Georgia Court of Appeals Indefinitely Halts Donald Trump’s Fulton County Election Interference Case

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee previously planned to allow pre-trial motions to continue while the appeals court considered whether or not Willis could remain on the case. Now, proceedings in the case have been halted altogether.

On Monday, the appeals court docketed appeals filed by Trump and either co-defendants and said that “if oral argument is requested and granted” it would be tentatively scheduled for October 4, about a month before the presidential election.

While the appeals court could rule on the disqualification issue sooner, it’s unlikely that they will do so before the mid-March 2025 deadline. The losing side would then have to appeal the issue to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Sources close to the case noted that the timeline “remains very uncertain,” according to CNN.

The motion comes after an exhaustive effort from the ex-president and his co-defendants to remove the Fulton County DA from the case.

Trump and some of his co-defendants argued that Willis should be disqualified and claimed she had an inappropriate relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, resulting in a conflict of interest.

Willis was accused of improperly benefitting from her relationship with Wade, and the details were shared in a heated trial in mid-February.

Ultimately, Judge McAfee ruled in March that there was no conflict of interest that would permit Willis to be disqualified from the case. However, he granted a request from Trump and others to appeal his ruling to the Georgia Court of Appeals.

In his March ruling, McAfee wrote, “an odor of mendacity remains. He additionally noted that he had “reasonable questions” about whether or not Wade and Willis were honest about their relationship’s timeline in their testimonies, which “further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”