ATLANTA (AP) — An appeals court could hear arguments in October on the appeal of a lower court ruling allowing the Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis to continue prosecuting the election interference case it brought against former President Donald Trump.
The Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday listed the appeals of nine defendants in the case, saying that “if oral arguments are requested and granted,” they are tentatively scheduled for Oct. 4. The court then has until mid-March to make a ruling. , meaning the election interference case will almost certainly not go to trial before the November general election, for which Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.
The appeal must be decided by a panel of three judges of the Court of Appeal. The judges assigned to the case are Judge Trenton Brown, Judge Todd Markle and Judge Benjamin Land. Once the panel rules, the losing party can ask the Georgia Supreme Court to consider an appeal.
A county grand jury in August indicted Trump and 18 others, 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. It is one of four criminal cases against Trump.
Trump and eight other defendants had sought to remove Willis and her office from the case, arguing that a romantic relationship she had with special counsel 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 “an odor of mendacity lingers.” He said “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 said Willis could only 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.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, said in an emailed statement Monday that his team looks forward to presenting arguments on “why this case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified because of the recognized” smell of mendacity’ from the court. ‘misconduct in violation of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.’
