Donald Trump indictment: Fulton County prosecutors signal potential plea deals
Kaelan Deese
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Fulton County prosecutors on Friday suggested they could soon offer a plea deal to one or more defendants heading to trial next month in former President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election subversion case in Georgia.
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade made the suggestion during a procedural hearing Friday for former Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged brainchild of the fake elector scheme. The pair of defendants will head to trial on Oct. 23 on charges related to alleged attempts to subvert the 2020 general election results in the Peach State.
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“We have not, at this point, made an offer,” Wade said during the hearing. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee then asked whether District Attorney Fani Willis‘s office was in a position to make one “in the near future?”
“Judge, I believe that we can,” Wade said. “We’ll sit down and kind of put some things together, and we’ll reach out to defense counsel individually to extend an offer.”
Defense attorneys during the remote Zoom hearing did not address the potential for a plea deal and have indicated they are expecting to head to trial.
Both Powell and Chesebro raised their right to a speedy trial shortly after a grand jury handed up the indictment in August, a move that significantly sped up their proceedings in court. They each face seven criminal charges, including state racketeering charges alleging that they formed a criminal enterprise with the intent to keep Trump in power after he lost the general election.
Also, on Friday, McAfee denied two motions for Chesebro that sought to invoke immunity from prosecution and block emails that prosecutors obtained via a search warrant.
McAfee also announced that jury selection, which will be pulling from a pool of roughly 900 prospective jurors, will begin three days before the trial on Oct. 20, noting that it’s “simply because of the logistics of getting jurors in a room” together.
The judge expects the trial to last three to five months, with breaks around the holidays and on Friday.
Trump made a surprising move on Thursday to opt out of removing his case to federal court, a move that broke from the conventional wisdom that he would likely try to move away from state court proceedings in a similar move to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a handful of others among the 19-defendant case.
The former president’s decision signals the likelihood that his trial will be televised, though he may potentially seek a federal court removal bid if the ruling against Meadows is overturned in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
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Trial dates for Trump and 16 others have not been set, though McAfee noted that around five or six other defendants have not indicated whether they plan to invoke their speedy trial right, indicating that perhaps more defendants could still join Powell and Chesebro for their upcoming trial.
Watch the Friday morning hearing here:
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