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ATLANTA (CN) — As Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis prepares to announce charges in the coming weeks in her investigation of potential criminal interference with Georgia’s 2020 election, former President Donald Trump has made a last-ditch effort to block the indictment he likely faces.
Chief Judge Ural Glanville recused the entire judicial bench of the Fulton County court from hearing an amended motion filed by Trump’s attorneys that seeks to disqualify Willis’s team and quash the findings from the special grand jury.
The order filed Thursday but made public Friday declared the motion will be heard by “a judge who is not a member of the district” and reassigned the case to Georgia’s Seventh Judicial Administrative District in Cartersville, which oversees 14 counties across the northwestern part of the state.
In the 560-page motion Trump accuses Willis, who is seeking a second term as district attorney in the 2024 election, of using the probe as a way to gain campaign donations and of “fundraising for her reelection campaign on the back of this case.”
Trump’s Atlanta-based attorneys of The Findling Firm and Jennifer Little Law cited an increase in campaign donations to Willis’ reelection campaign, mostly from out-of-state donors, linked to a series of tweets from a Democratic political strategist beginning July 11, 2022.
“She is exactly the kind of candidate we must not only elect but re-elect,” Adam Parkhomenko tweeted, adding in a subsequent post that “Republicans will do everything they can to stop her when she is up for re-election.”
The posts highlighted Willis’s response to Parkhomenko a few days later, in which her campaign account noted its increase in Twitter followers and thanked him for his support. Trump’s legal team added that Willis retweeted a political cartoon depicting Trump “in a negative light” which indicates a conflict of interest that should disqualify her from the case.
“For a district attorney to personally request donations and followers based on the prosecution or investigation of one named individual, especially when it heightens public condemnation of the accused, is clear evidence of conflict,” the motion stated. “The district attorney’s desire to fund her reelection incentivizes her to pursue (Trump) more aggressively than she otherwise might.”
This latest attempt to thwart the investigation comes just four days after the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously declined to hear Trump’s writs of mandamus and prohibition petition and indicated that, had it agreed to do so, the motion would have failed.
In their original motion filed in March, still pending before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, Trump’s attorneys sought to have McBurney, too, removed from the case. They argued his oversight of the special purpose grand jury, which was impaneled by the court last year to hear witness testimony and gather evidence in the probe, was conducted “under an unconstitutional statute” and “through an illegal and unconstitutional process” that violated the former president’s due process rights.
Trump’s attorneys have criticized McBurney for presiding over the swearing-in of two criminal grand jury panels last week, since one is expected to hear Willis’s case sometime before September 1, while the judge has yet to rule on Trump’s motion.
McBurney told reporters that he had volunteered to help with jury selection because the presiding judge who had been scheduled was out on leave.
Willis and one of her deputies responded to the March filing by saying that most of Trump’s arguments to disqualify her and block the special grand jury’s final report “are barred by lack of standing, untimeliness, and other procedural flaws, and any remaining arguments are without merit.” Many legal experts have concurred.
The response from Willis also called Trump’s motion premature before an indictment has been filed. Trump was never subpoenaed to testify before the special purpose grand jury, nor was he given a target letter, although he disclosed Tuesday that special counsel Jack Smith informed him that he is a target of the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
As the first former or sitting U.S. president to be criminally charged, Trump has denounced the investigation and the charges against him in New York and Miami as a “witch hunt.” He’s also used his prosecutions as fuel for his 2024 campaign, portraying himself as a victim of a politically motivated federal justice system.
If early indications hold true, Trump could soon have more of that fuel — and a third indictment, with charges likely related to Georgia’s expansive racketeering statute. In a letter sent to county officials almost two months ago, Willis indicated an indictment could be obtained at some point between July 31 and Aug. 18.
In the letter, Willis asked Chief Judge Glanville not to schedule any trials or in-person hearings during the weeks of August 7 and August 14. She also told the county sheriff to make preparations for “heightened security and preparedness” with state and federal law enforcement agencies — both possible signs that Willis is seeking charges against major political figures who questioned Georgia’s 2020 election results, and possibly even Trump himself.
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