PHOENIX — A judge in a Phoenix courtroom will hear arguments Thursday on whether President Donald Trump’s former campaign chief Mark Meadows’ allegations in an Arizona fraudulent electoral college should be moved to federal court.

Meadows asked a federal judge to transfer the case to a U.S. district court, arguing that his actions were taken while he was a federal official and Trump’s chief of staff and that he is entitled to immunity under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that federal law supersedes state law.

The former campaign chief, who faces charges in Arizona and Georgia over an alleged illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, unsuccessfully tried to bring state charges in federal court last year to overturn the Georgia election results.

Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office, which brought the case in Arizona, asked the court to deny Meadows’ motion, arguing that he had missed a deadline to ask the court to move the charges to federal court and that his campaign activities were not part of his official role in the White House.

Prosecutors said that while Meadows was not a fake elector in Arizona, he worked with other members of the Trump campaign to submit the names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in an attempt to keep Trump in power despite his defeat in November 2020.

In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

Last year, Meadows tried to have his charges moved from Georgia to federal court, but his motion was rejected by a judge whose ruling was later affirmed by an appeals court. The former chief of staff later asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.

The Arizona indictment also said Meadows confided in a White House staffer in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election. Prosecutors say Meadows also set up meetings and phone calls with state officials to discuss the fake electoral conspiracy.

Meadows and the other defendants are seeking to have the case dismissed in Arizona.

In their motion, Meadows’ lawyers argued that nothing their client allegedly did in Arizona was a crime. They said the indictment consists of allegations that he received messages from people trying to pitch their ideas to Trump — or “attempting to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal actions of the President’s campaign.”

A total of 18 Republicans were indicted in late April in the Arizona electoral fraud case. Those charged include 11 Republicans who filed a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona, another Trump adviser, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and four other lawyers with ties to the former president.

In early August, Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to her charges being dismissed. Republican Party activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

Meadows and the other defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of forgery, fraud and conspiracy in Arizona.

Trump has not been charged in Arizona, but the indictment names him as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Eleven Arizona Republican Party electoral nominees met on December 14, 2020, in Phoenix to sign a certificate declaring that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and that Trump won the state in the 2020 election.

A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges in connection with voter fraud.