Fani Willis Could Be the Last Prosecutor Pursuing Trump for Crimes When He Returns to the White House

District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s best case scenario for the hush money convictions he secured against President Trump is that they don’t wither away after four years on ice. Could his counterpart at Georgia’s Fulton County, Fani Willis, pursue a more aggressive strategy — pressing on through a presidency — to secure criminal convictions of the kind already achieved by Mr. Bragg?Ms. Willis has so far been mum on Trump’s electoral victory, and her case is at a standstill — a complete pause — while the Georgia Court of Appeals weighs a motion to disqualify her. If she can survive that effort, she will soon have to decide how to prosecute a defendant who also happens to be America’s president.Mr. Bragg on Tuesday urged Judge Juan Merchan to reject Trump’s request for “immediate dismissal” of those 34 guilty verdicts. The president-elect’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, contends that dismissal is “mandated by the federal Constitution” on account of his “overwhelming victory in the 2024 Presidential election.”Mr. Blanche adds that “continuing with this case would be ‘uniquely destabilizing’ and threatens to ‘hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs.’” He also ventures: “On November 5, 2024, the Nation’s People issued a mandate that supersedes the political motivations of DANY’s ‘People.’”The Supreme Court could find compelling Mr. Blanche’s invocation of the threat to the functioning of government posed by a failure to dismiss Mr. Bragg’s case. The Constitution ordains that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and presidential immunity is seen as a means of allowing the president to focus on that mandate. Ongoing litigation — even if temporarily paused — could threaten what Justice Antonin Scalia called the “boldness of the president.” Mr. Bragg disputes that characterization, though he acknowledges that the People “deeply respect the office of the president, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency, and acknowledge” that Trump’s inauguration “will raise unprecedented legal questions.” He encourages Judge Merchan to consider “various non-dimissal options” in the face of Trump’s “temporary immunity.”Mr. Bragg, who faces an election in 2026, is gambling that he will still be New York’s chief prosecutor when Trump’s successor takes the oath of office on January 20, 2029. He also could reckon that the possibility of a prison sentence against the backdrop of a second Trump term could antagonize the Supreme Court, which in its immunity decision last summer positioned itself as a defender of presidential prerogative. New York’s criminal case is not the only one against the president-elect. The federal ones, spearheaded by Special Counsel Jack Smith, suffered most directly from Trump’s re-election. Mr. Smith’s salary is paid by the Department of Justice, and Trump has promised to fire him “within two seconds.” He also possesses the pardon power. Mr. Smith is reportedly planning to resign before Trump takes the oath of office. The Peach State prosecutor, though, could pursue an even more aggressive path — if she rebuffs the effort to disqualify her for her romantic affair with her handpicked special prosecutor, Nathan Wade. The Georgia Court of Appeals this week indefinitely delayed — with no explanation — a hearing over her disqualification that had been set for December 5. The case is frozen until the resolution of the disqualification question.That scheduling change, which was announced two weeks after Trump’s victory over Vice President Harris, was made sua sponte, or independent of a motion from either party. It could suggest that the appellate tribunal is digesting the election’s outcome, and requires time to discern whether Ms. Willis’s sprawling racketeering indictment is viable on the eve of a second presidential term for Trump. There could be other explanations, though, for the delay. The question of whether Ms. Willis’s relationship with Mr. Wade is disqualifying — they took trips together after he was hired, and he earned more than $650,000 from her office — has already been briefed before the court of appeals. There is also voluminous testimony from Judge Scott McAfee’s courtroom. That jurist reckoned that Ms. Willis’s behavior carried the “odor of mendacity” and projected a “significant appearance of impropriety.”The Georgia Court of Appeals could reason that Trump and his co-defendants have failed to meet their heavy burden to disqualify Ms. Willis. No prosecutor at Fulton County has ever been removed from a case for behavior similar to hers. If she is allowed to continue, the prosecution could ramp up again — just in time for Trump’s second inauguration. In March, she promised that, in respect of Trump’s trial and possible conviction, “the train is coming.”A similar tone has been adopted by another prosecutor, Attorney General Letitia James of New York. Her office secured a $450 million civil fraud verdict against Trump, his business, and two of his children. That decision by Judge Arthur Engoron was appealed, and a ruling from the appeals court could come down any day.The Supreme Court, in Clinton v. Jones, held that presidents do not enjoy immunity from civil suits while in office for acts undertaken before they were president and unrelated to that office. Ms. James has indicated that she is “prepared to fight.”

Fani Willis Could Be the Last Prosecutor Pursuing Trump for Crimes When He Returns to the White House

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