Georgia court delays trial for allegations of election tampering against Trump.
Trump's supporters aim to get Chief Prosecutor Fani Willis taken off the case. The Court of Appeals will handle an application from the Trump camp, with a hearing scheduled for October 4th. At the same time, the court mandated that the election interference case be put on hold until it decides on Willis's fate.
There's a good chance that no trial against Trump will take place in Georgia before the presidential election on November 8th. Trump is believed to be running again for the Republicans, challenging incumbent Joe Biden from the Democrats.
Trump is charged in Georgia for his attempts to overturn his loss to Biden in the 2020 election. Biden secured a victory in this state, which was instrumental in his overall triumph in the election.
The preparation of Trump's trial and over a dozen other defendants in Georgia has experienced significant delays due to the ongoing conflict about the Chief Prosecutor. Willis had a personal relationship with a special investigator involved in the case, leading to demands from Trump and several of his co-defendants that she be dismissed due to bias.
A judge issued a ruling in March that the special investigator could no longer be part of the case, leaving Willis to carry on. The defenders subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeals.
Trump and his associates are accused by the Georgia prosecutor's office of engaging in a conspiracy to commit fraud and perjury, among other things. The indictment partly stems from an organized crime law.
The case focuses on the infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia's election official Brad Raffensperger, where Trump asked him to "find" the necessary 11,780 votes to win the state.
Apart from Trump, 18 of his associates were charged in Georgia, including his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Four of the co-defendants have already pleaded guilty, avoiding potential prison sentences through a deal with the prosecutor.
Trump employs a delaying tactic in his legal efforts to postpone trials and verdicts as much as possible until after the election. His strategy was unsuccessful in the hush money case: Trump was found guilty by a jury on Thursday of concealing a $130,000 payment to the former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election through the forgery of business documents.
The sentence in this case will be announced by the judge on July 11th. Trump faces the possibility of a prison sentence, but probation or a fine seems more probable. The 77-year-old right-wing populist can still compete for the presidency despite his conviction.
In addition to the case in Georgia, there are two other ongoing criminal charges against Trump - but the timing of trials in these cases remains uncertain.
In one of these cases, it involves Trump's attempts at election manipulation after his defeat in 2020 - the lawsuit before a federal court in Washington concerns Trump's role in the Capitol storming in January 2021. In the second case, Trump is charged by a federal court in Florida for taking classified government documents to his personal residence.
