Trump Urges Georgia Court to Order Dismissal of Election Case

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s lawyer in Georgia urged an appeals court to dismiss the criminal case against the president-elect, arguing he will be “completely immune” from prosecution when he returns to the White House.

The US Constitution’s supremacy clause prevents state prosecutors from “proceeding against the sitting president in any way,” attorney Steve Sadow said in a filing with the Georgia Court of Appeals Wednesday. Sadow urged the judges, who are already reviewing whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed from the case, to rule well before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Trump has been moving to dispose of all four criminal cases against him before he takes office. The US Justice Department has already dropped a pair of cases, and earlier this week his lawyers filed a motion in state court in New York asking a judge to throw out the president-elect’s conviction in May for falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star.

The Georgia case, like one of the two federal cases, alleges that Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump, and 14 remaining defendants, were charged by Willis last year.

In New York, lawyers added a comparison between the prosecution of Trump and President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter. But in both of the state cases, the attorneys largely focused on the issues surrounding presidential immunity.

“Both this court and the trial court lack jurisdiction to entertain any further criminal process against President Trump” because it would be unconstitutional, Sadow said.

The Georgia case has been frozen for months. The state Court of Appeals earlier canceled a Dec. 5 argument on whether Willis should be taken off the case because she had a romantic relationship with her lead prosecutor.

Although Trump has denied wrongdoing, four other defendants in the case have pleaded guilty. Trump faces eight felony counts in Georgia, after the Atlanta judge overseeing the case, Scott McAfee, dismissed some counts against him.