terms of what qualified as part of his official duties. He ended up arguing at the end of the day that anything capable of distracting President Trump from his official duties was part of meadowss official duties to combat or nip in the bud. You can imagine with somebody like former President Trump that things that could be distracting to him could pretty much be almost anything in the world. You know, anything insulting him as we know, it tends to drive him crazy. That would become an official duty of mark meadows to respond to that. It was a broad lay down from meadows inside. Youre right in pointing to the crucial question here. In the ruling, the judge said he thought the charges did not involve what was at the heart of meadowss official duties. I think as this goes up on appeal, that will be the key question. Was there any part of the indictment that was part of meadows is arguable official duties. I bet you will see Appeals Court judges, and perhaps Even Supreme Court justices have to weigh in on that subject. Fred, there are four other codefendants already making the same motion to have their case removed. Donald trump may also do so himself. He suggested he might. Putting aside donald trump, for the four other defendants, the argument i heard from legal experts is meadowss case was probably the best one. In other words, if someone was gonna get removed, it would be meadows. There are four other codefendants here, a harder case to make. Some were claiming that they were federal officials because they were electors, but they were fake electors. Evaluate that for me. Sure, absolutely. Native idris who filed a motion so far, meadows likely had the best case. The weakest case would certainly be the individuals who were not federal employees, and didnt have any official Government Role at all. The most analogous person it, just might be jeffrey clark. And judge joness opinion would certainly seem to apply to him as well. Including with respect to the hatch act. As you know, President Trumps arguments may look different. Undercurrent individuals who have filed motions, meadows had the strongest case. And jeff clark was a Department Of Justice official, which is the argument that he is making. Josh, the interesting thing about this is meadows presented his case forcefully and strongly. Hes an affable guy. He was in there talking about all the things he allegedly did, but how it doesnt fit into this court. This was a case before the case. And he talked a lot. He gave a lot more testimony than a guy who might be actually be tried in this case. Does not affect him . Does that testimony carry over to the case . He did talk a lot about the things he did. Yes, its usually one of the last things a Criminal Defense Attorney wants to have their client to. To go up on the Witness Stand A couple weeks into a case being filed, and lay out their version of the facts. And then be subject to crossexamination by the same prosecutors that are trying to put that defendant in jail. But thats exactly what mark meadows did. I think it means that his lawyers thought that this removal was the best possible vehicle for him to shut down or come that this prosecution. Because we knew that if the case was moved to federal court, as Professor Smith said earlier, the next thing that would happen would be a motion saying that meadows was immune from federal, or immune from State Prosecution because of his federal duties. And that they saw that as the card that they could play that would essentially shut down the case. So Defense Lawyers were willing to take the risk. The other thing to take into account ali is the central allegation here against meadows involves the recorded phone call. Its sort of difficult to dispute where there is a 62 minute Audio Recording of who said what. You can say what you meant, but you cant dispute what you said. That was a phone call that involve the georgia Secretary Of State. While he wasnt talking the same lingo that donald trump uses that sounds more modeled like, he was trying to implore the Secretary Of State to do something. Fred, this ones for my parents were watching. They will say, theres a whole lot of grand jurys going on here. There is a Special Grand Jury that made recommendations along time ago, then fani willis and her team decided who they were going to indict. They put this thing forward, and they put it to a regular grand jury, and thats what resulted in the indictment. The Special Grand Jury ended up suggesting, or recommending, charges against 21 people who ultimately have not been charged, including, as we said, the United States senator and two former United States senators from georgia. Lindsey graham is the existing United States senator. They were not charge, explain this please for our non legal audience, why they were recommended for charges that were not ultimately filed. One of the things that the prosecutor has to take into account here is what she will be able to persuade a jury Beyond A Reasonable Doubt. What can she prove Beyond A Reasonable Doubt . Notably, with respect to some of the defendants who ultimately were not charged, the grand jury, the Special Grand Jury was more split. One of the things that we can see in this report is how many of the special grand jurors recommended charges. And with respect to some of those defendants, there was a greater split. Its also, you just kind of look at the, sorry, we could go through all 21. We dont have time for that though. Lets start with the first one, only the first one. Cleo mitchell was on that famous phone call, but her language was different. She wasnt employing, she wasnt imploring, she wasnt telling official lies. And stead what she was saying was we have what we think to be this information. We would like more information from you so we can verify our information. This is a very different tone than the former president , who asked the Secretary Of State to find almost 12,000 votes. Gentlemen, i appreciate your analysis. This is really helpful to create clarity for me. Thank you on behalf of our audience. Josh bernstein fort smith junior is a Professor Of Law at Emory University. By the, way of eventually gonna have to stop carrying these ones around. The ones i have printed and put together. You can catch a check out a fully bound addition of the trump indictments, the 91 criminal counts against former president of the United States. It has the four complete indictments against Donald Trumps on september the 25th. You can order it now if you would like. All, right up next, the latest on the legal threat to Donald Trumps president ial candidacy. Ill talk to the ceo of citizens for responsibility and Ethics In Washington. Noah bookbinder, this organization is behind a Lawsuit Seeking To Disqualify Donald Trump from the ballots on the basis of the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States. The next hour i will be talking to this important woman, Janet Griswold, the Secretary Of State and colorado, which has emerged as the epicenter of that disqualification fight. Disquali