Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly still hoping to start former President Donald Trump‘s Georgia 2020 election interference trial before Election Day, even as she still faces the possibility of being disqualified from the case.
Willis is aiming to push forward with the trial and is expected to ask the judge for the trial to start as soon as this summer, a report from CNN citing three people familiar with Willis’s thinking said. The district attorney had previously asked for an Aug. 5 trial date, which would be three months before Election Day.
While Willis has sought a trial in the coming months, Trump and his co-defendants are still looking to get her disqualified from prosecuting the case against him despite Judge Scott McAfee’s decision to allow Willis to stay on the case. On Wednesday, McAfee gave permission to Trump and seven other co-defendants to appeal his decision.
Willis faces allegations she improperly benefited from hiring special prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom she allegedly had a romantic relationship before she hired him.
Hearings into the case delayed the Georgia prosecution, with McAfee ultimately deciding either Willis or Wade must step aside. Wade resigned from the prosecution the same day the decision was issued, allowing Willis to remain on the case.
Lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants were granted a “certificate of immediate review” by McAfee, but the appeal would still need to be taken up by the Georgia Court of Appeals to proceed.
If the appeals court decides to take up the matter, it could further delay a trial or even remove Willis from the case.
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Trump is facing three other criminal indictments in New York, Florida, and Washington, D.C. His criminal indictment in Manhattan on alleged hush money payments looks most likely to go to trial first, as the trial dates for the federal indictments in the nation’s capital and the Sunshine State are in limbo.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for comment.
