President-elect torpedoes bipartisan plan with less than 48 hours remaining until government shuts down for holidays
A Georgia appeals court has ordered prosecutor Fani Willis disqualified from the case she brought against Donald Trump and 18 other defendants for allegedly plotting to overturn the state’s election result in 2020, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Attorneys for the defendants accused Willis, the district attorney of the Atlanta-area Fulton county, of having a conflict of interest due to her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired for the case. Wade resigned from the prosecution earlier this year, and in a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court said Willis should be disqualified, as well.
Here’s more, from the Journal-Contitution:
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges, all GOP appointees, concluded that Willis’ onetime romantic relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted a conflict of interest that merited her dismissal from the case.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” wrote judges Todd Markle and Trenton Brown for the majority. A third judge, Benjamin Land, issued a strongly-worded dissent.
The majority opinion also rejected a push from several defendants in the case to dismiss the indictment.
The decision is a massive blow to Willis, one of the most recognizable prosecutors in the country who cruised to a second term earlier this month against a relatively inexperienced Republican opponent. It also could be the death knell for the fourth and final case that resulted in criminal charges against Trump after he left office in January 2021.
Willis is expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Georgia. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Just a few hours ago, Donald Trump rejected a tentative deal in Congress to keep the government funded through the first few months of his term, and demanded lawmakers increase the country’s borrowing limit in any new compromise.
Now, the president-elect has modified his demands, by telling NBC News in an interview that he wants the debt ceiling eliminated outright. “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump told the broadcaster.
The United States is one of a small number of countries with a statutory limit on how much debt the federal government can accumulate, and over the past decade and a half, Republicans have repeatedly demanded concessions from Democrats in exchange for voting to increase it.
Eliminating it entirely would be a huge ask at any time, but even more so now, with the government’s funding authorizations set to expire in less than 48 hours. Here’s more about what the debt ceiling is, and how it works:
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Just yesterday, it seemed like Congress was on the verge of enacting legislation to keep the government running for the next three months and prevent a shutdown that would begin after midnight on Friday. But on X, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and other conservatives whose influence grew after Donald Trump won re-election were busy condemning the deal. It was an effort that culminated yesterday afternoon, when the president-elect and JD Vance blew up the negotiations entirely by declaring that the bill should be scrapped and replaced with a new one that also increases country’s debt ceiling – a surprise demand that hadn’t been raised previously. The incoming administration’s opposition blew up the funding compromise, and now it is up to the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, to pick up the pieces, with less than 48 hours remaining until the government shuts down. Needless to say, few in Congress wanted this to happen with the Christmas holiday right around the corner. We’ll find out today if the GOP has it in them to turn the situation around.
Here’s what else we are watching today:
Democrats appear content to let Republicans own the government funding fiasco, with the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, tweeting that the GOP has “been ordered to shut down the government”.
The Wall Street Journal has published a lengthy look into how the White House managed Joe Biden’s public ageing during his presidency and before – which was a major factor in his decision to end his re-election bid earlier this year.
Biden and Kamala Harris have no public events on their schedule. The president is returning to Washington DC today from Delaware, while the vice-president flies this evening to Los Angeles.
