DA says Trump’s Georgia trial might not end until 2025
The Atlanta-area prosecutor leading the criminal racketeering case against former president Donald Trump and 14 allies alleging they broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss said Tuesday that she anticipated the trial to conclude by early 2025, with proceedings probably underway during the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election.
In an interview at the Washington Post Live Global Women’s Summit, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis said the anticipated trial over alleged election interference by Trump and his allies could be ongoing on Election Day 2024 and possibly still underway on Inauguration Day.
“I believe in that case there will be a trial. I believe the trial will take many months. And I don’t expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025,” Willis said.
Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Rudy Giuliani, a defendant in the case, said Willis’s prediction that a trial could stretch into 2025 proves that the case is politically motivated to thwart Trump’s reelection ambitions.
The news comes as Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is beginning to consider scheduling issues in the sprawling Georgia case, a decision in which he will probably have to take into account Trump’s scheduled legal proceedings in other cases.
Willis's comments are likely to draw criticism from Trump, who has accused her and other prosecutors of attempting to disrupt his 2024 bid for the presidency. While Willis pointedly declined to comment on Trump and any of his co-defendants specifically, she said the election calendar plays no role in her decisions about any of the cases that her office pursues.
“What goes into the calculus is: This is the law. These are the facts. And the facts show you violated the law. Then charges are brought,” Willis said.
Her appearance Tuesday came hours after she filed an emergency request asking a presiding judge to issue a protective order over discovery materials in the case to prevent leaks of potential evidence.
The request came a day after the Post published details of recorded statements given to prosecutors by four Trump co-defendants who have accepted plea deals in the case. The recordings of interviews between prosecutors and pro-Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell and Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall offered previously undisclosed details about the effort by Trump and his allies to reverse his defeat. Some of the details from two of the videos were first reported Monday by ABC News.
Willis denied that her office was behind the leak, which she described as not “surprising” but “disappointing.” She previously requested a protective order over discovery materials in the case, which includes “proffer” videos featuring statements of those who have pleaded guilty in the case. In a Tuesday court filing, Willis renewed that request “on an emergency basis” citing the leak of the recordings to the media.
Prosecutors said they would no longer share “confidential video recordings of proffers” to any defense attorneys involved in the case and said they must view those statements in person at the district attorney’s office.