A Georgia judge has rejected the effort by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to consolidate all 19 defendants, including former President Donald Trump, into a single trial for the Georgia election subversion case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee announced that Trump and 16 co-defendants will proceed separately, with no trial date set.
The two remaining co-defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have requested speedy trials and are scheduled to begin in October. This decision is seen as a victory for Trump and his co-defendants who did not wish to go to trial in October.
While Judge McAfee did not set a trial date for Trump and 16 co-defendants, the timeline suggests that the trial may not occur until at least December. The judge aims to address pretrial disputes with the batch of 17 defendants by the end of the year, with discovery starting by October 6. However, no specific trial timeline or hearing dates for resolving evidence disputes have been set.
The Georgia election subversion case is one of four criminal cases against Trump, with his legal calendar already occupied by trials scheduled for 2024. Trump’s legal team argues that these trials are politically motivated attempts to interfere with the 2024 election. Prosecutors argue that there is a public interest in swift trials.
Efforts to keep the sprawling Georgia case together have been contested. Prosecutors argued that multiple trials would strain judicial resources, while some defendants propose breaking out the 17 defendants into smaller groups. Several defendants are pursuing parallel proceedings in federal courts and seeking to move the Fulton County prosecutions to federal court, potentially seeking immunity under protections extended to government agents.
Mark Meadows, a defendant in the case, is withdrawing his request for an emergency appeals court order to pause the state court prosecution. He intends to continue fighting in federal court to move the proceedings out of state court. Meadows’ attorneys noted that there is sufficient time to resolve the federal court dispute since his state case will not be fast-tracked for an October trial.
