U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a launch inspection of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, U.S. on November 19, 2024.
Brandon Bell | via Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to effectively end a criminal case related to his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s lawyer Stephen Sadow asked the appellate court. in the submitted documents After finding that the state does not have jurisdiction over the case, he directed a trial-level state court in Atlanta to “immediately dismiss” the charges against the president-elect.
Sadow argued that Georgia courts lost jurisdiction over the case because Trump won the 2024 election.
another trump lawyer On Tuesday, he made a similar argument, asking a New York judge to dismiss a criminal hush money case against him there.
In a filing Wednesday in Georgia, Sadow wrote that under the U.S. Constitution, “a sitting president has complete immunity from prosecution or criminal process, whether state or federal.”
Although Trump’s oath of office is not scheduled until Jan. 20, the appeals court should “examine its jurisdiction” to continue hearing the appeal “well before Inauguration Day,” Sadow wrote. .
“This investigation should result in a finding that both this court and the trial court do not have authority to bring further criminal proceedings against President Trump,” he said, adding, “The state of Georgia’s “Continued indictments and prosecutions are unconstitutional.” . ”
The criminal case had already been on hold before the election, as President Trump had asked an appeals court to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis because of her romantic relationship with a prosecutor on his team.
In a separate statement Wednesday, Sadow noted that Special Counsel Jack Smith recently dropped two federal criminal charges against Trump, citing his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election. .
These federal lawsuits concern Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 national election and his retention of classified government documents after leaving the White House in January 2021. It was related.
Mr. Smith’s move leaves only two criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump, in Fulton County, Georgia, and in Manhattan Supreme Court.
In May, Trump was arrested in Manhattan on all 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels by his personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, just before the 2016 presidential election. convicted.
