ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia appeals court on Monday canceled oral arguments scheduled for next month on the appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to dismiss the case could continue to prosecute the election interference case it brought against the president. -elect Donald Trump.
Trump and other defendants had asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to hold oral arguments in the case, and the court set those arguments for December 5. But in a one-line order without further explanation, the appeals court said the hearing “is hereby canceled until further order of this court.”
A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and eighteen others in August 2023, accusing them of participating in an elaborate scheme to illegally attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
But with Trump returning to the White House in January, the future of the case against the former president was already in question, even if the Court of Appeals ultimately says Willis should not be disqualified.
Trump and other defendants filed an appeal to have Willis and her office removed from the case and the case dismissed. They allege that a romantic relationship Willis had with Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. Supreme Court Justice Scott McAfee ruled in March that there was no conflict of interest that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request by Trump and the other defendants to appeal his ruling to the Court of Appeals.
McAfee wrote that “reasonable questions” about whether Willis and Wade had testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship “further support the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportionate efforts to remedy it.” He only allowed Willis to stay on the case if Wade left, and the special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.
The allegations that Willis had wrongfully profited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous few months in the case, as intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal life were aired in court in mid-February.
