Willis’s affair with special prosecutor presents ‘significant appearance of impropriety,’ GA Appeals Court said
A Georgia Court of Appeals on Thursday removed Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump due to her romantic relationship with the case’s lead prosecutor.
The judges said Willis’s affair with ex-special prosecutor Nathan Wade presents “significant appearance of impropriety” and “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings” than to disqualify Willis from the case.
The court did not dismiss the charges against Trump, but throwing out Willis’s office leaves the future of the case uncertain. The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia is responsible for finding another prosecutor to take over the case and deciding whether to continue to pursue it, according to the Associated Press.
Willis claimed that her intimate relationship with Wade did not begin until after she appointed him to the case in 2021, despite testimony from witnesses that it began in 2019.
Fulton County Superior Court judge Scott McAfee ruled in March that Willis would be allowed to stay on the case but that Wade would have to be removed due to the “appearance of impropriety.” He resigned hours later.
“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 Appeals Court ruling reads.
“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,” it continued.
“In granting President Trump an overwhelming mandate, the American People have demanded an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all the Witch Hunts against him,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement celebrating the court’s ruling. “We look forward to uniting our country as President Trump Makes America Great Again.”
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