Politico reports:

A state judge in Georgia has rejected Donald Trump’s bid to derail his potential prosecution for attempting to subvert the 2020 election results.

In a nine-page ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said it’s simply too soon for Trump or his allies to seek to prohibit Georgia prosecutors from continuing to investigate him — in large part because he hasn’t been indicted yet.

“[W]hile being the subject (or even target) of a highly publicized criminal investigation is likely an unwelcome and unpleasant experience, no court ever has held that that status alone provides a basis for the courts to interfere with or halt the investigation,” wrote McBurney, who spent a year overseeing District Attorney Fani Willis’ special grand jury investigation of Trump’s election-related actions.

In an aside, McBurney made a clear reference to Trump’s effort to capitalize on his legal troubles as well: “And for some, being the subject of a criminal investigation can, a la Rumpelstiltskin, be turned into golden political capital, making it seem more providential than problematic.”

He also noted that Trump had already been admonished by federal courts — in his bid to short-circuit a potential prosecution for hoarding classified documents — when the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals shot down his bid to reclaim items seized from his estate by the FBI. [Continue reading…]