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Atlanta Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, was removed from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others by a state appeals court on Thursday. However, the indictment was not dismissed, so the prosecution’s future remains unknown.
While the Georgia Court of Appeals reviewed the pretrial appeal, the case against Trump and over a dozen other defendants had already been mostly frozen for months.
The new ruling means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take over the case and to decide whether to continue to pursue it, though that could be delayed if Willis decides to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
It s the latest legal victory for Trump as he prepares for a return to power in a second term, further underscoring how criminal cases that just one year ago threatened to impede Trump s political career and put him in personal jeopardy have now tilted in his favor.
This comes weeks after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith dropped two federal charges against the incoming president. Additionally, after Trump defeated Democratic President Joe Biden in November, sentencing in a separate hush money case in New York is on indefinite hold.
However, considering that it is nearly impossible to pursue a criminal case against a sitting president, regardless of the prosecutor, Trump’s real repercussions might be negligible. However, accusations are still pending against 14 additional individuals.
Text messages requesting comment on the decision were not immediately answered Thursday by Willis’s and Trump’s primary Georgia attorney’s representatives.
In August 2023, a grand jury in Atlanta charged Trump and eighteen other defendants, alleging they were involved in a complex plot to unlawfully attempt to overturn Trump’s narrow defeat in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. Since then, four of them have struck agreements with prosecutors and entered guilty pleas. Trump has entered a not guilty plea, as have the others.
Trump and some of the remaining defendants tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case and to have the case dismissed. They argued that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest and that she made improper public statements about the case.
Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled in March that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case. Trump and the others appealed that ruling.
McAfee wrote that the prosecution was encumbered by an appearance of impropriety. He said Willis could remain on the case only if Wade left; the special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.
The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous couple of months in the case as intimate details of Willis and Wade s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February. Trump and others also argued that public comments Willis made in the wake of the revelation of the relationship improperly disparaged the defendants and their lawyers.
The allegations against Willis first surfaced in a motion filed in early January by Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide Michael Roman. The motion alleged that Willis and Wade were involved in an inappropriate romantic relationship and that Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited when he paid for lavish vacations.
Willis and Wade acknowledged the relationship but said they didn t begin dating until the spring of 2022. Wade was hired in November 2021, and their romance ended last summer. They also testified that they split travel costs roughly evenly, with Willis often paying expenses or reimbursing Wade in cash.
Speaking at a historically Black church in Atlanta soon after the relationship was revealed, Willis defended Wade s qualifications and her own leadership of her office. Defense lawyers said that speech included a series of improper and prejudicial comments against the defendants and their legal team, poisoning any potential jurors against them.
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