Prosecutor Fani Willis removed from Georgia election case against Trump and others

ATLANTA – A state court of appeals on Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis removed Georgia’s election interference case against Donald Trump and others, the latest legal victory for the president-elect in criminal cases that once threatened his career and freedom.

The case against Trump and more than a dozen others had already been stalled for months on an appeal related to a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case.

Citing an “apparent impropriety” that might not typically warrant such removal, a Georgia appeals court panel said in a 2-1 ruling that “this is the rare case where disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will be sufficient to restore public confidence in the integrity of these procedures.” Willis’ office immediately filed a notice of intent to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the decision.

But prosecuting a sitting president is a practical impossibility. And Trump will return to the White House after defeating efforts to prosecute him and empowered by a Supreme Court order granting him presumptive immunity for any “official act” he undertakes in office.

The development comes just weeks after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith dropped two federal prosecutions against the president-elect and as sentencing in a separate hush money case in New York has been put on hold indefinitely as a result of Trump’s November victory over the Democratic president Joe Biden.

An Atlanta grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-extortion law to accuse them of participating in an elaborate scheme to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 presidential election loss to Biden in Georgia. The alleged scheme included Trump’s solicitation of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden. Four people have pleaded guilty.

Trump told Fox News Digital that the case “should not be allowed to go any further.” The president-elect added, “Everyone should receive an apology, including the wonderful patriots who have been caught up in this for years.”

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, said the ruling was “well-reasoned and fair.” He said the appeals court “highlighted that Willis’s misconduct created an ‘odor of falsity’ and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by disqualification of her and her entire office.”

“This decision puts an end to a politically motivated pursuit of the next president of the United States,” Sadow wrote in an emailed statement.

Representatives for Willis did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on the ruling.

The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous few months in the case, as intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February. A defendant’s motion alleged that Willis and Wade engaged in an inappropriate romantic relationship and that Willis paid Wade large sums of money for his work and then benefited when he paid for lavish vacations.

Willis and Wade acknowledged the relationship but said they did not start dating until spring 2022. Wade was hired in November 2021 and their romance ended in summer 2023, they said. They also testified that they split travel and other expenses roughly equally, with Willis often paying expenses or reimbursing Wade in cash.

Speaking at a historically black church in Atlanta shortly after allegations of the affair surfaced, Willis defended Wade’s qualifications and her own management of her office. Defense lawyers said the speech included a series of inappropriate and prejudicial comments against the defendants and their legal team, poisoning any potential jurors against them.

The appeals court’s majority opinion, written by Judge Trenton Brown and joined by Judge Todd Markle, said that “the remedy designed by the trial court to prevent a continuing appearance of wrongdoing did nothing to address apparent wrongdoing that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising broad pre-trial discretion as to who to prosecute and what charges to file.”

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Benjamin Land wrote that “the law does not support the result reached by the majority.” Trial court judges, he said, have broad discretion to impose a remedy that fits a situation, and the appellate court should respect that.

“We are here to ensure that the law has been properly applied and to correct harmful legal errors when we see them. It is not our job to second-guess judges or to substitute our judgment for theirs,” he wrote.

“Where, as here, a prosecutor has no actual conflict of interest and the trial court, based on the evidence before it, dismisses the allegations of actual impropriety, we have no authority to reverse the trial court’s dismissal of a claim of disqualification. ” he said, arguing that the majority opinion goes against decades of precedent in Georgia.

The decision by the Court of Appeal panel means that it will be up to Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take over the case, though that could be delayed if the state Supreme Court takes the case. Finding another prosecutor willing to take it on may be difficult given the extensive resources needed to prosecute the sprawling and complex case. That person could continue on the path Willis has taken, decide to pursue only some charges, or dismiss the case entirely.

Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, the trial judge, had ruled in March that no conflict of interest existed to force Willis off the case. Trump and the others appealed that ruling.

McAfee wrote that the prosecution was “tainted with apparent impropriety”. He said Willis could only stay on the case if Wade left; the special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.