Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office were disqualified from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump in the election interference case.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the filing from the Georgia Appeals Court says. “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.”
“Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s denial of the appellants’ motion to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the filing states. “As we conclude that the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case, ‘the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed,’” the filing states.
Trump told Fox News that the case “should not be allowed to go any further,” explaining that there is “no way such corrupt people can lead a case and then it gets taken over by somebody else. It was a corrupt case, so how could it be taken over by someone else?”
He added that the case was thrown out because “it was started corruptly by an incompetent prosecutor who received millions of dollars through her boyfriend—who received it from her—and then they went on cruises all the time.”
Willis faced a potential disqualification in February over the misuse of taxpayer dollars and her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. “The state has admitted a relationship existed. And so what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit, again if there even was one,” Judge Scott McAfee wrote at the time. “And so because I think it’s possible that the facts alleged by the defendant could result in disqualification, I think an evidentiary hearing must occur to establish the record on those core allegations.”
McAfee ordered Wade to step down from the case in March.
