The Georgia state appeals court on Wednesday stayed criminal proceedings against Donald Trump and his 14 co-defendants for illegal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election until it rules on their request for withdrawal from the prosecutor.
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This decision de facto postpones the holding of a trial in this case until next year, for which no date had yet been set.
The judge at this trial, Scott McAfee, rejected in March the request for dismissal from the prosecutor, Fani Willis, but demanded a reorganization of his team.
The defendants appealed. The state appeals court has scheduled its hearing in the case for Oct. 4, with a decision not expected until 2025.
Photo AFP
Judge McAfee concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a “conflict of interest” linked to the prosecutor’s intimate relationship with an investigator she had hired in the case, Nathan Wade.
But, pointing to “an appearance of inappropriate behavior” and denouncing a “huge lack of judgment” on the part of the prosecutor, the magistrate demanded the withdrawal of the case, either from Fani Willis and her entire team, or from Nathan Wade. The latter presented his resignation a few hours later.
Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, the ex-president and Republican candidate in the November election against his Democratic successor is striving through his multiple appeals to go to trial as late as possible, and in any case after the election.
The New York justice system found him guilty, on May 30, of accounting falsifications intended to hide a payment of $130,000 in order to avoid a sex scandal at the very end of his 2016 presidential campaign, an unprecedented verdict for a former American president. His sentence will be pronounced on July 11.
Donald Trump’s three other criminal trials, the one before the Georgia courts and two at the federal level, however, risk not being able to be held before the vote.
