According to Georgia attorney Ashleigh Merchant, Fani Willis’s complaint against former president Trump for election meddling in 2020 will not go forward before the November 2024 presidential election. Willis warned of the imminent legal action, and last week, Judge Scott McAfee of Georgia gave Trump and his co-defendants a chance to appeal his decision. This meant that Willis could stay on as the presiding judge even if she fired Nathan Wade, the prosecutor. Willis and Wade were allegedly involved in an illicit relationship.
Following Merchant’s description of the case’s appeals process, the matter will be returned to Judge McAfee for further consideration or taken to the Supreme Court to decide if Willis is disqualified. According to her, the trial will neither conclude nor occur before the election.
After Judge McAfee ordered her to resign or have Wade removed from the case, Willis made her first public statement about the matter. Wade resigned shortly after the order was granted, allowing Willis to continue with the case, which she is desperate to see conclude with a Trump conviction.
Before that, Merchant argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg might press charges against Trump for hush money. While she acknowledged that the resolution of Willis’s election interference case is unlikely to occur before the election, she insisted that this specific matter is receiving the attention and priority it deserves.
At a hearing related to Bragg’s probe into alleged hush money payments made by Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the president is expected to appear in a courthouse in downtown New York City.
After much anticipation, Judge Juan Merchan has delayed the start of Trump’s criminal trial until mid-April. This will give the ex-president and his legal team ample time to review the 15,000 documents that the Justice Department has shared as possible evidence from an earlier federal investigation.