CNN: Georgia Court of Appeals Indefinitely Pauses Trump Case

TAPPER: “We’re back with our breaking news. A Georgia appeals court has indefinitely paused that Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump. CNN’s Zachary Cohen is back with me, along with federal — former federal prosecutor Elie Honig. Elie, what is the significance of this decision, and is it normal?”

HONIG: “Well, Jake, first of all, as a practical matter, this means that the chances that this case gets tried before the 2024 election have gone from low to essentially zero at this point. The Court of Appeals, what they’ve done is they’ve granted the appeal of the defendants, Donald Trump and several other defendants’ motion to disqualify the DA Fani Willis based on conflict of interest. We had a long hearing and trial — mini trial about this a few months ago. The trial court judge, Judge McAfee, found that there were some problems with the conflict of interest, but he said that they’re remedied by the prosecutor, the other prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade resigning. Now, Donald Trump and other co-defendants appealed that. And this tells me that the Court of Appeals in Georgia is interested in hearing the issue. I don’t think they would have paused this case altogether unless they were taking this issue quite seriously.”

TAPPER: “And, Zach, just to refresh everyone’s memory about this, this has to do with the fact that Fani Willis, the District Attorney, had a relationship with one of her investigators, and what Donald Trump’s defense team was alleging was this prosecution was all about the two of them being able to get money from his salary so that they could go on trips and such, right? Is that correct?”

COHEN: “That’s right. Basically she was in this relationship to financially enrich herself and that that influenced and impacted the prosecution, including the decision to charge so many defendants, to charge former President Donald Trump. And ultimately, the trial judge, Scott McAfee, decided, no, they haven’t met the burden of proof to show there was an actual conflict. But in his decision, he did write pages and pages about his issues with Fani Willis’s alleged behavior and what the evidence that was presented about that in these — the hearings, the various hearings that, as you know, we watched live happen on camera. And so, look, this is the appeals court saying, look, the work on this case needs to stop until we can sort out whether or not we agree with Scott McAfee that Fani Willis can remain on this case, or if we disagree and that Fani Willis needs to be disqualified, removed ultimately. And the timeline for a potential trial, as Elie said, this makes the chances of a trial happening before the presidential election almost zero, when they were already low before, but now it really throws it up in the air whether a trial will happen at all if Fani Willis is disqualified. We’ve been told by sources for months that if she’s removed from this case, the case effectively goes away. So that’s really the stakes here, and that’s really what we’re facing in addition to the delay.”

TAPPER: “Ellie, do you think ultimately Fani Willis is going to get disqualified from this case?”

HONIG: “Well, it’s a really close call, Jake, and even Judge McAfee, in his opinion, originally finding that there were some problems but didn’t require her disqualification. Judge McAfee wrote, we are untethered to precedent here, which means we’ve never seen a situation quite like this. I don’t personally believe that they made a strong enough showing of a direct financial conflict of interest, as Zach laid out, in the trial court and Judge Scott McAfee in the trial court agreed, he came to the same conclusion. But I do think it’s significant that Judge McAfee found that there were significant issues with whether DA Willis’s testimony was truthful. Judge McAfee said that in his ruling and he found that Fani Willis had made improper out-of-court statements about this case, including a speech she gave at a church where she essentially called the defendants and the defense lawyers racist and Judge McAfee raised concerns about that. So it could also be that the Court of Appeals is concerned with those issues of the case, perhaps in addition to or perhaps beyond any financial conflict of interest.”

TAPPER: “Zach, quickly, any reaction from the district attorney’s office?”

COHEN: “The DA’s office declined to comment, and so is Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow. At this point, that tells you a little bit about how consequential they both view this decision from the Georgia appeals court. They’re not going to want to add any insult to injury here and maybe anger the appeals court before this process even gets going.”

TAPPER: “Elie Honig, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Zach, as well. Thank you.”