By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Georgia appeals court will hear arguments in October on whether Fulton County’s district attorney should be disqualified Fani Willis of prosecuting Donald Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 defeat, a plan that will likely delay that process until after the Nov. 5 election.
The question is whether the accuser is tainted as a result of Willis’ past affair with her former top deputy, whom she hired to work on the investigation.
Trump’s legal team has tried to use the affair as a reason to derail the case, but the judge overseeing the trial said in March that Willis could stay on the case.
The election interference case in Georgia is one of three criminal cases Trump still faces, though all three have been postponed for different reasons.
Last week, Trump became the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime after a New York City jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying company records to make a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in recent weeks to hide. before the 2016 elections.
The Georgia appeals court did not specify when it will hear arguments in October on whether to disqualify Willis, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the case will be heard on October 4.
Willis is also separately expected to ask the court to overturn a lower court ruling that dismissed several charges against Trump in the 2020 election subversion case on the grounds that the indictment was not detailed enough to support those charges .
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Rod Nickel)
