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The legal system has been very good to Donald Trump as he prepares to return to the White House, removing perceived enemies as prosecutors, dismissing charges and even awarding defamation damages.

A Georgia appeals court decision to disqualify Fani Willis, the anti-Donald Trump Fulton County district attorney from prosecuting an election interference case against the once and future president marks only the latest victory for Trump in lawfare battles since the 2020 election. 

Recently, Trump also obtained a $15 million defamation settlement from ABC News after an anchor inaccurately and repeatedly claimed he was found civilly liable for “raping” E. Jean Carroll. The New York Post reported that George Stephanopoulos was repeatedly told by his executive producer not to “use the word ‘rape’” before going on the air to discuss Donald Trump but the ABC News anchor ignored the warning. 

Early on in the Republican primary, Trump had to grapple with five cases brought by state and federal prosecutors that tied the former president to courtrooms as the election season kicked off. 

Now, with Trump still standing as the president-elect for the second time, the state-level cases appear to be embroiled in death throes and delays while the Justice Department’s special prosecutor moved last month to dismiss the two pending federal cases. 

As the cases die down and Trump prepares to take office in January, even some Democrats are even admitting that the slew of legal cases against him were either unfounded for a strategic blunder. 

“The Trump hush money and Hunter Biden cases were both bullshit, and pardons are appropriate,” Senator John Fetterman, D-Penn., wrote in his first post to Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.  “Weaponizing the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division,” he continued. 

Before the election, former Democratic presidential candidate and Congressman Dean Philipps called on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to pardon Trump in his state cases “for the good of the country.” 

Georgia election interference case

Trump latest win came in the Georgia election interference case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. On Thursday, an appeals court ruled that Willis and her deputies should be disqualified from prosecuting Trump due to the “appearance of impropriety.” 

“We reverse the trial court’s denial of the appellants’ motion to disqualify DA Willis and her office. As we conclude that the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed,” the Georgia appeals court wrote in the decision.

During several hearings on the case, Willis faced accusations of financial mismanagement and of carrying on an improper relationship with her chief prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade. The Fulton DA also laid the groundwork for prosecuting Trump before she had even taken office, according to Wade’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year. 

The judges wrote that the “remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”

This decision indicates that the proceedings in the case are likely to drag out even longer, already significantly delayed by the Willis accusations. Trump and his co-defendants have raised several other legal challenges on appeal including over the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. 

The ABC defamation case

Earlier this week, ABC News agreed to a settlement with Donald Trump after the former president sued the network for defamation following false claims by one of its star television anchors. 

Trump suited the media company after “Good Morning America” anchor and “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos, a former communications director at the Clinton White House and Democratic Party strategist, inaccurately claimed on air that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping accuser E. Jean Carroll, which was a misrepresentation of the judgements in two civil cases against the former president. 

In the first of the lawsuits, Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and was ordered to pay her $5 million. In a second lawsuit, Carroll secured an $83.3 million settlement for defamation after Trump continued to publicly label her story false. 

None of the accusations brought by Carroll met the standard for rape under New York law, according to the Associated Press. As a result, ABC News agreed to settle for a $15 million payment to Trump’s presidential library and issued a public apology for the segment. 

“ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024,” the outlet appended to the story that sparked the lawsuit. 

The federal cases

The two federal cases against former President Trump wound down late last month after special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss them over the Thanksgiving holiday, largely expecting the prosecutions to be hamstrung by Trump’s pending return to office. 

Both cases, an election interference case in Washington, D.C., and a classified documents case in Florida, faced significant delays and challenges from Trump’s team. In the classified documents case for example, Trump’s legal team challenged Smith’s legal status, which convinced the judge presiding over the case to dismiss it on the grounds that the special counsel was improperly appointed. 

In Washington, Smith’s case was interrupted by a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, forcing the special prosecutor to reconfigure his case to match their decision, which drew a line on immunity from prosecution for a president between official and unofficial acts. By the time of the decision, the case had already been delayed for months while Trump’s legal team challenged the charges on immunity grounds. 

The New York state cases

The two state cases in New York have also faced significant delays and speed bumps as Trump’s legal team continues to challenge their findings and sentencing timelines. 

In a civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a state appeals court has expressed skepticism about the size of the judgment leveled against Trump and merits of the case. Judge Arthur Engoron had found Trump liable of civil fraud in 2023 and imposed a substantial $450 million civil judgement. 

Though Trump’s efforts to have an appeals court dismiss the falsified business records charges of which he was convicted in May have been unsuccessful, sentencing has been indefinitely delayed as Trump prepares to take office. Bragg recently proposed delaying sentencing until after Trump leaves office in January 2029.