A prominent legal analyst is warning that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case against former President Donald Trump may not be the “slam dunk” that liberals think.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig warned that one main fault with the indictment is that Trump and many of his allies can try to move the trial to federal court, which would take the case out of the heavily liberal county in Georgia.
“The other big issue – and we just said this word – is removal. Get ready for a lot of talk about removal. Mark Meadows is already trying to do this. Donald Trump will try to follow. In a nutshell what this means is, if a federal official gets charged with a state crime that relates to that federal official’s official job duties you can get the case-.”
Honig argued that such duties must be “within the legitimate scope of those jobs,” adding that is “an important qualification. He [Trump and others] can get the case moved over to federal court and then potentially dismissed. So, these are really important motions. Mark Meadows has already done this, Trump is sure to follow.”
“The hard part, it’s a lot of work. You’re not going to be able to try all 19 at once. That’s not going to happen. And you just never know how every one of these defendants, let’s put aside Trump. Every one of these defendants, even the people we heard of is going to mount a furious defense, as is their right to do,” Honig said.
“They all work together as one cohesive entity towards an illegal end,” Honig said. “You have the advantage to pick off some low-hanging fruit and get them to flip.”
On Monday, a 41-count indictment against Trump and 18 other defendants was released.
The former president is accused of 13 offenses, including three counts of soliciting a public official to violate an oath, two counts of planning to commit first-degree forgery, two counts of making false statements and writings, one count of violating the Georgia RICO Act, one count of impersonating a public official, one count of filing false documents, and one count of filing false documents.
The other 18 individuals charged by Fulton County include: Jenna Ellis, lawyer; Rudy Giuliani, lawyer; Sidney Powell, lawyer; Robert Cheeley, lawyer; John Eastman, lawyer; Ray Smith III, lawyer; Cathy Latham, alleged fake elector; Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff; David Shafer, alleged fake elector; Shawn Still, alleged fake elector; Kenneth Chesebro, lawyer; Michael Roman, Trump campaign staffer; Misty Hampton, Coffee County elections supervisor; Stephen Lee, Pastor; Trevian Kutti, Publicist; Willie Lewis Floyd III, former leader of “Black Voices for Trump”; Jeffrey Clark, former DOJ official; and Scott Hall, Bail Bondsman, the Daily Wire noted.
After the indictment was made public, the Trump campaign released a statement calling DA Willis a “rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments.”
The statement claimed that Willis “strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign” and that the accusations contained in it were “fabricated.”
Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp responded to Trump’s statement by claiming that his state’s 2020 election was not rigged.
“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus,” said Kemp on X, formerly Twitter.