ATLANTA — Georgia’s highest court has declined to consider Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ appeal of her removal from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others.
Citing an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case, the Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue to prosecute the case.
“Willis’ misconduct during the investigation and prosecution of President Trump was egregious and she deserved nothing less than disqualification,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s attorney in the Georgia case, said in a statement.
Willis said she disagreed with the court’s decision, but would direct her office to make the case file and evidence available to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia so it can appoint a new prosecutor to replace her.
“I hope that whoever is assigned to handle the case will have the courage to do what the evidence and the law demand,” Willis said in an emailed statement.
Willis in January asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review that ruling, and the high court on Tuesday declined in a 4-3 decision to take up the case. One judge didn’t participate and one judge was disqualified.
That means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find another prosecutor to take the case. That person could continue on the track that Willis has taken, decide to pursue only some charges or dismiss the case altogether. It could be difficult to find a prosecutor willing to take the case, given its complex nature and the resources required.
Even if a new prosecutor wants to continue on the path charted by Willis, it seems unlikely that Trump could be prosecuted now that he’s the sitting president. But there are 14 other defendants who still face charges in the case.
A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia. The alleged scheme included Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden. Four people have pleaded guilty.
The Georgia case was one of four criminal cases brought in 2023 against Trump. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned two federal prosecutions after Trump won the November election. In his hush money case in New York, Trump was convicted on 34 counts but received a sentence of no punishment.
Willis had asked the Georgia high court to consider whether the lower appeals court was wrong to disqualify her “based solely upon an appearance of impropriety and absent a finding of an actual conflict of interest or forensic misconduct.” She also asked the state Supreme Court to weigh whether the Court of Appeals erred “in substituting the trial court’s discretion with its own” in this case.
“No Georgia court has ever disqualified a district attorney for the mere appearance of impropriety without the existence of an actual conflict of interest,” Willis’ filing says. “And no Georgia court has ever reversed a trial court’s order declining to disqualify a prosecutor based solely on an appearance of impropriety.”
Lawyers for Trump had argued in a court filing that the lower appeals court got it right and that Willis’ “disqualification is mandated because it is the only remedy that could purge the taint of impropriety.”
___
Brumback reported from New York.
