Court rejects Trump bid to thwart 2020 election probe
The are 11 new counts against Donald Trump and his associates, including forgery and racketeering. Photo: AAP
A US court has rejected a request by former president Donald Trump to block a district attorney from prosecuting him for his actions in the wake of the 2020 election.
The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously shot down a petition that Trump’s lawyers filed last week asking the court to intervene.
Trump’s legal team argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office should be barred from seeking charges and that a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry should be thrown out.
Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden.
She has suggested she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month.
The state Supreme Court noted in its five-page ruling on Monday that Trump has a similar petition pending in Fulton County Superior Court.
The justices unanimously declined to overstep the lower court, writing that Trump “makes no showing that he has been prevented fair access to the ordinary channels”.
Regarding Trump’s attempt to block the prosecutors, the justices said his legal filing lacked “the facts or the law necessary to mandate Willis’s disqualification by this Court at this time on this record”.
A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. Trump lawyer Drew Findling did not immediately respond to phone and text messages seeking comment.
Willis opened her investigation shortly after Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021 and suggested the state’s top elections official could help him “find” the votes needed to overturn his election loss in the state.
The special grand jury, which did not have the power to issue indictments, was seated last May and dissolved in January after hearing from 75 witnesses and submitting a report with recommendations for Willis.
Though most of that report remains under wraps for now, the panel’s foreperson has said without naming names the special grand jury recommended charging multiple people.
– AAP
