ATLANTA (CN) — The Georgia Court of Appeals decided Wednesday to hear Donald Trump's appeal of a judge’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain the head prosecutor in the election interference case against the former president.
While the court did not announce when it will hear oral arguments, the decision portends a significant delay of a trial that prosecutors sought to begin in August — before the 2024 election and rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Pretrial, or interlocutory, appeals typically are assigned to a three-judge screening panel. It takes the agreement of only one of those judges to decide whether the court accepts the appeal. The court’s one-page order did not indicate which judge or judges voted to grant the application.
The trial judge, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, said he would continue addressing other pending pretrial motions while the appeals court takes up the challenge.
On March 29, McAfee issued a “certificate of immediate review,” allowing Trump and seven other defendants to appeal his ruling permitting Willis to continue prosecuting the case.
The judge ruled that the defendants failed to meet their burden to prove that Willis’ relationship with the special prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade, was enough of a conflict of interest to merit her disqualification from the case. He did, however, find an “appearance of impropriety" that led to Wade's withdrawal from the case.
Also on Wednesday, the Court of Appeals rejected a separate appeal from Harrison Floyd, one of Trump’s 14 co-defendants accused of joining a conspiracy to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat to Biden in Georgia and other swing states.
Floyd, the onetime head of Black Voices for Trump, argued that Willis' office did not have jurisdiction to indict him because the investigation had not been referred by the state election board. McAfee rejected Floyd's argument in January and again in March.
While Trump is currently on trial in New York on charges related to hush-money payments, it remains unclear when the Fulton County case, as well as the two federal criminal cases against him, will go to trial.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon canceled the May 20 trial date that had been set for Trump’s mishandling of classified documents case in Florida due to unresolved motions. The move indefinitely postponed the federal case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, shoring up the chances that trial won't begin before Election Day.
Smith’s other case against Trump, which mirrors the Georgia case and focuses on the Republican’s attempts to cling to power following the 2020 election, is also on pause as the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether his actions were shielded by presidential immunity.
The justices aren’t expected to announce their decision on the matter until late June, but based on their comments during last month’s oral arguments, a ruling sending it back for litigation by the lower courts seemed likely, further delaying the trial that was scheduled to begin in March.
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