Appeals court halts Trump’s criminal proceedings in Georgia amid scrutiny of Fani Willis

A Georgia appeals court has halted all pretrial proceedings in Donald Trump’s Atlanta-based criminal case while a three-judge panel considers whether to disqualify the lead prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The order issued Wednesday effectively confirms that the sprawling racketeering case against Trump and more than a dozen codefendants — charging them with an attempt to corrupt Georgia’s 2020 election results — will not come before a jury in 2024.

The case had already seemed like a longshot to go to trial before this year’s presidential election, with a long list of complicated pretrial matters still pending before Judge Scott McAfee. The Georgia appeals court order blocks McAfee from advancing those issues while Trump and other defendants mount an appeal over allegations of ethical lapses by Willis. That appeal is scheduled for oral arguments on Oct. 4, with a decision from the appellate court likely to take several months after that.

For Trump, it’s another vindication of his well-worn strategy to delay his criminal cases until after the election. If he prevails in November, he’s unlikely to face the Georgia case until 2029 — if at all — because many legal experts believe a state cannot constitutionally prosecute a sitting president. As president, Trump would also have the power to unravel the other two languishing criminal cases against him, both brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Trump and several codefendants have accused Willis of a conflict of interest that warrants her office’s removal from the case. They cited her romantic relationship with a top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, whom she hired to help lead the investigation. McAfee rejected the disqualification bid but forced Wade off the case and excoriated Willis’ judgment. Trump appealed McAfee’s decision allowing Willis and the rest of her office to remain on the case, leading to Wednesday’s formal stay by the appeals court.

Trump was convicted last week by a Manhattan jury of orchestrating a hush money scheme to silence porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign from telling her story of having had sex with Trump a decade earlier. He’s slated to face sentencing in July.

Whether Trump faces any other criminal trials in 2024 now depends almost entirely on his own appointed judges.

In Florida, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has extended a baffling series of scheduling decisions that seem likely to result in postponing that case — which concerns allegations that Trump hoarded national security secrets at his Mar-a-Lago compound after leaving office — into 2025. And in Washington, the Supreme Court is weighing Trump’s claim to be immune from Smith’s other prosecution, which charges Trump with conspiring to subvert the 2020 election and disenfranchise millions of voters.

The high court is due to rule on the immunity question this month, and if the justices permit the case to advance, it will return to the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has signaled her interest in advancing to trial expeditiously.