By Alex Swoyer The Washington Times Monday, November 18, 2024

Special counsel Jack Smith is winding down his federal prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump, and a New York judge is set to decide this week whether Mr. Trump’s conviction in his hush money trial should be dismissed before sentencing.

Legal scholars doubt the judge would send the president-elect to prison even if he doesn’t dismiss the case.

One legal battle that could continue to plague Mr. Trump is the criminal prosecution in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis accuses him of meddling in the 2020 presidential election.

On Monday, the Georgia Court of Appeals halted that case for now by canceling an upcoming Dec. 5 hearing until further notice. The planned hearing was to address a bid by Mr. Trump’s attorneys to remove Ms. Willis from the case.

It’s unclear how the court could proceed, and it did not specify the reason for the cancellation.

If the court were to allow Ms. Willis to continue to prosecute a sitting president, legal experts say she would not back down. 

“Fani Willis is a formidable prosecutor and politician,” said B. Michael Mears, a professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, who noted she won reelection this month by an overwhelming majority. “She feels she has a mandate based upon the public.

“I would not suspect she would be dropping these charges,” he added.

In August 2023, Fulton County indicted Mr. Trump and 18 others on charges of participating in a conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. The state claims the defendants violated Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in trying to overturn Democrat Joseph R. Biden’s narrow official victory in that race.

The case has been primarily on hold while an appeals court reviews Ms. Willis’ appointment of special prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom she was having a romantic relationship.

The appeals court is considering whether to remove Ms. Willis from the case, though its Dec. 5 hearing on the matter was postponed “until further order of this court.”

A trial judge had ruled that Ms. Willis could stay, but without Mr. Wade overseeing the prosecution. If the appeals court upholds that move, Ms. Willis will likely continue prosecuting Mr. Trump.

No pardon from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp can stop her. The power goes to the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles, whose five members are appointed by the governor.

The board members consider a pardon only if a defendant petitions for one, generally after a conviction and sentence.

If the appeals court were to order Ms. Willis off the case, the nonprofit Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia will oversee the investigation. If a district attorney does not want to take over Ms. Willis’ case, the charges could be dropped altogether.

That happened with Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, whom Ms. Willis charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election results. Mr. Jones planned to sign a certificate stating that Mr. Trump had won the state’s electoral votes.

Ms. Willis was removed from the prosecution after it was revealed that she had hosted a fundraiser for Mr. Jones’ Democratic opponent. Pete Skandalakis with the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia did not pursue the prosecution, The Associated Press reported.

Putting his legal fate in the hands of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council might be Mr. Trump’s best hope of ending this prosecution.

New York’s verdict

Mr. Smith has asked a federal appeals court to pause his request to revive his case against Mr. Trump over the handling of classified documents at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. A federal judge in Florida dismissed the case in July. It held that Mr. Smith did not have standing to bring the charges because he was a private citizen when he was appointed as special prosecutor.

Mr. Smith’s team told the court that the government needed “time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.” He said the government would “inform the Court of the result of its deliberations” by Dec. 2.

The federal judge handling Mr. Smith’s second prosecution of Mr. Trump over his activities challenging the 2020 election in the District of Columbia canceled the deadline on the docket at Mr. Smith’s request.

Mr. Smith is evaluating how to wind down the cases and plans to step down before Mr. Trump takes office, AP reported.

In New York’s state courts, Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money prosecution, is expected to decide Tuesday whether to dismiss the conviction in light of Mr. Trump’s reelection.

Emil Bove, Mr. Trump’s attorney, argued that the case must be tossed “to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern.”

Prosecutors acknowledged they needed time to consider “competing interests.”

“These are unprecedented circumstances,” Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo said in an email to the court.

In May, a Manhattan jury convicted Mr. Trump of falsifying business records. The state argued that Mr. Trump tried to cover up $130,000 in payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to get her to stay quiet before the 2016 election about her claim of an affair with him years earlier.

He has denied the affair or any wrongdoing.

• Alex Swoyer can be reached at [email protected].