The Georgia Court of Appeals on Thursday disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants. election interference case.
“After carefully reviewing the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that DA erred in failing to disqualify Willis and his office because of what the appeals court called a “significant appearance of impropriety.”
The criminal charges against Trump and his co-defendants remain standing, the judge said.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty to all charges last year broad racketeering charge For an alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
After Thursday’s ruling, the Fulton County DA’s office announced plans to appeal the decision to the Georgia Supreme Court. A spokeswoman for the DA’s office declined to comment further to ABC News.
The Court of Appeal’s ruling leaves who takes over the case – and whether it continues – up to the Georgia Council of Prosecutors. This decision may be delayed due to the appeals process.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump smiles at the crowd during the National Guard Association of the United States’ 146th Annual General Conference and Exposition at the Huntington Place Convention Center, Aug. 26, 2024, in Detroit.
Emily Elconin/Getty Images
The case has stalled after Trump and his co-defendants tried to disqualify Willis from the case because of her relationship with co-prosecutor Nathan Wade. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee he refused to disqualify Willis, led Trump to appeal that decision.
The appeals court decided to dismiss Willis and his entire office from the case because “no other remedy will be sufficient to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the ruling said.
“The remedy devised by the trial court to avoid the appearance of continued impropriety did nothing when DA Willis was exercising broad pretrial discretion in determining who should be prosecuted and what charges should be brought,” the order said. , reversing Judge McAfee’s original decision.
Wade, who was the lead prosecutor in the case, resigned as special prosecutor in March after McAfee ruled that either Willis or Wade should drop the case because of a “gross appearance of impropriety.” romantic relationship between the DA and the prosecutor.
Although the appeals court disqualified Willis and his office, it did not find enough evidence to justify the “extreme punishment” of dismissing the entire indictment against Trump and his co-defendants. Trump sought it out in his appeal.
“While this is a rare case in which Da Willis and his office must be disqualified because of a clear appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record supports the imposition of even the extreme penalty of dismissing the indictment under the relevant standard.” the verdict said.
“The Georgia Court of Appeals has held in a fair and reasoned decision that DA Fani Willis’ misconduct in her case against President Trump warrants the disqualification of Willis and her office,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in response to the ruling. “The court noted that Willis’ misconduct created an ‘odor of mendacity’ and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by disqualifying him and his entire position. As the court rightly noted, the remedy of disqualification alone will be sufficient to restore public confidence.”
Judge Clay Land — one of three judges on the appeals panel — dissented from the decision, arguing that the court’s reversal “violates well-established precedent, threatens the discretion afforded to courts, and blurs the distinction between the courts.” .”
Land argued that the appearance of impropriety — rather than an actual conflict of interest — is not enough to overturn Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Willis.
“For at least the past 43 years, our appellate courts have held that the appearance of impropriety, without an actual conflict of interest or actual impropriety, provides no basis for a trial court’s denial of a disqualification motion,” he wrote. .
In his dissent, Land insisted that the trial court found Willis had no conflict of interest and dismissed allegations of impropriety stemming from his relationship with Wade, including allegations that he received financial benefit from his hiring.
“He was certainly critical of his choices and punished for making them. I have no problem with that criticism at all, and if the court decided, in its discretion, to disqualify him and his position, this would be a different case.” he wrote “But that’s not the remedy the court chose, and I think our jurisprudence prohibits us from rejecting that remedy because we don’t like it or because we might go further if we were the judge.”
The Georgia election interference case is one of four criminal charges brought against Trump after he leaves the White House in 2021. His two federal cases charge him with interfering with the 2020 election and refusing to turn over classified documents. they were thrown after Trump’s re-election last month, due to a longstanding Justice Department policy barring criminal prosecution of the sitting president.
Trump’s sentencing in New York came after he was accused of falsifying business records related to payments he made to boost his re-election bid in the 2016 election. postpone indefinitely after Trump’s re-election last month.
