Fani Willis is Disqualified from Case against Trump

In a long-awaited opinion, the Georgia Court of Appeal has ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her entire office is disqualified to continue to prosecute the election interference case against President-Elect Trump. Finding an “appearance of impropriety” on her part, the Appeals Court said, “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.”

“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.”

This appears to effectively conclude the Georgia case against Mr. Trump. Although Willis almost immediately filed a notice of intent to appeal the decision to the Georgia Supreme Court, it is considered unlikely that the higher court will agree to hear the case.

The indictment was not dismissed, so if the disqualification stands, it is an orphan indictment — an indictment without a prosecutor. Unless some other Georgia prosecutor, in some other county, picks up the indictment and continues the case (which is very unlikely), the case will also die for lack of prosecution.

You can read the Appeallate Court Decision here.

The Georgia case is one of the two criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump. In New York, the President-Elect was convicted earlier this year in a New York court of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 presidential election. Most of the charges are dumbfounding as the conduct that is said to have influenced the 2016 election happened in 2017, and if the records had been entered “correctly, ” they also would not have been seen publicly until 2017, after the election. But this, and many other issues, cannot be appealled until after sentencing in New York, and sentencing has been indefinitely delayed until at least after Trump’s term as President is over. (We expect, however, due to these highly unusual circumstances that an earlier appeal may be accepted.) Many qualified legal analysts consider the New York case a partisan, political prosecution based on bogus legal theories.

In the Georgia case, D.A. Willis appointed her lover, Nathan Wade, to be her special prosecutor, and entered into a contract to pay him over $700,000 for his services in prosecuting Trump. Wade met several times with Biden White House officials to plan the prosecution strategy and tactics. During the trial, Ms. Willis testified that she did not have a relationship with Wade until after he had been appointed, but other testimony appeared to contradict her. The two took several expensive vacation trips together.

The court determined, in a 2-to-1 opinion, that there was not “sufficient evidence that the District Attorney acquired a personal stake in the prosecution, or that her financial arrangements had any impact on the case,” and accordingly it declined to find that “an actual conflict” existed. But there was sufficient basis to find the “appearance of a conflict.” As the opinion states, “This finding is by no means an indication that the court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the District Attorney’s testimony during the evidentiary hearing.”

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Mr. Trump responded to the decision, saying the “whole case has been a disgrace to justice.” 

“It was started by the Biden DOJ as an attack on his political opponent, Donald Trump,” Mr. Trump told Fox News, “They used anyone and anybody, and she has been disqualified and her boyfriend has been disqualified, and they stole funds and went on trips.”  Trump said the case “should not be allowed to go any further.”