Georgia appeals court to consider ousting Willis
The Georgia state Court of Appeals on Wednesday agreed to hear the appeal of former President Donald Trump as to whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from his election fraud case for improper conduct.
The court granted the application for what’s known as interlocutory appeal without comment, saying that Trump and at least eight co-defendants have 10 days to file their formal appeal. That means the appellate court will hear the case before the trial gets underway rather than afterward.
The appeal could significantly delay the trial, possibly until after the Nov. 5 election. Scott McAfee, the presiding judge in the Georgia case, has not set a trial date. He has said he will allow trial preparations to go forward while the appeal proceeds.
“President Trump looks forward to presenting interlocutory arguments to the Georgia Court of Appeals as to why the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct in this unjustified, unwarranted political persecution,” said Steve Sadow, lead defense counsel for Trump in the case.
District attorney’s spokesman Jeff DiSantis said the office would have “no comment at this point.”
Trump and the others face charges of conspiring to commit election fraud in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia that Trump lost to President Joe Biden.
It’s the second court decision in two days that likely pushes back a trial date for Trump. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Florida postponed Trump’s classified documents trial indefinitely.
Furthermore, a third criminal prosecution is on hold pending a Supreme Court decision about the former president’s potential immunity. A fourth criminal trial is underway in New York.
A former Trump campaign official filed a motion to remove Willis and the entire district attorney’s office in January,
alleging that Willis had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a private lawyer she hired to oversee the sprawling election racketeering case.
Willis and Wade admitted the affair but denied wrongdoing, and said their affair started after she hired him to oversee the investigation in November 2021.
McAfee wrote a scathing ruling in March, saying Willis and Wade had severely damaged their credibility and “an odor of mendacity remains” about their testimony, USA TODAY previously reported.
Nonetheless, McAfee found that the defendants failed to meet their burden of proving that Willis created “an actual conflict of interest through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.” He ruled that Willis could stay on the case as long as she forced Wade off the prosecution team. Wade subsequently resigned.
Trump and a majority of the defendants sought to appeal that ruling, saying McAfee’s ruling didn’t go far enough, and that Willis – and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office – should be disqualified and the case dismissed because of her alleged financial and ethical conflicts of interest.
Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY 20% Thicker Aluminum
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