Lawyers for former President Donald Trump declared late Thursday that they will appeal a judge’s ruling that shot down their bid to gut Fulton County District Fani Willis’s prosecution of alleged criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
They will challenge an order issued earlier this week by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who said Trump did not have have sufficient legal standing to mount such a challenge before indictments are announced. In a strongly worded decision, McBurney dismissed claims that Trump would be unduly harmed by the case going forward, calling any asserted injuries “either insufficient or else speculative and unrealized.”
“(W)hile being the subject (or even target) of a highly publicized criminal investigation is likely an unwelcome and unpleasant experience, no court ever has held that that status alone provides a basis for the courts to interfere with or halt the investigation,” McBurney wrote.
McBurney oversaw a special purpose grand jury that heard testimony from almost 75 witnesses in the probe and issued a final report in December that recommended multiple people be indicted. Willis has indicated she will seek an indictment in the coming weeks, and Trump is widely expected to be among those formally charged.
In Thursday’s filing, Trump’s lawyers said they did not agree with McBurney’s analysis or his ruling and will appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court to seek “additional review of the propriety of this special purpose grand jury and the ability of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office to continue forward in this matter.”
Drew Findling, Trump’s lead attorney in Atlanta, declined to comment when reached on Friday. A spokesman for the DA’s office also declined to comment.
It will be the second time Trump’s attorneys take the matter to the state’s highest court. They had previously filed a similar challenge — called a writ of mandamus and prohibition — to the Georgia Supreme Court that sought to disqualify Willis from the case, prevent her from using evidence obtained by a special purpose grand jury and quash the special grand jury’s final report.
But the court unanimously declined to hear the challenge, indicating it should have first been filed in a lower cour. The justices also indicated that if they had accepted the case, it would have failed. Trump’s lawyers then filed the motion in Fulton Superior Court and because it will filed not only against Willis but also against McBurney, all of Fulton’s judges were recused from the case.
It was then assigned to Senior Judge Stephen Schuster from Cobb County, who scheduled a hearing on the matter for Aug. 10. But that will no longer be necessary because Trump’s attorneys on Thursday said they are voluntarily dismissing this challenge so they can pursue an appeal of McBurney’s order.
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