ATLANTA (CN) — The Georgia Court of Appeals said on Tuesday that it will hear oral arguments Dec. 5 on the appeal seeking to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the election interference case against former President Donald Trump and others.
The scheduled date puts much of the case on hold until a month after the 2024 presidential election.
When the appeals court agreed to hear the case in early June, it initially set oral arguments for Oct. 4, but changed the date due to a scheduling conflict.
Under Georgia’s Constitution, the judges assigned to the case — Judges Todd Markle, Trenton Brown and Benjamin Land, all appointees of Republican governors — must rule on the matter within two terms of the court, which would be by mid-March 2025. After the panel issues a decision, the losing side could ask the Georgia Supreme Court to consider an appeal.
In early June, the appeals court issued an order halting lower-court proceedings involving Trump and eight of his co-defendants also pursuing the appeal pending its outcome.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case, said he wanted to continue moving ahead on matters involving the other remaining six defendants not taking part in the appeal for the sake of efficiency.
However, the court subsequently stayed proceedings against co-defendant Misty Hampton, the former Coffee County elections supervisor, who argued her prosecution should also be paused in case Willis ends up being removed.
The appeal comes after McAfee ruled in March that the defendants failed to prove that Willis’ personal 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.
Defense counsel argued Wade’s resignation was insufficient to counter the appearance of impropriety because Willis acquired a personal stake in the prosecution.
Willis’ office launched the criminal investigation in 2021. Trump was charged with racketeering and a dozen other felonies under the indictment brought last August against him and 18 of his allies. It claims they “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” in Georgia and other battleground states after the 2020 election. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
The case is one of four criminal cases brought against Trump, which as of recently have all seen favorable developments for the former president as he has officially secured the Republican nomination.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee in Florida, dismissed Trump’s classified documents case against Trump and ruled that the special prosecutor who brought the charges, Jack Smith, was improperly appointed. But the U.S. Department of Justice has said they plan to appeal.
Smith was also appointed to lead the investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which remains active in federal court in Washington, though the U.S. Supreme Court’s July ruling that former presidents have absolute immunity for official acts increases the chances of the case being delayed until after the November election.
Trump’s sentencing for the 34 felony counts he was convicted of in Manhattan for falsifying business records to cover up a sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels is set for two months before the election in September.