Mr Trump’s legal team unsuccessfully argued that Fani Willis, a Georgia district attorney, should be barred from bringing charges against him and that a grand jury’s report should be thrown out.
The grand jury spent eight months interrogating some 75 witnesses and filed a lengthy report on Mr Trump’s conduct last year.
Mr Trump surrendered at a Georgia jail in August to be arrested in connection with the charges, after his bail was set at $200,000 with strict conditions attached to it.
The judge has not yet set a trial date for Mr Trump, but Ms Willis has proposed courtroom proceedings commence on Aug 5 2024 for the remaining defendants.
If successful, this means the trial would begin just months before the US presidential election in November.
That timetable has been thrown into doubt over allegations that Ms Wallis faced a conflict of interest over her romantic involvement with lawyer Nathan Wade, whom she hired to spearhead the case.
Mr Wade, who earned close to $700,000 for his work on the case, took the district attorney on expensive holidays throughout 2022 – including a cruise with his mother. Ms Willis denied any conflict of interest and said she had repaid Mr Wade in cash.
Mr Wade eventually stepped aside after a ruling by Judge Scott McAfee, who did not find a conflict but criticised Ms Willis’ “tremendous” lapse in judgement and “unprofessional manner” while testifying.
Mr Trump subsequently announced he would challenge the decision not to dismiss Ms Willis, which a Georgia appeals court agreed to hear in May.
The developments have further kicked a trial date into the long grass – and if Ms Willis is removed from the case, Georgia will have to find another prosecution team. A trial before November’s presidential election now looks unlikely.
Aside from Georgia, Mr Trump has been charged with four criminal counts over the events that led to the riot at the US Capitol on Jan 6 2021.
In a 45-page indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith, he was accused of trying to “overturn the legitimate results” of the 2020 presidential election.
He allegedly did so by pressuring officials in swing states where he had lost to assemble “fake electors” to ignore the popular vote, and pushing the Justice Department to open “sham” election inquiries.
