Donald Trump wants Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to be taken off of the case linked to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. In October, the Georgia Court of Appeals will hear his case.
On Monday, the court set Oct. 4 as the date for the formal arguments. This is one month before the 2024 presidential election. Trump is likely to be the Republican choice.
Judges Trenton Brown, Todd Markle, and Benjamin Land will hear the arguments. All three were chosen by Republican presidents. They were picked at random from a group of 15 appeals court judges.
“We look forward to presenting arguments before Judges Brown, Markle and Land on why this case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for the trial court’s acknowledged ‘odor of mendacity’ misconduct in violation of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct,” Steven Sadow, Trump’s lawyer, said in a statement obtained from NBC.
Judge Scott McAfee said on March 20 that the case would go forward and Willis could stay as prosecutor. Trump’s lawyers filed the appeal on May 8.
Willis has said that she had a friendship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she chose.
No “actual conflict” was found by the judge, but he or she said that any reasonable person could see signs of one, which could make people less trusting of the prosecutors.
When McAfee said that either Willis or Wade should quit the case, it didn’t take him long to do so.
There is no way that this finding means that the court agrees with this huge mistake in judgment or the District Attorney’s rude behavior during the evidentiary hearing. Instead, the person signing this thinks that Georgia law doesn’t let you find a real conflict for just making bad decisions, even if you do it over and over again. “It is the trial court’s duty to stick to the relevant issues and applicable law that were properly brought before it,” he said.
McAfee let the defense file an appeal before the trial started because the issue “is so important to the case that it should be looked at right away.”
Trump and 18 other people are being charged with state crime for trying to change the results of the 2020 election. Four of the other suspects pleaded guilty as part of deals with prosecutors. The other 15 defendants, including Trump, have pleaded not guilty.
