Former US President and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump gestures about weight lifting as he speaks at a Republican volunteer recruitment event at Fervent, a Calvary Chapel, in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 8, 2023.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously dismissed a longshot bid by former President Donald Trump to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis and quash the special grand jury report that recommended criminal charges in her probe of Georgia’s 2020 election.
The ruling from Georgia’s highest court came just weeks before Willis, the top Atlanta prosecutor who led the investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to interfere in President Joe Biden‘s electoral victory in the Peach State, was expected to seek indictments.
Trump’s attorneys failed to show that the case presents “one of those extremely rare circumstances” that requires bypassing lower courts, the supreme court justices ruled. “Therefore, the petition is dismissed.”
In their petition four days earlier, Trump’s attorneys acknowledged that it would be highly unusual for the state supreme court to accept the case, since it normally reviews appeals from lower courts. But they nevertheless argued that the high court should take up the matter, in part because of Trump’s status as a former president and a 2024 presidential candidate.
Trump’s legal team had filed a similar request in Fulton County Superior Court. The attorneys argued in both petitions that the evidence compiled by the special grand jury in the election probe was “unlawfully obtained.”
They had asked the courts to force Judge Robert McBurney, who presided over the election probe, to quash the special grand jury’s final report and bar the use of its contents “in any future proceedings, civil or criminal.”
That special grand jury heard evidence and testimony from dozens of witnesses last year, but it did not have the power to return indictments. It is separate from the two grand juries empaneled last week in the Atlanta-area superior court, which could soon be tasked with deciding whether to charge Trump and his allies.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment on the supreme court’s ruling.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.