Donald Trump and others are being charged with election interference in Georgia. They were back in court last week for a hearing about pre-trial legal problems. That could have made it seem like the case over whether or not District Attorney Fani Willis should be fired is over. Willis and her office could still be kicked off the case, though.
That was brought up again on Friday when a defense appeal was filed in the case. Remember that last month, Judge Scott McAfee pretty much found a middle ground when he said that Willis could stay on the case as long as special counsel Nathan Wade, with whom she was seeing, quit. That’s what took place. But McAfee also gave the defenders a chance to question his decision.
Now we wait to see if the state appeals court will decide to hear it. The court has 45 days from Friday to decide. As the hearing from last week shows, the case will continue for now, but this important problem will remain.
In their request to appeal, Trump and his co-defendants mentioned McAfee’s negative comments about Willis and Wade, which they thought were good. But they said that the judge got the law wrong when he looked at the damning evidence. Willis and her office will not be involved in the case if the state appeals court accepts.
Given how unclear the state law seems to be about dismissal, it’s possible that the court will take up the case. Of course, that would make it even less likely that the election fraud case in Fulton County will be tried when it is supposed to be. Right now, there is no trial date.
For people who are following all four of Trump’s criminal cases, this doubt makes it seem even more certain that his first trial, in April, in the New York hush money case. There are also some unknowns, like U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s unusual handling of the classified documents case and the Supreme Court’s impending immunity review in the federal election-related case. This shows that even if the New York case goes first, it’s still not clear which case, if any, will go second.
