Former President Trump’s 2020 presidential election interference case in Georgia is facing another delay while an appellate court reviews a lower court’s decision. The Georgia Court of Appeals order on Wednesday decreases the chances that the sweeping racketeering case against Trump and 14 remaining co-defendants will reach trial prior to the November election, reports the Georgia Recorder. The appeals court had agreed to review Judge Scott McAfee’s decision that rejected defense attorneys’ arguments that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed from the case because her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted prosecutorial misconduct. Willis hired Wade to lead the probe in November 2021. She contends the relationship started after they started working on the case. The appeals hearing is scheduled for Oct. 4, and a decision may not come for months.
In Trump's separate classified documents case in Florida, federal judge Aileen Cannon is pushing some of the legal questions that have been before her for months even further down the road. Cannon plans a hearing on Trump’s request to declare Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel invalid, signaling she could be more willing than any other trial judge to veto the special prosecutor’s authority, CNN reports. The planned hearing also adds a unusual twist in the federal criminal case against the former president: Cannon on Tuesday said that a variety of political partisans and constitutional scholars not with the case can join in the oral arguments later this month. CNN calls it "an extraordinary elevation of arguments in a criminal case – filed a year ago this week – that likely won’t see trial until next year, if at all."