Georgia attorney Ashleigh Merchant said she doesn’t see “any way” that Fani Willis’ 2020 election interference case against former President Trump will progress before the November election, despite Willis’ warning that the “train is coming.”
“I don’t see how this could happen before the election,” Merchant told presenter Steve Doocy on “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
Last week, Georgia Judge Scott McAfee allowed Trump and his co-defendants to appeal his decision to retain Willis in the case, following her dismissal of prosecutor Nathan Wade due to an alleged inappropriate connection.
Merchant, a lawyer representing one of Trump’s co-defendants, outlined the process for the Court of Appeals to hear the matter. The court has the authority to determine Willis’ disqualification, remand the case to Judge McAfee, or forward it to the Supreme Court.
“No trial is going to be resolved and happen before the election,” she claimed, claiming Willis’ case was “extremely overbroad.”
“It appears that they are considering putting a presidential candidate on trial.” That is unheard of,” she said.
Willis recently went up about the lawsuit for the first time after Judge McAfee decided that she or Wade must withdraw from the proceedings. Hours after the issuance of the order, Wade resigned from the case, leaving Willis in charge.
“My team continues to work on it…”We were still handling the case the way it needed to be,” she told CNN on Saturday. “I don’t feel like we’ve slowed down at all. I believe there are efforts to slow down this train, but it is coming.”
Merchant maintained that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money payments lawsuit against Trump may advance before the election, despite her belief that Willis’ election interference case is unlikely to settle before then.
“But, you know, this is by far the weakest case, in my opinion, among all of them. It’s ironic, she explained, that this is the case they’re advocating for and the one that will receive attention.
On Monday, Bragg’s investigation into alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign will see Trump appear in a central New York City courtroom.
Trump’s criminal trial was supposed to begin Monday with jury selection. However, earlier this month, Judge Juan Merchan postponed it until mid-April to allow the former president and his lawyers more time to review 15,000 records of potential evidence supplied by the Justice Department from a prior federal inquiry.
