The legal team for Donald Trump filed a request Monday for oral arguments to be heard in October's appeal regarding whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed as the chief prosecutor in the election interference case against the former president and 14 others.
The Georgia Court of Appeals last week halted the case and set a date of Oct. 4 to hear the appeal of a lower court's ruling that Willis can remain on the case. The request for oral arguments is rare; the appeals court typically decides cases solely on legal briefs, the Washington Examiner reported.
However, Steve Sadow, lead defense counsel for Trump, told several media outlets that oral arguments would help bring clarity to the reasons Willis should be disqualified.
"President Trump has filed his request for oral argument in the Georgia Court of Appeals, currently calendared for October. We believe oral argument will assist the Court by highlighting and clarifying the reasons why the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct," Sadow said via a statement to multiple outlets, including Newsweek.
The court has granted requests for oral arguments 32% to 41% of the time, according to the Examiner.
The appeal of Trump and seven of the co-defendants comes after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis could stay on but had to fire chief prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom she had a romantic relationship.
In Monday's filing, Trump accused Willis of conflict of interest and "forensic misconduct," the latter stemming from a speech Willis gave on Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend at a historically black church, which the filing called "extrajudicial speech."
"In this speech, DA Willis injected race and her communications with God into the case (and the prospective jury pool) and stoked racial animus against the defendants and their counsel by, among other statements, asking God why the defendants challenged her conduct in hiring a black man but not his white counterparts, and why the judgment of a black female Democrat was not as good as white male Republicans," Sadow wrote in the filing.
The Georgia Court of Appeals is required to rule on the appeal by March. The losing side could then appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.