Fani Willis is likely to be "very dismissive" about an attempt by Donald Trump to drop two charges in his Georgia election interference case.
Writing in her Substack blog Civil Discourse, Joyce Vance speculated about how the Fulton County district attorney might react to the former president's latest legal move.
Trump and 18 others were accused in a 41-count indictment last year of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him and has repeatedly said the case is part of a political witch hunt against him.
Trump moved to dismiss two counts in the indictment, with his attorneys Steven H. Sadow and Jennifer L. Little filing a briefing on Wednesday asking for charges of filing false documents and conspiracy to commit filing false documents to be dropped, arguing that they can only be brought in federal court.
Vance called his theory "novel" and said it looked like "a delay tactic."
"We'll look forward to Fani Willis' response, which is likely to be very dismissive," she added.
Newsweek contacted representatives for Trump and Willis by email to comment on this story.
If Trump is successful in getting charges dropped, it will not be for the first time.
In March, Judge Scott McAfee quashed three counts against Trump in the case. He wrote that "the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned's opinion, fatal" in relation to allegations that Trump attempted to solicit former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into breaking their oaths of office in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in the state.
Speaking to Newsweek, Thomas Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, said it is "hard to predict with certainty how the judge will rule" in this instance.
"Trump's record of getting legal charges dismissed to date has been mixed at best. While it's hard to predict with certainty how the judge will rule, right now it looks like just another stall tactic. 'Delay, delay, delay' continues to be Trump's go-to tactic in fighting off his litany of prosecutions."
While Trump wrangles with his Georgia case, he is also facing the second week of his hush-money trial, which will determine whether he falsified business records over payments—allegedly facilitated by his former lawyer Michael Cohen—to former adult-film star Stormy Daniels. It's claimed these were made to keep an affair between Trump and Daniels secret before the 2016 election, as alleged in a criminal indictment. Trump denies the affair.
He is also facing two other indictments, a federal indictment about alleged election interference and one concerning the manner in which he kept classified documents after leaving the White House. He has maintained his innocence in all of these cases.
Update 4/25/24, 9:22 a.m. ET: This article was updated to add a comment by Thomas Gift.
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Kate Plummer is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. politics and national affairs, and ... Read more
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