Why Donald Trump Has Given Up Trying to Move His Georgia Case

Donald Trump has abandoned an attempt to move his Georgia trial to federal court.

His trial for allegedly trying to steal the 2020 presidential election will now be broadcast on TV and YouTube, likely drawing millions of viewers.

Trump's lawyers had been keen to move Trump's case away from Georgia state courts, claiming Trump was the victim of a vendetta by prosecutor Fani Willis, who was elected as Fulton County District Attorney on a Democrat ticket.

Criminal cases can be removed to federal court if they involve crimes allegedly committed as part of federal government duty.

In this case, Willis has accused Trump of trying to corrupt the 2020 presidential election voting system in Georgia. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges after having to pose for a mugshot at an Atlanta jail. A Georgia judge has already decided that the state trial can be broadcast on TV and online.

Trump had sought to move the case to federal court and then apply for federal immunity.

However, according to legal lecturer and former federal prosecutor Harry Litman, Trump could score several advantages by staying in state court. First, he needn't preview his defense to the prosecutors, something he would have to do in federal court, and also he won't have to testify in state court. Also, Litman posted on X, formerly Twitter, the state case will likely be before a republican state judge who is up for reelection, whereas Trump may face "an Obama-appointed federal judge" if the case was transferred.

Attorney and legal analyst Lisa Rubin says that that it would have been difficult to win a transfer as "the defendants bear the burden of proof to remove a state case to federal court."

Like Litman, she says there are advantages in staying in state court as "Trump on the witness stand could endanger his actual defense, no matter what court he's ultimately in."

As Trump is also facing a federal indictment for allegedly trying to steal the 2020 election, putting him on the stand is "not a risk worth taking." By staying in state court, he is under no obligation to give evidence.

Rubin tweeted that "the trade-offs of being in federal court are minimal". Trump may have tried to invoke the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution in federal court to claim that Willis lacks the authority to prosecute him. However, according to Rubin, "you can do that in state court too and Trump joined [Georgia] GOP Chair David Shafer's motion to quash the indictment on that ground today."

One disadvantage, Rubin believes, is that Trump is "giving up a potentially more advantageous jury pool" in the federal system. "But Trump's goal is to prevent the Fulton County trial against him from happening at all and at the very least, not until after Election Day," she wrote.

The deadline for Trump to formally make the transfer request was Friday.

"This decision is based on his well-founded confidence that this Honorable Court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia," Trump attorney Steven Sadow wrote in the filing to the court on Thursday.

A federal judge in the US District Court of the Northern District of Georgia has already rejected an application by Trump's former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to move the case to federal court. Meadows is appealing that decision. Other defendants in the case have also asked to move their cases from state to federal court.