Georgia Trump election case, prosecutor Fannie Willis disqualified, indictment stands

A Georgia Court of Appeals on Thursday disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis from supervising the criminal election interference persecuting the president-elect Donald Trump and other defendants.

But on Court of Appeal let the indictment against the defendants, who are charged with crimes related to their efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 Georgia presidential election. Joe Biden.

The decision overturns a Fulton County Superior Court judge’s ruling that allowed Willis to remain in the case despite arguments by Trump’s lawyers that she should be disqualified because of the impropriety of her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the attorney general she had chosen to lead a case.

In its ruling, the Court of Appeals said the remedy proposed by Judge Scott McAfee — which would have allowed Willis to remain in the case if Wade recuses himself — was inappropriate.

“After carefully reviewing the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred in failing to disqualify Prosecutor Willis and her office,” the appeals court said.

“The remedy created by the trial court to prevent a continuing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when the Willis prosecution exercised its broad pretrial discretion as to whom to prosecute and what to file charges,” the court said.

“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety is generally not sufficient to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is warranted and no other remedy will be sufficient to restore public confidence in the integrity of these procedures.”

But the appeals court also wrote: “However, we affirm the denial of appellants’ motion to dismiss the indictment.”

The Georgia case is one of two pending criminal cases against Trump.

The president-elect was convicted earlier this year in New York state court of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a secret payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has not yet been convicted in the case.

The judge in that case on Monday denied Trump’s request to overturn the convictions and indictment on a request for presidential immunity. Prosecutors in the case used testimony and other evidence from former White House officials that Trump’s lawyers argued conflicted with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gives presidents presumptive criminal immunity for so-called official acts of position.

But Judge Juan Murchan is still considering other arguments made by Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the case.

After Trump’s election in November, federal prosecutors dropped two criminal cases against him because of a Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of sitting presidents.

In one of those cases, Trump was charged with crimes related to his efforts to reverse his 2020 national election loss. In the other, he was charged with crimes related to concealing classified government documents after leaving the White House and withholding them from federal officials when they demanded their return.

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