Fani Willis is Disqualified

Fulton County's case against Trump is on life support

This morning, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis – along with her entire office – was disqualified from the criminal case against Donald Trump and the other wrongly accused Defendants.

If you recall, Judge Scott McAfee, who presides over the case in Fulton County, issued a written opinion that there was an “odor of mendacity” in the prosecution, stating:

“Reasonable questions about whether the District Attorney and her hand-selected lead SADA [Nathan Wade] testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship further underpin the findings of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”

Judge McAfee rejected the remedies sought by the Defendants – dismissal of the case or the disqualification of the Fulton County District Attorney (and her office) and Nathan Wade. Instead, Judge McAfee chose a less punitive route, allowing either Willis or Wade to withdraw from the case.

This remedy never made any sense.

The “appearance of impropriety” found by Judge McAfee would always remain if Willis or Wade remained the prosecuting attorney. In the face of the outright lies from Willis and Wade about the start of their relationship (recall the text messages demonstrating Wade’s late-night visits to Fani Willis that contradicted their sworn testimony, witness testimony that their relationship started before his appointment as Special Prosecutor, etc.), he let the wrongdoers decide which one of them would continue the prosecution.

The Georgia Court of Appeals recognized that Judge McAfee’s remedy was insufficient, writing that the trial court’s order “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.”

The Appeals Court held that Judge Scott McAfee, who presides over the criminal case against Trump, et al. in Fulton County, “erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office” due to the “significance appearance of impropriety.” It continued:

“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.”

This is a sweeping order; because DA Willis is disqualified, her office lacks authority to continue the prosecution:

“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.’”¹

While the Appeal Court denied the Defendants’ motion to dismiss the indictment, this disqualification order almost has the same effect. If it is upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court - and Fulton County will most certainly take this to the Supreme Court - there’s a good likelihood that the case won’t continue with another prosecutor.

1. Quoting McLaughlin v. Payne, 295 Ga 609, 613 (2014).