'Silly notion': Fani Willis laughs off suggestion she pause Trump trial for election

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting the Georgia election racketeering case against former President Donald Trump, rejected the idea she has any responsibility to put the trial on hold to let Trump run for re-election.

In an interview with the Associated Press released Wednesday, she said, “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 that your criminal case would stop."

Willis has charged Trump, along with several allied lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, and John Eastman, and a number of Republican activists and party operatives, with effectively running an organized crime ring to thwart the certification of the 2020 election results in that state.

Since these charges were filed, a number of Trump's co-defendants, including Powell, Chesebro and Ellis, have taken plea deals.

“You can look at the statutes that we charged. It’s a very serious case," said Willis.

"And there are consequences to violating serious laws."

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She added that she doesn't need to coordinate her case with special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting a similar case federally. “A woman in Georgia is able to get evidence, look at the evidence and make charging decisions, and we can actually do it all here in the state of Georgia," she said.

The federal case is currently on hold as the Supreme Court considers whether Trump has presidential immunity from being prosecuted altogether.