Georgia’s Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis Thursday from prosecuting the 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants over a conflict of interest.
Willis’s office filed a notice Thursday afternoon indicating that it intends to appeal the court’s decision, which, if taken up, would move the case to Georgia’s Supreme Court.
Trump and eight of his 18 co-defendants filed an application with Georgia’s appeals court in March, asking it to reconsider Judge Scott McAfee decision to allow Willis to continue to prosecute the case after she was accused of having an improper relationship with her special prosecutor, Nathan Wade. McAfee had allowed her to stay on the grounds that she cut ties with Wade.
“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,” Judge E. Trention Brown wrote in the appeals court majority opinion.
“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.”
“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, 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,” Brown wrote.
The court affirmed, however, that the indictment against Trump should not be dismissed.
“The appellants contend that the trial court erred in denying their motions to dismiss the indictment. The State responds that the appellants have failed to show that the trial court erred in finding that the appellants had not shown ‘that [their] due process rights have been violated or that the issues involved prejudiced [them] in any way,’” Brown wrote.
He noted that dismissing the indictment would be an “extreme sanction” and should only be used for “unlawful government conduct.”
The Fulton County district attorney’s office indicted Trump, alongside 18 others, in 2023 on felony charges in a large-scale racketeering case for attempting to interfere in Georgia’s state election. It’s unclear what exactly Willis’s disqualification will mean for the case.
Trump’s lawyers had argued in a legal filing two weeks ago that the case ought to be tossed “well before” he was sworn in as president, and that both the state and district court “lack jurisdiction to entertain any further criminal process against President Trump as the continued indictment and prosecution of President Trump by the State of Georgia are unconstitutional.”
Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney F. McDonald Wakeford hit back at the lawyers’ request, arguing that the “Appellant does not specify or articulate how the appeal—or indeed, any other aspect of this case—will constitutionally impede or interfere with his duties once he assumes office,” implying that the case would proceed regardless of Trump’s return to the White House.
This story has been updated.