OAN Staff Abril Elfi
5:09 PM – Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested that the Georgia appeals court restores six of her original criminal counts against former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election interference case.
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On Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported that Willis had filed a brief to the appeals court requesting to overturn Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee’s decision to dismiss charges against Trump and his co-defendants.
In March, McAfee had dismissed six of the charges against Trump, arguing that Willis failed to allege enough detail.
McAfee also dismissed two other charges last month, maintaining that Georgia prosecutors and Willis did not have the authority to bring the charges, which related to the alleged filing of false documents in federal court.
However, the judge did uphold the racketeering charge in the case, which was brought against all 19 defendants.
Willis said in her court brief that the trial court “erred by quashing six counts of the indictment in this case.”
“The indictment more than sufficiently placed Cross-Appellees on notice of the conduct at issue and allowed them to prepare an intelligent defense to the charges,” Willis argued, adding that her indictment “included an abundance of context and factual allegations.”
“The court should reverse the trial court’s order and reinstate counts 2, 5, 6, 28, 36, and 38 of the indictment,” she continued.
Due to Willis’s secret romantic affair with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor the DA’s office that was hired to assist in overseeing the trial, Trump and the other defendants are attempting to have Willis removed from the case.
According to the Georgia Recorder, the Georgia Court of Appeals anticipates making a decision regarding the president’s request to remove Willis over the course of the next several months.
The charges against Willis were initially revealed in a motion that Michael Roman’s former White House assistant and former Trump campaign member, Ashleigh Merchant, filed early in January. The motion maintained that Wade and Willis were having an improper romantic relationship.
During their long-term affair turned relationship, as Wade was allegedly still married to his previous wife when it started, Willis was heavily overpaying Wade for his job duties while she took equal advantage by benefiting from vacations Wade paid for that she claims she would later reimburse him for.
In August, Trump and 18 other individuals were indicted on charges of allegedly engaging in an extensive plot to unlawfully reverse his narrow defeat to Democrat candidate Joe Biden in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. The defendants were all accused of breaking Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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