Former President Donald Trump may attempt to have his latest criminal indictment moved from a state court to a federal court. But where there are advantages, there are also challenges, according to legal analyst David Gelman.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has successfully urged a grand jury to charge President Trump and several co-defendants with allegations of lawbreaking in connection with his attempts to dispute the 2020 election results. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was also charged in the 98-page indictment, has already requested to have the Fulton County charges moved to a federal court, citing a federal law that allows individuals who were federal officeholders at the time of an alleged criminal act to have the case go before a federal court.
Two additional co-defendants in the Georgia case have since made similar requests to have their charges decided in a federal court and Mr. Trump’s legal team has indicated he may pursue the same procedural defense maneuver. If he is elected back to the White House, President Trump can pardon federal convictions—including potentially including his own—but he has no such power for state-level offenses like the kind Ms. Willis has leveled at him. One of President Trump’s attorneys, Alina Habba, directly raised that concern as she hinted that her client may push to have his charges brought to a federal court.
But Mr. Gelman explained, “There are pros and cons to doing it that way.” He told NTD News’ ‘Capitol Report’ on Tuesday that he doesn’t believe President Trump can get a very fair trial in Fulton County, “so I do think a change of venue is necessary regardless of if it’s going to go to the federal courts or the state courts.”
The prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer, who served as the assistant county prosecutor in Burlington County, New Jersey for about four years before launching his own criminal defense practice in 2017, voiced concerns about whether the former president would be getting a fair trial due to concerns about how Fulton County officials are publicizing the case, including talks of staging the former president for a mugshot.
By Ryan Morgan
