Georgia appeals court cancels hearing to disqualify Fani Willis from Trump RICO case

11/29/2024 / By Belle Carter

The Dec. 5 hearing to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the RICO case against President-elect Donald Trump has been canceled.

In a one-line order with no further explanation, the appeals court said that the hearing “is hereby canceled until further order of this Court.” Willis is still on the case, thanks to a ruling earlier this year from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

In Aug. 2023, Trump was indicted along with 18 others for allegedly participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.

Trump and the other defendants filed the appeal, requesting to get Willis and her office removed from the case and to have the case dismissed. They cited her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade as a conflict of interest.

In March, McAfee found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case. He granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the Court of Appeals.

McAfee wrote that “reasonable questions” over whether Willis and Wade had testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship “further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”

Also, the allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous couple of months in the case as intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February. The special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.

POTUS is immune from criminal and civil actions

Analysts weighed in on the possible scenarios concerning Trump’s criminal and civil cases following his victory in the recently concluded presidential election.

Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain followed all these cases and provided the status of his indictments. According to Germain, the Department of Justice has issued two detailed memorandum opinions, one in 1973 and another in 2000, discussing a sitting president’s scope of immunity from criminal and civil actions. This means that a sitting president cannot be indicted, prosecuted or jailed for a criminal claim while in office.

“So, it is clear that the federal prosecutions brought by Jack Smith will not continue, even if Trump did not pardon himself or cause Smith to be removed from office and replaced with a loyal alternative,” the professor said of Special Legal Counsel Jack Smith’s case on federal election interference.

He added that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling stated that a president’s pardon power is unlimited, even suggesting that the corrupt sale of pardons would not affect their validity.

“I have no doubt that the Supreme Court majority would uphold a self-pardon. So there seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the president-elect’s ongoing civil cases include his Manhattan defamation case where E. Jean Carroll claimed Trump sexually attacked her in a department store in the 1990s. She also said Trump’s denials and attacks constituted defamation. Trump posted a bond and obtained a stay pending appeal, and the case is currently being appealed.

Another is his New York financial statement fraud case. Attorney General Letitia James brought civil claims against Trump for disgorgement of gains realized using an inflated personal financial statement. (Related: Trump lawyer Mike Davis fires warning shot at NY AG Letitia James: Continue your lawfare against Trump, and “we will put your fat *ss in prison.”)

State Court Judge Arthur F. Engoron awarded James $363,800,000 in damages, which now amounts to over $450,000,000 with interest. The court also barred Trump and other executives from being officers of a New York corporation and appointed a receiver to liquidate Trump’s company.

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Watch the video below that talks about the cancelation of the oral arguments to disqualify Fani Willis from Trump’s RICO case.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.