Exclusive: Georgia DA plans to press ahead in effort to put Trump on trial before election
CNN
Fani Willis, the embattled Fulton County District Attorney, plans to press ahead with her goal of putting Donald Trump on trial before the November election, and intends to ask the judge presiding over the Georgia criminal case to schedule a summer trial date, according to three people familiar with her thinking.
Fani Willis, the embattled Fulton County District Attorney, plans to press ahead with her goal of putting Donald Trump on trial before the November election, and intends to ask the judge presiding over the Georgia criminal case to schedule a trial date as soon as this summer, according to three people familiar with her thinking. It’s a bold move considering the hurdles Willis faces in getting the case back on track after a two-month detour revealed embarrassing details of her personal life, damaging her credibility in the eyes of Judge Scott McAfee and leaving her politically vulnerable ahead of her own reelection bid in November. Willis narrowly avoided being disqualified over her romantic relationship with lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade, who resigned last Friday following a blistering rebuke from McAfee, publicly questioning both Wade and Willis’s decision-making. On Wednesday McAfee granted requests from Trump and his co-defendants to seek an appeal, meaning the threat of disqualification still hangs over Willis. Georgia Republicans continue to investigate allegations that Willis benefitted financially from her relationship with Wade. A state Senate committee could use its subpoena power to unearth new information and plans to meet several more times to hear from additional witnesses. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp last week signed changes into law that give a state commission the power to investigate Willis and authority to remove or sanction state prosecutors. Willis’s rock-solid political standing has also been shaken. This month, Democrat Christian Wise Smith, a former Fulton County prosecutor and Atlanta solicitor, launched a campaign challenging Willis in the May 21 primary. Republican lawyer Courtney Kramer, an attorney who worked in the Office of the White House Counsel under Trump, has also joined the race.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.