Trump Seeks Court Order to Disqualify Prosecutor and Dismiss Grand Jury’s Work in Election Interference Investigation
In a new legal move, Donald J. Trump has sought a court order to throw out the work of an Atlanta special grand jury and disqualify Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor leading an investigation into election interference in Georgia. The decision on potential indictments looms in the investigation, which has been ongoing for over two years.
Ms. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, has indicated that the decision will be made in the first half of August. In preparation for potential charges, she recently requested judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse not to schedule trials during that time.
Mr. Trump’s attorneys have made their request in a filing to Georgia’s Supreme Court. They are urging the court to dismiss the evidence gathered by the special grand jury. While the Georgia Supreme Court is predominantly Republican, the Trump legal team acknowledged that their latest action is a long shot, admitting that they have not found a similar case where the court has intervened in this manner in the past 40 years. However, they argued that this particular case is unprecedented.
The investigation has been examining whether the former president and his allies illegally interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, where Mr. Trump lost narrowly to President Biden. The special grand jury heard evidence for seven months and recommended indictments for more than a dozen individuals. In an interview with The New York Times in February, the forewoman of the grand jury strongly suggested that Mr. Trump was among those to be indicted. To proceed with charges, Ms. Willis now needs to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.
The filing by Trump’s legal team raises several legal concerns regarding Georgia law related to special grand juries and the usage of a special grand jury in this particular inquiry. The attorneys representing Mr. Trump, including Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg, and Jennifer Little, assume that their client will be charged. They argue that Ms. Willis is seeking an indictment based on evidence unlawfully obtained during the special grand jury’s proceedings.
The district attorney’s office has not provided an immediate comment on the latest filing.
Intervening in a potential criminal case before an indictment is filed is a complicated matter. In March, Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed a motion to quash a significant portion of the collected evidence and remove Ms. Willis from the investigation. However, the Superior Court judge overseeing the case, Robert C.I. McBurney, has yet to rule on the motion, frustrating the Trump legal team.
In their filing to the State Supreme Court on Friday, the lawyers wrote, “Stranded between the Supervising Judge’s protected passivity and the District Attorney’s looming indictment, Petitioner has no meaningful option other than to seek this Court’s intervention.” They believe that the abnormal and unreasonable processes are due to the fact that their client is former President Donald J. Trump.