Georgia’s Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that it will hear oral arguments for Donald Trump’s appeal to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from his election interference case after the presidential election has already taken place.
In a new order, the court scheduled the proceedings for December 5. As a result, the case likely will not resume until well into 2025, if at all. If Trump is reelected to the White House, the case against him would be postponed until his term ends in 2029—or possibly longer.
Earlier this month, the court ordered a stay in Trump’s election interference case pending the outcome of several appeals from Trump and his co-defendants seeking to remove Willis from the case, appealing a lower court decision to keep her on.
Since then, the Supreme Court has issued a ruling on Trump’s immunity, making it impossible to prosecute any president for what they claim to be “official acts” taken in office. One of Trump’s attorneys has already started claiming that Trump and his allies’ fake elector scheme constituted an “official act.”
In a sneaky footnote in Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion, the court also affirmed that a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted, meaning that should Trump be elected again, all of his criminal trials will come to an abrupt end.
The Georgia court’s decision comes a day after Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump’s classified documents case in Florida. Cannon ruled that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
