Donald Trump's election interference trial in Georgia has been postponed again, with many critics laying the blame on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who oversees the case but now faces possible disqualification over her personal relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Trial judge Scott McAfee ruled in March that the case could go ahead, despite the relationship, but then the Georgia Court of Appeals took up the case, issuing an order Wednesday that ground proceedings to a halt.
This is not the only Trump case where the former president might not have to endure a trial before the November election. In Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon has been accused of stalling to Trump's benefit, while in Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court is considering whether to limit when former presidents might be prosecuted, delaying his federal election interference case.
But in Georgia, "the DA has no one to blame but herself," according to George Washington University law professor Randall Eliason. "Handing Trump this conflict issue was a 100% own goal."
Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University, concurred. "There are only two people responsible for the Georgia trial not having a chance to go to trial before the November 2024, election. Neither of them wear robes," he said. "History will judge them for their poor decisions, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidency."
Kreis opined that though the appeals judges' decision should not have delayed the trial further, they had reasonable grounds to make that decision. He also suggested that, despite the "massive unforced error" of not trying the Trump case before the election, Willis could still bring some of the remaining co-defendants to trial "ASAP."
"[L]et the country see this fall exactly what Trump and his allies did in 2020-2021," Kreis wrote.
Indeed, the order from the appeals court only applies to the defendants who appealed McAfee's March decision to keep the trial going. That means Willis could still move forward against former Trump attorneys John Eastman and Ray Smith, former Coffee County elections director Misty Hampton, Republican state Sen. Shawn Still and others. At least one defendant, Eastman, has said that he wants to have his trial before 2025.
While University of Michigan law professor Barb McQuade agreed that Willis used "poor judgment in having a romantic relationship with a subordinate," she also argued that the relationship "has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of Trump and his co-defendants."
"What an absurd sideshow," she said.
