Trump will be tried separately from Powell and Chesebro in Georgia election interference case, judge rules

Donald Trump and 16 other co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case will be tried separately from lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, the judge in the case has ruled. “Defendants Chesebro and Powell will join each other at trial, however, the other 17 defendants are severed from these two. Additional severances may follow. All pretrial deadlines will proceed as scheduled without a stay of proceedings,” Judge Scott McAfee at the Superior Court of Fulton County wrote in a ruling issued on Thursday. The trial for Mr Chesebro and Ms Powell is set to go ahead on 23 October. The move comes after Mr Chesebro and Ms Powell invoked their right to a speedy trial, the judge noted. Their motions to severance their cases from each other were denied but the court found that “severing the remaining 17 co-defendants is simply a procedural and logistical inevitability,” leading to the motions to sever from Mr Chesebro and Ms Powell being “granted in part”. The judge wrote that joint trials are “generally favoured” because they “promote judicial efficiency and prevent inconsistent verdicts”. He added that any defendant who doesn’t waive their right to a speedy trial before 23 October, as Mr Trump has, will “immediately” be added to that trial. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis attempted to get all 19 defendants in the case, including the former president, to be tried together, citing the “enormous strain on the judicial resources” separate trials would create. But Judge McAfee wrote in his order that “the precarious ability of the Court to safeguard each defendant’s due process rights and preparation ensure adequate pretrial preparation on the current accelerated track weights heavily, if not decisively, in favor of severance”. More follows...