Georgia Supreme Court Rejects Blocking Trump Case

Unanimous ruling lets district attorney's investigation into election interference proceed
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 15, 2023 2:50 PM CDT
Updated Jul 17, 2023 7:40 PM CDT
Trump Takes Complaints to Georgia Supreme Court
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right, and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney speak in the Fulton County Courthouse on Tuesday in Atlanta.   (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
UPDATE Jul 17, 2023 7:40 PM CDT

Georgia's Supreme Court quickly and unanimously rejected former President Donald Trump's attempt to put a stop to an investigation into interference in the state's 2020 presidential election results on Monday, just days after the motion was filed. Trump's lawyers asked the court to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case; the ruling said they had not presented the court with "either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Willis's disqualification," per the New York Times. The filing had recognized the unlikelihood of success, and the court rejected every Trump argument, the Hill reports. Eight of the court's nine justices were named by Republican governors, per CNN.

Jul 15, 2023 2:50 PM CDT

Donald Trump has gone to the Georgia Supreme Court to try to shut down Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her investigation of the former president for possible interference in the 2020 presidential election. In their petition filed Thursday, Trump's lawyers seek to have Willis disqualified from the case, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The petition also asks that evidence gathered by a special-purpose grand jury and its final report be quashed. The lawyers want the removal of Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, whom they asked in March to do what they're now asking the Supreme Court to do. McBurney hasn't ruled on that motion yet.

Trump's team cited the lack of a decision by the judge as the reason for going to the state's top court, per the Washington Post. "Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time," the filing says. "But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because petitioner is President Donald J. Trump." Willis' office had no immediate comment on the motion; prosecutors previously have criticized such efforts because no one has been charged with anything yet. The district attorney has provided indications that she might seek an indictment in roughly the first two weeks of August. (More Donald Trump stories.)

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