Prosecutor Fani Willis, who is investigating the case against Donald Trump in the American state of Georgia, proposed, Friday, November 17, that the trial of the ex-president and his fourteen co-defendants opens on August 5, 2024 for illicit manipulation in order to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Ms. Willis also asks, in this motion addressed to the judge of Fulton County in Atlanta, capital of this state in the southeast of the country, Scott McAfee, who will have the last word , to set June 21 as the deadline to plead guilty.
Donald Trump’s Georgia lawyer, Steven Sadow, responded that he opposed that date and asked the judge to set a hearing to hear arguments from both sides.
Four of the nineteen defendants initially targeted by the indictment issued on August 14, notably under a Georgia law on organized gang crime used by the prosecutor, have already pleaded guilty. They were sentenced to reduced sentences, without prison time, in exchange for their testimony at the future trial of the other defendants.
Ms. Willis argues that the August 5 date would avoid overlapping with Donald Trump’s federal trials in Washington on related charges and in Florida, where he is accused of negligent handling of confidential documents after his departure from the White House, scheduled to begin March 4 and May 20, 2024, respectively.
The trial could last “months”
The prosecutor insists that the remaining fifteen defendants be tried together, while emphasizing that “the prosecution will consider plea agreements until the deadline.” After this deadline, she will no longer offer agreements to defendants and will systematically demand the maximum sentence, she warns. Ms. Willis said in an interview with the Washington Post this week that she expected “the trial to last months” and not be completed until late next year or very early 2025.
Mr. Trump’s co-defendants include his former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his most recent White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. All are free on bail, but the prosecutor requested the revocation of this measure for one of them, Harrison Floyd, accusing him of “intimidation” towards witnesses, particularly on social networks. Judge McAfee will hear both sides on November 21 at a hearing to which he has summoned this defendant.
Donald Trump, favorite of the Republican primaries, denounces his legal troubles as so many “electoral interferences” at the instigation of the Democratic administration to exclude him from the race for the White House and demands that his trials not be held before the election, scheduled for November 5, 2024.