Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 7, 2023.
Scott Morgan | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump asked two courts in Georgia to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from investigating him and quash the special grand jury report that really helpful criminal charges in Willis’ 2020 election interference probe.
The requests got here in court documents filed overnight in Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court. In each, Trump’s attorneys argued that Willis “seeks an indictment” against Trump based on evidence that was “unlawfully obtained.”
The filings got here three days after Fulton County Superior Court empaneled two grand juries that would soon resolve whether to charge Trump and his allies over their efforts to reverse his loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia’s 2020 election.
Willis has indicated that indictments related to the probe could are available August.
These newly seated grand juries are separate from the special purpose grand jury which heard evidence and testimony from dozens of witnesses last yr. That grand jury submitted a final report, most of which remained under seal as of Friday.
The special grand jury didn’t have the facility to indict, and Willis was not required to follow its recommendations. The 2 recently empaneled grand juries in Fulton County do have the facility to indict, nonetheless.
They are going to meet twice every week throughout the term to listen to quite a few cases and choose whether to return a “true bill” of indictment or issue a “no bill” and drop the case.
Attorneys for Trump noted of their petition to the Georgia Supreme Court that they’d asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in March to quash the special grand jury report and disqualify Willis.
McBurney has not yet issued a ruling, and Trump’s attorneys fearful that an indictment could arrive before he delivers one. But, they argued that this may leave Trump “struggling to disentangle himself from a net that was not lawfully solid.”
The lawyers acknowledged that it was highly unusual to make a request on to the state’s supreme court, which reviews decisions made by lower courts. But, they argued that Trump’s status as a former president and a candidate in 2024 merited special consideration.
“If Petitioner’s case will not be sufficiently extraordinary for this Court to exercise jurisdiction, no case could possibly be,” they wrote.
A spokesman for Willis’ office declined to comment. Trump’s attorneys didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment from CNBC on the filings. The Atlanta Journal-Structure first reported on the court filings.
Within the weeks following the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his allies attempted to change the vote tallies in key swing states, including Georgia, that Biden won by relatively small margins of votes.Â
In several states, Republicans submitted certificates falsely claiming that Trump had won their states’ electoral votes, and insisting that a hand picked slate of faux electors be permitted to solid electoral votes for Trump.
Not less than eight of those fake electors have been granted immunity by Willis as a part of the Georgia probe, in response to court filings in May of this yr.
If Trump is indicted by a Georgia grand jury, it could be the third case through which the Republican 2024 presidential frontrunner is facing prosecution.Â
Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan in March for allegedly falsifying business records. Three months later, he was charged in federal court in Florida with mishandling classified documents. In each cases, Trump has pleaded not guilty.
