OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is whining about the idea of postponing the trial of former President Donald Trump in Georgia until after the 2024 election.
The legal team representing Trump has been requesting a postponement of the trial for alleged interference with the 2020 election. However, Willis told the Associated Press that prosecutors around the United States are currently investigating criminal cases and would not stop their inquiries just because someone is running for office.
“If the prosecutor finds that they violated the law, they have an ethical duty to bring forth charges, and so this is a silly notion to me that because one runs from office, your criminal case would stop,” Willis said in her interview with AP this week.
Willis has asked for August 5, 2024, as the date of the trial in the massive case against Trump and the other nineteen defendants.
Ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and ex-White House aide Mark Meadows are among the fourteen people who have pleaded not guilty. He is one of them. Four more have already entered guilty pleas, and Willis told the AP that more could follow.
According to the AP, there is a “significant overlap” between the Justice Department’s investigation and the four indictments that Trump is facing, including the one from Georgia.
Willis stated: “A woman in Georgia can get evidence, look at the evidence, and make charging decisions, and we can do it all here in the state of Georgia.” However, she refrained from discussing whether she had communicated with special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting the federal case.
A former federal prosecutor has weighed in on what she described as a “perplexing” legal move Willis made in her case against Trump.
Previously, Willis scheduled Trump’s trial on racketeering charges related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state for Aug. 5, 2024, which means Trump’s trial will almost certainly extend beyond Election Day, which is Nov. 5 of next year.
As reported by Newsweek, “Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that Willis’s proposed August 5 start date is ‘a little perplexing,’ given that there may be an opportunity to put Trump on trial earlier in the year, especially as Judge Aileen Cannon might delay Trump’s trial for allegedly hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.”
Writing on her Civil Discourse blog, Vance said she’ll be watching to see what Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee does with Willis’ Aug. 5 request.
“With Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida showing signs of being less than committed to her May trial schedule, there might be some room for an earlier date in Georgia, which makes the timing of Willis’ request a little perplexing,” Vance wrote, per Newsweek. “The Mar-a-Lago case is straightforward, and it’s hard to imagine it taking more than several weeks, at the outside, to try. We may gain some insight Friday on when Judge McAfee wants to try his case.”
Willis told the Washington Post’s Live’s Global Women’s Summit on November 13 that she believes Trump’s trial will extend beyond Election Day.
“I believe the trial will take many months. And I don’t expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025,” Willis said. “I don’t, when making decisions about cases to bring, consider any election cycle or an election season.”
If he wins the presidential election next year, Trump would have a range of options to either delay the trials or make them go away, such as pardoning himself. He could also argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that he has immunity and that the cases are interfering with his ability to serve as president, Newsweek reported.
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers told the outlet that the Supreme Court probably would rule to delay the trials until he’s out of office when he’s 82.
“Of course, as with many things Trump, we lack a precedent,” Gillers said. “But I believe that the Supreme Court would order a delay of any state criminal prosecution of a sitting president until the end of his term, regardless of when the alleged crime occurred.”
Trump’s legal teams have been attempting to push his various trials — in New York, Washington, D.C., Florida, and Georgia — beyond the 2024 election. In her remarks at the Post’s event, however, Willis said the presidential election had no bearing on her decision to charge the man who is, by far, the leading GOP candidate for the nomination.
“I don’t, when making decisions about cases to bring, consider any election cycle or an election season,” she said. “That does not go into the calculus. What goes into the calculus is: This is the law. These are the facts. And the facts show you violated the law. Then charges are brought.”
