A year later, sprawling Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump has stalled
Aug 13, 2024, 6:46 AM
FILE - Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. People connected with former President Donald Trump’s legal cases have been inundated with threats. In Atlanta, Willis, who brought criminal charges against Trump and 18 other people alleging they schemed to illegally overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, is known to be accompanied by round-the-clock bodyguards. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
ATLANTA (AP) — A year after a Georgia grand jury accused Donald Trump and others of illegally trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state, the case has stalled with no chance of going to trial before the end of this year.
When Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis secured the indictment a year ago Thursday, it was the fourth and most sprawling of the criminal cases against the former president. Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden, and Willis used Georgia’s anti-racketeering law to allege that he and 18 others had participated in a wide-ranging scheme to subvert the will of the state’s voters.
Willis’ team notched some early victories in the case, but explosive allegations raised by one of Trump’s co-defendants early this year have caused a delay and could even derail the prosecution.
Here are some things to know about the case.
Nearly 100 pages long, the indictment included 41 criminal counts against Trump and 18 others. High-profile people charged along with the former president include his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and conservative attorney Sidney Powell.
All of the defendants were charged with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law and the indictment includes 161 alleged acts to support that charge. The narrative put forth by prosecutors alleges multiple people committed separate crimes to accomplish a common goal — challenging Trump’s electoral loss.
The indictment includes charges related to a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump urged the state’s top elections official to help him “find” the votes he needed to win. Other charges have to do with a getting a slate of Republican electors to falsely declare that Trump won the state, allegations of harassment of a Georgia election worker and a breach of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.
The judge overseeing the case in March dismissed six counts in the indictment, including three of the 13 counts against Trump. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote that prosecutors had failed to provide enough detail about the alleged crime in those counts. Willis’ team has appealed that ruling.
When Trump arrived in Atlanta last August to be booked on the charges against him, he was quickly released on bond. But his brief stop at the Fulton County Jail marked the first time that a former president has had to sit for a mug shot.
While Trump and the others indicted all had to be booked at the jail, they waived their first court appearances. While his lawyers have been present and made arguments at numerous hearings over the last year, Trump has yet to set foot in a Georgia courtroom.
Four of the 18 people charged along with Trump in Georgia pleaded guilty to lesser charges after reaching plea deals with prosecutors within a few months of the indictment.
Bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in September. Prosecutors had accused him of participating in a breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County.
The following month, Powell and lawyer Kenneth Chesebro each pleaded guilty. Powell was also accused in the Coffee County breach, while Chesebro had helped organize the Republican elector plan. The two of them reached deals with prosecutors just before they were scheduled to go to trial, having asserted their rights to a speedy trial.
Days later, attorney Jenna Ellis, a vocal part of Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020, entered a tearful guilty plea.
In early January, a lawyer for co-defendant Michael Roman, a Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide, alleged in a court filing that Willis had improperly engaged in a romantic relationship with lawyer Nathan Wade, whom she had picked to lead the prosecution against Trump and the others.
The court filing alleged that Willis benefitted financially from the case since Wade used his earnings to take her on trips. It said that caused a conflict of interest and that Willis and her office should be removed from the case. Willis and Wade acknowledged the relationship but said they had split travel and other costs.
During an extraordinary hearing, intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court and broadcast live on television. Judge McAfee chided Willis for a “tremendous lapse in judgment” but found no conflict of interest that merited her removal, as long as Wade left the case. Wade resigned hours later.
Trump and other defendants have appealed McAfee’s ruling. That appeal is currently pending before the Georgia Court of Appeals, which plans to hear arguments in December and then must rule by mid-March. Meanwhile, the appeals court has barred McAfee from taking any further action in the case against Trump and the others participating in the appeal while it is pending.
It’s not entirely clear.
Regardless of how the Court of Appeals rules, the losing side will likely ask the Georgia Supreme Court to weigh in. That would cause a further delay.
The general election in November, in which Trump is the Republican nominee for president, provides more uncertainty. Even the appellate courts ultimately decide that Willis can remain on the case, it seems unlikely she would be able to move forward with the prosecution against Trump while he’s president if he wins the election.
Complicating things further, the U.S. Supreme Court last month ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for official acts that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” and are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official acts. They are not protected for unofficial, or private, actions.
Trump’s lawyers in Georgia had already filed a motion earlier this year asserting presidential immunity. If Willis is allowed to continue her prosecution at some point, his lawyers will surely use the Supreme Court ruling to argue it should be dismissed.
