Lawyer of Trump co-defendant responds to Fani Willis' warning: 'We're ready'
Lawyer for Trump co-defendant Ashleigh Merchant joined 'Fox & Friends' to discuss what's next in the election interference case and the latest on the former president's other legal woes ahead of November.
Georgia attorney Ashleigh Merchant said she doesn't see "any way" in which Fani Willis' 2020 election interference case against former President Trump proceeds before the November election, after Willis warned the "train is coming."
"I don't see any way that this could happen before the election," Merchant told host Steve Doocy on "Fox & Friends," Monday.
Last week, Georgia Judge Scott McAfee allowed Trump and his co-defendants to appeal his decision to allow Willis to stay on the case after she fired prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom she was accused of having an improper relationship.
Merchant, a lawyer for a Trump co-defendant in the case, explained how the case will now go before a Court of Appeals. The court can then decide if Willis is disqualified, send the case back to Judge McAfee, or send it up to the Supreme Court.
LAWYER WHO EXPOSED WILLIS-WADE RELATIONSHIP REACTS TO COURT RULING: ‘DISQUALIFIED’
Georgia attorney Ashleigh Merchant said she didn't think there was any way Fani Willis's case against Trump would proceed before the November election. (Screenshot/Fox News Channel)
"No trial is going to be resolved and happen before the election," she said, arguing Willis had made the case "extremely overbroad."
"So what they're looking at is actually having someone running for office, running for the office of president, being on trial. That's unheard of," she stated.
Willis recently spoke out about the case for the first time after Judge McAfee ruled she must either remove herself or Wade from the case. Hours after the order, Wade resigned from the case, allowing Willis to remain on it.
"My team’s been continuing to work it… We were still doing the case in the way that it needed to be done," she told CNN on Saturday. "I don’t feel like we’ve been slowed down at all. I do think there are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming."
FANI WILLIS SAYS SHE'S THE ONLY DA IN US WITH ENOUGH ‘COURAGE’ TO PROSECUTE TRUMP
Judge Scott McAfee, left, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, center, and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, right. (Getty Images)
While Merchant believed Willis's election interference case was unlikely to be resolved before the election, she argued Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money payments case could proceed against Trump before then.
"But, you know, this is by far the weakest case, in my opinion, out of all the cases. And so it's ironic that this is the one that they're pushing forward and this is the one that's going to be heard," she said.
Trump is expected in a downtown New York City courtroom on Monday for the hearing related to Bragg's investigation into alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump's criminal trial was originally scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection. However, earlier this month, Judge Juan Merchan delayed it until mid-April in order to give the former president and his lawyers more time to go through 15,000 records of potential evidence the Justice Department shared from a previous federal investigation.
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Fox News' Brie Stimson and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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