Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis anticipates that the Georgia election subversion case against former President Donald Trump could spill into early 2025 — by which point the 45th president may be the 47th president.
Willis, an elected Democrat, also insisted in a new interview that the 2024 election cycle did not play into her calculus for bringing forward the case, in which 15 defendants including the 77-year-old Trump are awaiting trial.
“I believe in that case there will be a trial. I believe the trial will take many months,” Willis said at the Washington Post Live’s Global Women’s Summit Tuesday.
“And I don’t expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”
Trump is facing 13 counts — including violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering law — in Willis’ sprawling case alleging that he improperly tried to overturn the Peach State’s 2020 election result.
The former president is also facing three other criminal indictments — including 34 counts of alleged falsification of business records to conceal hush money payments, 40 counts in connection with his hoarding of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago, and four counts related to his attempt to remain in power after his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
Currently, Trump’s first trial is set to commence on March 4, one day before the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, in the federal 2020 election subversion case.
Earlier this week, details and footage leaked of statements made by four co-defendants — lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell as well as bail bondsman Scott Hall — who entered guilty pleas.
One video showed Ellis claiming that she was told by a top Trump aide that the then-president “is not going to leave [office] under any circumstances.”
Another leak showed Powell telling prosecutors she “still believes ‘machine fraud’ tainted the 2020 presidential election.”
“I’m not happy that it was released,” Willis said of the leak, denying that her office was behind it.
Prosecutors have since filed a protective order request over evidence, suggesting that one of the defense teams was behind the disclosure.
“These confidential video recordings were not released by the State to any party other than the defendants charged in the indictment, pursuant to the discovery process as required by law,” the filing said.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and strenuously denied wrongdoing in all four cases. He remains the overwhelming 2024 GOP front-runner and polls indicate he would win the election if voting were held today.
“I don’t, when making decisions about cases to bring, consider any election cycle or an election season,” Willis stressed.
“That does not go into the calculus. What goes into the calculus is: This is the law. These are the facts. And the facts show you violated the law. Then charges are brought,” she added.
Willis began investigating Trump and his allies in 2021 after audio surfaced of the former president underscoring the need to “find 11,780 votes” in a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
That was the number of votes he would have needed to reverse his loss to Biden in Georgia.
