Arguments in Trump’s Georgia appeal set for October, likely delaying trial

Oral arguments in former president Donald Trump’s appeal of a decision to allow an Atlanta area district attorney to continue prosecuting an election interference case against him is now scheduled for Oct. 4, virtually ensuring that a trial will not begin before the presidential election a month later.

The Georgia Court of Appeals announced Monday that arguments would take place in October in the case. Trump and eight co-defendants are seeking to reverse the trial judge’s decision to keep Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and her office on the case despite their claims that she had engaged in an improper relationship with an outside attorney she had appointed to lead the investigation.

The announcement comes amid significant delays in the two other cases pending against Trump. In early May, a federal judge indefinitely delayed Trump’s Florida trial on charges that he mishandled classified documents and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. In Washington, the federal case alleging Trump broke the law when he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden is on hold, waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity.

That means that Trump’s state trial in New York, which concluded last week with a guilty verdict on all 34 charges that he falsified business records in connection with hush money payments to an adult-film actress in 2016, is likely to be the only criminal case to reach trial status before the Nov. 5 election between the two presumptive nominees, Trump and President Biden.

“We look forward to presenting argument … 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,” said Steve Sadow, Trump’s lawyer in the Georgia case.

A spokesman for Willis declined to comment on the announcement.

Sadow and the other defendants asked the appeals court to reverse a decision by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. The judge said in a March 15 order that Trump and the others had “failed to meet their burden” of proving that Willis’s romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade and allegations that she was financially enriched by trips the two took together were enough of a “conflict of interest” to disqualify her from the case.

The eight other defendants who sought to disqualify Willis and her staff are: former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; former Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani; former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark; former Trump campaign aide Mike Roman; former Trump campaign lawyer Robert Cheeley; two Trump electors from 2020, David Shafer and Cathy Latham; and Harrison Floyd, a former leader of Black Voices for Trump.

All the defendants have pleaded not guilty. Six other defendants are not a party to the appeal. An additional four others initially charged in the far-reaching indictment alleging a conspiracy to attempt to steal the 2020 election in Georgia have accepted guilty pleas.

The appeals judges assigned to the case are Trent Brown, Todd Markle and Ben Land — all from outside of Atlanta, in more conservative portions of the state, which several defense attorneys said was probably good news for the defendants.

The court has two full terms of its proceedings to issue a ruling, a period that would end in the first week of March if the arguments proceed on Oct. 4.

McAfee has continued to hold hearings in the lower-court case since the nine defendants filed their request for an appeal, but defendants are likely to ask the appeals panel to pause those proceedings for the duration of the appeal.

Separately, if Trump wins election in November, his legal team is widely expected to seek to halt the case for the duration of his second term. If he succeeds, it’s unclear if Willis’s office would proceed with the prosecution of the other defendants while Trump is in the White House.