A Georgia appellate court Wednesday paused the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump pending its decision on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should have been disqualified from the case.
The decision, issued in a one-page order, effectively rules out major action on the case against Mr. Trump before the November election.
“The proceedings below in the Superior Court of Fulton County are hereby stayed pending the outcome of these appeals,” the order said, listing Mr. Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and six other defendants.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are trying to dismiss the indictment, which accuses Mr. Trump and his allies of violating racketeering laws when they attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Defense lawyers said a romantic relationship between Ms. Willis and Nathan Wade, the man she hired to lead the investigation, posed an impermissible financial conflict.
Judge Scott McAfee, presiding in Atlanta, allowed Ms. Willis to stay on the case so long as Mr. Wade resigned. He did, but Mr. Trump appealed the decision.
The appeals court isn’t expected to act on the case until this fall, and may not rule until the new year.
Wednesday’s ruling means the case cannot even proceed in the interim.
It is the latest hiccup in the assortment of cases against Mr. Trump.
Special counsel Jack Smith is facing a painstaking pre-trial process before a federal judge in Florida overseeing a case that accuses Mr. Trump of unlawfully storing government records at his Mar-a-Lago estate. And the Supreme Court must weigh in on presidential immunity claims in the Washington-based case that accuses Mr. Trump of conspiring against voters with his attempts to reverse his 2020 loss to Joseph R. Biden, who is now president and will face Mr. Trump in a November rematch.
Mr. Trump will be running as a convicted felon, however.
A New York jury found him guilty on Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Mr. Trump will be sentenced in Manhattan on July 11.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.