A Georgia state court of appeals has ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office should be removed from the state prosecution against President-elect Donald J. Trump and his associates over allegations they interfered in the 202o presidential election. Previously, Fulton County Judge Scott McAffee had ordered either Willis or her lover and special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, to resign from the case. Wade promptly left the legal action.
“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 appellate panel writes, continuing: “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,” the court added, concluding: “Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s denial of the appellants’ motion to disqualify DA Willis and her office. 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 appeals court, however, denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the RICO case on due process grounds, although other dismissal motions are still pending.
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