Trump Lawyer Expected to Make First Arguments to Judge in Georgia Case

A lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump is expected to argue in an Atlanta courtroom on Friday that to have a fair trial on state charges in Georgia, Mr. Trump needs access to lists of the government’s evidence in a related federal case against him.

The hearing, which began on Friday morning, is the latest chapter in the election interference case against Mr. Trump and 14 co-defendants that was brought in August by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga.

Ms. Willis wants the trial in the case to start next August, but the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, has yet to set a date. Mr. Trump is seeking to delay the trial, while another defendant, John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after he lost the 2020 presidential election, is seeking to speed it up.

Judge McAfee scheduled the hearing to address motions not just from Mr. Trump, but also from a number of his co-defendants. On Friday morning, he said that he did not anticipate ruling immediately on any “substantive” questions.

All 15 defendants in the case face conspiracy charges related to attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results and subvert the will of voters. Four other defendants have pleaded guilty in the case and have agreed to cooperate with the government.

Mr. Trump’s lead Georgia lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, sent an email last month to members of the former president’s legal team who are handling the federal election interference case. In the email, Mr. Sadow said he wanted an inventory of “relevant material” that is “common to both of our cases” — specifically, F.B.I. reports and federal grand jury transcripts — from the Atlanta prosecutors.

The F.B.I. reports and federal grand jury transcripts stem from the federal investigation into election interference following the 2020 election.

It is not unusual for a lawyer to ask for broader access to evidence, but Mr. Sadow’s motion is complicated by the fact that it seeks material from a different jurisdiction. The motion is being interpreted by many legal analysts as an effort by Mr. Trump to delay the Georgia proceedings.

The lawyers in the federal case responded that a protective order “appears to restrict our ability to share information with others.” Mr. Sadow then filed a motion seeking Judge McAfee’s assistance.

The federal case is being brought by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. It relates to Mr. Trump’s broader efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election despite losing to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Whether Mr. Sadow will be allowed to see the log of federal evidence is among the questions before Judge McAfee on Friday. Another question is whether the state charges against Mr. Trump should be thrown out because his claims about voting fraud after he lost the 2020 election were protected by the First Amendment.

In the morning, a lawyer for David Shafer, a former Georgia Republican Party chairman who is among the defendants in the case, began the hearing by explaining to the judge why he believed central elements of the case should be thrown out.

Mr. Shafer was one of the Trump supporters who met on Dec. 14, 2020, at the Georgia Capitol and portrayed themselves as the legitimate presidential electors for the state, even though Georgia had been won by Mr. Biden.

Mr. Shafer’s lawyer, Craig Gillen, argued that the actions of the Republicans claiming to be electors were legal under federal law at the time, because a lawsuit challenging the election results, brought by Mr. Trump and Mr. Shafer in Georgia on Dec. 4, had not been resolved by Dec. 8, the deadline by which all state-level election challenges were supposed to be completed.

Given that circumstance, Mr. Gillen argued, it was up to Congress to decide between “contingent” elector slates from the two parties.

Will Wooten, a Fulton County prosecutor, called the argument “absurd.” Referring to the pro-Trump slate, he said, “None of them were presidential electors.”