Appeals court removes prosecutor Fani Willis from Georgia election case against Trump and others

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

ATLANTA -

A state appeals court on Thursday removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others but did not dismiss the indictment, leaving the future of the prosecution uncertain.

Citing an “appearance of impropriety” by Willis that might not typically warrant such a removal, the court said in a 2-1 ruling that “this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”

The case against Trump and more than a dozen others had already been largely stalled for months while the Georgia Court of Appeals considered the pretrial appeal.

The 2-1 ruling by an appeals court panel means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take over the case and to decide whether to continue to pursue it, though that could be delayed if Willis decides to appeal to the state Supreme Court and that court agrees to take the case. A trial judge in March had allowed Willis to stay on the case.

It's the latest legal victory for Trump as he prepares for a return to power in a second term, further underscoring how criminal cases that just one year ago threatened to impede Trump’s political career and put him in personal jeopardy have now tilted in his favor.

And he cheered the state court's decision, telling Fox News Digital that case “should not be allowed to go any further.” The president-elect added: “Everybody should receive an apology, including those wonderful patriots who have been caught up in this for years.”

The development comes weeks after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned two federal prosecutions against the incoming president, and as sentencing in a separate hush money case in New York is indefinitely on hold as a result of Trump’s victory in November over Democratic President Joe Biden.

Even so, the practical consequences for Trump may be minimal given the virtual impossibility of trying to proceed with a criminal case against a sitting president, no matter the supervisor of the prosecution. But there are 14 other defendants who still face charges.

Representatives for Willis and Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia did not immediately respond Thursday to text messages seeking comment on the ruling.

The appeals court majority opinion, written by Judge Trenton Brown and joined by Judge Todd Markle, said “the remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”

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 to impose a remedy to fit a situation and the appeals court should respect that.

“We are here to ensure the law has been applied correctly and to correct harmful legal errors when we see them. It is not our job to second-guess trial 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 presented to it, rejects the allegations of actual impropriety, we have no authority to reverse the trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” he said, arguing that the majority opinion goes against decades of precedent in Georgia.

A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 presidential election loss in Georgia. Four of them have since pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.

Trump and some of the remaining defendants tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case and to have the case dismissed. They argued that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest and that she made improper public statements about the case.

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

McAfee wrote that the prosecution was “encumbered by an appearance of impropriety.” He said Willis could remain on the case only if Wade left; the special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.

The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous couple of months in the case as intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February. Trump and others also argued that public comments Willis made in the wake of the revelation of the relationship improperly disparaged the defendants and their lawyers.

The allegations against Willis first surfaced in a motion filed in early January by Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide Michael Roman. The motion alleged that Willis and Wade were involved in an inappropriate romantic relationship and that Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited when he paid for lavish vacations.

Merchant, in a statement Thursday, said that “we regret that Ms. WIllis did not do the right thing and voluntarily recuse herself when Mr. Roman raised the issue because failing to do so put Judge McAfee in an untenable position.”

Willis and Wade acknowledged the relationship but said they didn’t begin dating until the spring of 2022. Wade was hired in November 2021, and their romance ended last summer. They also testified that they split travel costs roughly evenly, with Willis often paying expenses or reimbursing Wade in cash.

Speaking at a historically Black church in Atlanta soon after the relationship was revealed, Willis defended Wade’s qualifications and her own leadership of her office. Defence lawyers said that speech included a series of improper and prejudicial comments against the defendants and their legal team, poisoning any potential jurors against them.

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