The legal challenges facing former President Donald Trump seem to grow more voluminous by the day, but according to Just the News, his lawyers continue to do all they can to keep his litigation calendar as short as possible by pursuing the disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis who has been probing the aftermath of the 2020 election, which handed Joe Biden a narrow victory in the state.
To that end, a hearing date of Aug. 10 has been set, and that is when arguments on Trump's motion to remove Willis from the investigation will be heard in a Georgia courtroom.
According to the outlet, it is not just Willis whom Trump wants booted from the matter, as his lawyers have also filed a request that Judge Robert McBurney of Fulton Superior Court not be the official in charge of overseeing the D.A.'s probe.
Fox 5 in Atlanta noted that Trump's wishes stem from the president's belief that McBurney has ignored his prior efforts to remove Willis and to quash a grand jury report that called for multiple indictments of individuals for their conduct contesting the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The Trump team had previously sought review of the issue by the Georgia Supreme Court, but the panel declined involvement.
Willis' probe of allegations against Trump and others was launched over two years ago and was prompted by a recording of a phone conversation the then-president had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
During the call, Trump allegedly asked the Georgia official to “find” sufficient numbers of votes to upend then-candidate Joe Biden's declared victory in the state.
Over the course of the ensuing investigation, a special grand jury was convened, and testimony was taken from numerous witnesses including Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
The “special purpose” grand jury wrapped up its work back in January and recommended a number of indictments, but without the power to issue them under Georgia law, it was necessary to convene a regular panel whose members could do so.
In a sign that Willis does indeed plan to move forward against Trump in the near future, she recently gave notice to local law enforcement officials that a decision would be forthcoming before September 1, a time period in which two conventional grand juries are slated to hear evidence in a range of matters.
Willis also informed Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville that she intended to have a significant number of staffers work remotely during much of august, and she requested that trials or in-person proceedings not be scheduled during that same period of time.
Adding to the expectations of an imminent indictment of Trump is the fact that, as Newsweek reports, physical barricades have been erected outside the Fulton County Courthouse to, as the sheriff's office explained, ensure sufficient security for “high profile legal proceedings.”
Even so, Trump's legal team will make its arguments on Aug. 10, despite the motion at issue having already been described as a longshot, as Just the News noted.
Though the former president has derided the Georgia probe – as well as existing and yet-possible prosecutions elsewhere in the country – as nothing more than a political witch-hunt, he has also declared the issuance of charges in Fulton County to be “probable,” seemingly resigning himself to the likelihood that another front on the legal battlefield is imminently poised to open.
