Ga. court to hear appeal of ruling allowing Willis
Prosecutor may be disqualified in Trump case
the georgia Court of appeals will hear an appeal of a ruling that allowed Fani willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, to continue leading the prosecution of former president Donald trump on charges related to election interference, the court announced wednesday.
the decision to hear the appeal, issued by a three-judge panel, is all but certain to delay the georgia criminal case against trump and 14 of his allies, making it less likely to go to trial before the november election. legal experts said it may take months for the appellate court to hear the case and issue a ruling.
the court’s terse three-sentence announcement reopened the possibility that willis could be disqualified from the biggest case of her career and one of the most significant state criminal cases in the nation’s history.
at issue is a romantic relationship she had with nathan wade, a lawyer she hired to handle the prosecution of trump. Defense lawyers argued that the relationship amounted to an untenable conflict of interest, and that willis and her entire office should be removed from the case.
But march 15, Judge Scott mcafee of Fulton County Superior Court ruled that willis could keep the case if wade stepped away from it. wade resigned a few hours after judge issued his ruling.
Steve Sadow, the lead counsel for trump in georgia, said in a statement wednesday that his client “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.”
a spokesperson for willis’s office declined to comment on the appeals court’s action.
the decision is yet another setback for Democrats who hoped the courts would hold trump accountable before the presidential election for some of the most serious crimes he is accused of committing. trump is currently on trial in new York in a case involving hush money, but trials in three other criminal cases against him, including the georgia case, appear increasingly unlikely to begin before november, when voters will decide whether to return him to office.
trump faces federal election interference charges in washington, D.C., and a federal prosecution in Florida over mishandling of government documents.
the georgia case was already in a kind of administrative limbo over the question of whether trump is immune from prosecution related to his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election loss — efforts that are at the heart of the state indictment handed up in the summer by a Fulton County grand jury.
trump has argued that presidential immunity, “rooted in the separation of powers and the text of the Constitution,” should shield him from being prosecuted for his actions in georgia. those efforts include a telephone call Jan. 2, 2021, in which trump pressed Brad Raffensperger, the georgia secretary of state at the time, to help him “find” enough votes to overturn President Biden’s victory.
trump has also raised the immunity issue in the federal election interference case in washington, D.C.
the US Supreme Court heard arguments about the immunity claim last month; it might not rule on the matter until late June or early July.
in georgia, willis’s office has told defense lawyers that it would not respond to trump’s immunity motion in that case until after the Supreme Court’s decision.
mcafee’s ruling in march had harsh words for willis, even as it gave her a way to stay on the trump case.