Voter fraud
Success for Trump: Trial in Georgia is delayed
Prosecutor Fani Willis testifies during a hearing in the election fraud trial against former President Donald Trump in Georgia. photo
© Alyssa Pointer/AP/dpa
Former President Trump is accused of attempted election fraud in Georgia. But recently the focus has been on the public prosecutor. Trump wants them to withdraw. Now an appeals court is getting involved.
Further legal success for ex-president Donald Trump: An appeals court will address the question of whether the lead prosecutor in the election fraud case against Trump in the US state of Georgia can continue her investigation. The court in Atlanta announced that it would grant Trump’s request. This is likely to delay the possible start of the trial.
In March, a court ruled that prosecutor Fani Willis did not have to be removed from the case. The evidence from the other side was not sufficient to prove Willis had a conflict of interest, ruled the responsible judge, Scott McAfee.
Trump and several others are facing charges in Georgia over their attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in the state. The Republican had lost to Democrat Joe Biden at the time. Trump is accused of attempting to subsequently change the election results by, among other things, putting pressure on political leaders at the federal level and in states such as Georgia.
Procedure could collapse
The focus of the proceedings in Georgia was recently on prosecutor Willis. Lawyers for Trump and other defendants accused her of improperly benefiting financially from a relationship with another prosecutor in the case. The allegation was that prosecutor Nathan Wade was overpaid in his position and invited Willis on luxury vacations together. Willis rejected that. Judge McAfee ruled that there was an “appearance of impropriety” in the relationship and that it needed to be addressed. Wade then withdrew from the proceedings.
It is unclear when the Georgia appeals court will make a decision. This can then be appealed to the state Supreme Court. If Willis were removed from the case, the proceedings could collapse.
Trump was able to achieve legal success on Tuesday. In the affair surrounding the taking of secret government documents, the official start of the trial against him in Florida was postponed indefinitely. In total, Trump is charged in four criminal cases – in addition to the cases in Georgia and Florida, another election fraud case is ongoing in the US capital Washington and a hush money case in New York. This is the only trial against Trump that has officially begun so far. Trump has been sitting in the courtroom for hours on a regular basis for weeks. After the US presidential election in November, he would like to move into the White House again.