Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been disqualified from her politically motivated case against President Donald Trump.
The Georgia Court of Appeals decided Thursday to disqualify Willis from the “election interference” case she brought last year against Trump.
The state appellate court ruled in an order that a lower court had “erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis.”
Willis brought Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act charges against Trump in an effort to derail his 2024 campaign.
Calls for the Democrat prosecutor’s removal came after Trump and several co-defendants uncovered a previously undisclosed relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
“The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times,” the appellate court ruled.
The ruling throws the future of the case into serious doubt.
The RICO case includes Trump and 14 allies.
The appeals court found that a romantic relationship between Willis and a former top deputy created an “ongoing appearance of impropriety.”
The case was already expected to be at least paused against Trump when he returns to the presidency next month.
Trump has said it should be dismissed in its entirety.
In the court’s ruling, Judge E. Trenton Brown III wrote:
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office”
“The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety 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,” it continued.
In Thursday’s ruling, the appeals court panel rejected Trump’s arguments that the romance amounted to an actual conflict, agreeing that it was only an appearance of one.
However, the court said the judge was wrong to conclude that Willis could move ahead.
“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,” the appeals court wrote.
Judge Ben Land dissented from the other two judges on the panel.
Land suggested that the appeals court should defer to the trial judge’s findings instead of interfering with their discretions.
“Where, as here, a prosecutor has no actual conflict of interest and the trial court, based on the evidence presented to it, rejects the allegations of actual impropriety, we have no authority to reverse the trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” Land wrote.
“None. Even where there is an appearance of impropriety.”
Willis could appeal the ruling to the state’s Supreme Court.
But if that effort fails, the case against Trump and his allies will be handed over to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia.
It would follow the same trajectory as when Willis’s office was previously disqualified from prosecuting Georgia Lt. Gov Burt Jones (R) in the case.
Willis’s office was disqualified after she fundraised for Jones’s political opponent.
The council mulled how to proceed for nearly two years before ultimately declining to bring charges.
This is a breaking news story.
Please check back for updates.
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