Trump Urges Court To Dis­miss Fani Willis’ Case Against Him

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Trump Urges Court To Dismiss Fani Willis’ Case Against Him

Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s legal team request­ed that the state of Geor­gia dis­miss Ful­ton Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney Fani Willis’ indict­ment against him in a Wednes­day fil­ing.

Willis charged Trump, along with 18 oth­ers, in August 2023 with vio­lat­ing Georgia’s Rack­e­teer Influ­enced and Cor­rupt Orga­ni­za­tions (RICO) Act by alleged­ly attempt­ing to over­turn the state’s 2020 elec­tion results. Trump’s legal team argued con­tin­u­ing the case is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and “lacks juris­dic­tion” as a sit­ting pres­i­dent is “com­plete­ly immune” from any state or fed­er­al indict­ment, lead coun­sel Steven Sad­ow wrote in the fil­ing.

“Pres­i­dent Don­ald J. Trump here­by noti­fies this Court of a fol­low­ing juris­dic­tion­al issue: the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of his con­tin­ued indict­ment and pros­e­cu­tion by the State of Geor­gia in the case giv­ing rise to this appeal, now that he is Pres­i­dent-elect and will soon be the 47th Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, and its direct impact on this Court’s juris­dic­tion,” Sad­ow wrote.

The fil­ing cit­ed the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion, which states that a sit­ting pres­i­dent is not “liable to arrest, impris­on­ment or deten­tion” and the Depart­ment of Justice’s dis­missal of two cas­es brought against Trump by spe­cial coun­sel Jack Smith in order to with­hold the agency’s prece­dent of not indict­ing a pres­i­dent. Smith charged Trump in two sep­a­rate cas­es in 2023 over the alleged mis­han­dling of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments and for alleged­ly engag­ing in a con­spir­a­cy to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion results.

Trump’s legal team also argued that a state indict­ing a sit­ting pres­i­dent also vio­lates the suprema­cy clause of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which says that state judges and pros­e­cu­tors do not have the pow­er to inter­fere with a president’s duties. (RELATED: CNN’s Elie Honig Says Sug­ges­tion Of Push­ing Trump’s Sen­tence to After He’s Pres­i­dent Is ‘Pre­pos­ter­ous’) 

“Accord­ing­ly, well before the inau­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent Trump, this Court should inquire into this juris­dic­tion to con­tin­ue to hear this appeal,” the fil­ing con­cludes. “That inquiry should result in this Court decid­ing that both this Court and the tri­al court lack juris­dic­tion to even enter­tain any fur­ther crim­i­nal process against Pres­i­dent Trump as the con­tin­ued indict­ment and pros­e­cu­tion of Pres­i­dent Trump by the State of Geor­gia are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Pres­i­dent Trump respect­ful­ly sub­mits that upon reach­ing that deci­sion, this Court should dis­miss his appeal for lack of juris­dic­tion with direc­tions to the tri­al court to imme­di­ate­ly dis­miss the indict­ment against Pres­i­dent Trump.”

Willis’ case against Trump had been put on hold as the Geor­gia Court of Appeals is over­see­ing a deci­sion on whether to dis­qual­i­fy her over an alleged undis­closed rela­tion­ship with spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Nathan Wade. The appeals court can­celed oral argu­ments sched­uled for Thurs­day, fur­ther delay­ing the case.

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