An appeals court gave former President Donald Trump at least a temporary victory on Wednesday when it agreed to review a lower court ruling that will allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the former president’s criminal case in Georgia.
Trump has argued Willis’ prosecution of him is political and his legal team attempted to remove her from the case in March.
Willis had a lengthy romantic relationship with Fulton County prosecutor Nathan Wade, which both parties acknowledged.
Trump and other people being tried by Willis scrutinized the DA’s personal life and finances, but Superior Court Judge Scot McAfee ruled in April that Willis could stay on the case.
Arguments that the relationship and financial arrangements between the two constituted a conflict of interest resulted in Wade stepping away from leading their charge to convict Trump.
McAfee offered Trump the option to appeal his ruling and the former president’s legal team did just that.
CNN reported that Georgia’s Court of Appeals announced Wednesday morning that it would hear an appeal to McAfee’s decision.
Steve Sadow, an attorney for Trump, told CNN the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee “looks forward to presenting interlocutory arguments to the Georgia Court of Appeals as to why the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct in this unjustified, unwarranted political persecution.”
Willis’ office did not comment on the appellate court’s decision.
Will Trump beat the Fulton County charges?
As Fox News noted, McAfee ruled in March that Trump and other targets of Willis’ prosecution “failed to meet their burden of proving that the District Attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.”
McAfee concluded:
“However, the established record now highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team — an appearance that must be removed through the State’s selection of one of two options.”
Those options were either Willis’ office or Wade walking away from the case.
As CNN noted, no trial date in Georgia has been set.
Trump received good news on Tuesday when the federal judge overseeing the Justice Department’s classified documents case against him must be postponed indefinitely.
Judge Aileen Cannon wrote in a five-page ruling, “[F]inalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and [classified evidence] issues … would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions,” Politico reported.
The news, coupled with the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court is still deciding on the issue of presidential immunity affecting both of DOJ special counsel Jack Smith’s cases against Trump, likely means neither trial will begin before the November election.
The DOJ has also slapped Trump with conspiracy charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, protest outside the U.S. Capitol that resulted in a brief incursion of the building.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in both Willis’ case against him and Smith’s two federal cases against him.
The former president was in court in New York City Wednesday for the ongoing so-called “hush money” trial he faces.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 felony counts of “falsifying business records” related to payments former adult film actress Stormy Daniels, which she said she received from Trump’s campaign in 2016 to stay quiet about an affair she alleged she had with him almost two decades ago.
Trump has denied the affair. Daniels currently owes the former president hundreds of thousands of dollars after a court ruled she defamed him, NBC News reported.
