OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:55 PM – Wednesday, June 5, 2024
As it considers Donald Trump’s plea to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Georgia appeals court has halted Trump’s criminal prosecution proceedings, most likely ensuring that the trial will not take place before this year’s election.
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The Georgia Court of Appeals halted proceedings until it decided the requests by Trump and some of his co-defendants to remove Willis from the prosecution due to her relationship with a top prosecutor.
The court’s decision was expressed in a one-page judgment on Wednesday.
The case is not expected to go to trial until after the presidential election, when Trump, the presumed nominee of the Republican Party, hopes to recapture the White House and put an end to his legal issues. Oral arguments are tentatively set for October. There has been no set date for the trial.
The appeals court decided to halt the case while considering whether Willis should be disqualified from prosecuting it due to her romantic affiliation with a senior prosecutor who was also involved in the case.
When Willis and then-prosecutor Nathan Wade took the stand to defend their previous relationship over a series of hearings, it was seemingly clear that it was inappropriate for them to be working together.
In the end, Judge Scott McAfee decided that Willis could continue working on the case as long as Wade stepped down, which he did.
Trump and a number of his co-defendants requested that the appeals court take up their case because they felt the Georgia judge’s ruling was insufficient.
“The Georgia Court of Appeals has properly stayed all proceedings against President Trump in the trial court pending its decision on our interlocutory appeal, which argues the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct,” said Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead Georgia defense attorney.
Trump and a number of his allies are charged with attempting to manipulate Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. The former president entered a not-guilty plea.
In a statement, Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for 2020 Trump campaign operative Michael Roman, who first revealed Willis and Wade’s relationship in an effort to remove the Fulton County district attorney from the case, applauded the appeals court’s ruling.
“We are happy that the Court of Appeals agrees with us that this issue is so important to this entire case that it decided to stop the case from moving forward in the trial court until the issue of whether or not Willis must be removed from the case can be decided,” Merchant stated. “Mr. Roman is innocent, and we hope that this misuse of the justice system will finally come to an end when a disinterested prosecutor takes over the case.”
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