Prosecutors in all four of the cases against Donald Trump are racing against time to try to get to trial before Election Day.
But to do so, they each have to clear a series of legal and procedural hurdles — and soon, we’ll get a better idea of which, if any, will make it.
Today, two of those prosecutions will go in the spotlight via high-stakes hearings where we’ll get a sense of how seriously judges are taking Trump’s efforts to get indictments thrown out.
In Fulton County, District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of Trump for trying to steal Georgia’s 2020 election has been sidetracked by allegations about Willis’s personal life.
Embarrassingly, a judge will hear testimony on exactly when Willis’s relationship with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she’d brought on to the case, began. One of Trump’s co-defendants has asserted that Willis improperly financially benefited from the prosecution because she’s been paying Wade’s attorney fees, and he’s paid for vacations they took together. Trump wants Willis disqualified from the case.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with falsifying business records related to hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, a judge will assess whether to move forward with a planned March 25 trial — or throw the charges out entirely.
The New York case is the least substantively important of the four Trump cases, but it’s lately seemed likely to go to trial first because of procedural delays in the federal cases.
But there have been questions about whether Bragg’s rationale for charging Trump with felonies will survive court scrutiny — and on Thursday, we’ll get to hear what that case’s judge thinks about those arguments.
Thursday, in short, could be a make-or-break day for the two state-level prosecutions against the former president.
In Georgia, we’ll soon learn whether Fani Willis stays on the case
When Willis had Trump and 18 co-defendants indicted last…
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