Georgia Court of Appeals disqualifies Fulton County DA Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump

CNN
—

A Georgia appeals court on Thursday disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump and his alleged co-conspirators on charges of 2020 election sabotage.

The long-awaited ruling, in a state criminal case against Trump that was already on hold, raises questions about whether the case can move forward in court. The appeals court found that Willis’ office cannot prosecute the case, so a new special prosecutor must be appointed for the case to proceed.

The appeals court found that a “substantial appearance of impropriety” was enough to potentially taint the case in the public eye. However, the appeals court decided it would not dismiss the sprawling vandalism conspiracy case entirely.

“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety is generally not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case where disqualification is warranted and no other remedy will be sufficient to restore public confidence in the integrity of these procedures,” wrote the court in Thursday’s statement.

The court added, “We cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme penalty of dismissing the indictment.”

Trump and some of his co-defendants have tried to have Willis disqualified from the case because of a romantic relationship she had with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to help handle the case. The defendants alleged that Willis benefited financially from the relationship with Wade, which defense attorneys say covered several vacations for the couple.

This story is breaking and will be updated.