Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Fails to Pause Proceedings Amid Disqualification Effort

A arrest picture of Misty Hampton from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office shows her. On the right, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis talks in Atlanta on August 14, 2023.

One of the people charged with election influence and racketeering (RICO) with Donald Trump in a case out of Georgia has failed in her bid to have the trial court put on hold her case.

Fulton County officials charged Misty Hampton and 18 other people in a huge, 98-page, 41-count criminal indictment released last August. Hampton used to be the elections supervisor for Coffee County.

Four of Hampton’s co-defendants took plea deals by the end of 2018, but Hampton and five other co-defendants turned down similar deals that would have forced them to plead guilty. At the same time, nine co-defendants worked together to try to get Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office removed from handling the case.

Hampton, on the other hand, wasn’t in that group of nine, which on Tuesday killed her attempt to stop the criminal case.

The order from the court says, “The motion is NOT granted.”

The Georgia Court of Appeals put the case against Trump and the eight other people who signed on to keep Willis from running for office on hold last week. The second-highest court in the Peach State said in a short, one-page order that the long-delayed lower court case would not go forward until the appeals were decided.

The next day, Hampton tried to get her own case pushed back as well.

Hampton’s lawyer, John R. Monroe, wrote, “The Court of Appeals cases are appeals of some of the co-defendants in this case.” “It is not clear if the Court of Appeals meant for its order to stop all proceedings in the case or just those for the co-defendants in the appeals in question.”

The defense team acknowledged that the pleading was uncertain, but they urged a level of caution and demanded that all proceedings in the case be put on hold for now.

The defense also brought up the important parts of the case that are currently being heard by the intermediate court in the Peach State.

It was said in the motion for a stay that if the Court of Appeals finds that the District Attorney and her staff are not qualified, that ruling would have to be followed by this Court in all cases, even the one where the defendant was being prosecuted.

That line of thinking was shot down by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Tuesday.

It says in the court’s order that Hampton says the final appellate ruling might disqualify the District Attorney and that the case should be put on hold so that the court can work more efficiently. “If the case isn’t completely thrown out, there will still be an indictment and several statutory and constitutional challenges that need to be resolved. Many of these have been fully briefed, argued, and may also benefit from appellate review.” At this point, the person signing does not think that a full stay is the best thing to do.

The judge said no to the motion because he didn’t think the appeals court’s order to stay the proceedings applied to the whole case. He did, however, tell Hampton and the other five defendants that they could “seek clarity” by filing a request directly with the higher court.

It’s important to note that McAfee didn’t completely rule out the idea of a stay in his court; he just said he wouldn’t do it right now because of all the pretrial moves that needed to be dealt with in the still-going, complex case that is missing 9 defendants.

“Hampton may make her request again once all pretrial motions are decided,” the court said.

Hampton was charged with voting equipment breach along with three other people, including “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell, who took the plea deal. Hampton faces a total of six charges. Hampton is said to have permitted the Coffee County election machine inspection process which was the reason for multiple charges in a letter that the defense found during the discovery process.

Hampton is also being charged with a more serious RICO violation. They say she was part of a larger plot to give Georgia’s electoral votes to the 2020 loser in the general vote.

Source: Law & Crime