On Aug. 14, 2023, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis unveiled a grand jury’s charges against former President Donald Trump and 18 others as part of a wide-ranging RICO case. Special prosecutor Nathan Wade stood to her left. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)
Georgia’s Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis cannot continue prosecuting the 2020 presidential election interference case against Republican President-elect Trump and 14 of his allies.
The 2-1 majority panel ruling prevents Willis and her office from moving forward in a historic case that’s slogged through several setbacks for the Fulton district attorney dating back to early this year.
The ruling does not dismiss the remaining charges against Trump and the remaining 14 co-defendants. However, the only chance for the case to proceed would be if Willis wins a successful appeal before the Georgia Supreme Court or if the state’s prosecuting attorneys’ council appoints another prosecutor to take over the case.
The future of the case remained in doubt since May as it was mostly on hold in the state appellate court leading up to Trump winning the Nov. 5 presidential election, which some argue now shields him with presidential immunity from criminal prosecution in Georgia and several other ongoing cases. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that a president holds broad immunity for official actions while in office.
In February, Willis defended her professional and personal reputations against a push from defense attorneys seeking to disqualify her for alleged misconduct because she had a romantic relationship with the lead prosecutor in the long-running probe.
Thursday’s appellate court ruling overturns Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s March ruling allowing Willis to remain on the case following the resignation of special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a man she admitted to having a prior romantic relationship with during a February Fulton court hearing. McAfee wrote in the order that Willis’ relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to investigate 2020 election interference was inappropriate professional conduct.
The appellate ruling doesn’t dismiss the long-standing election interference criminal charges against Trump and his co-defendants before his Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump’s attorneys argue in a court filing this week that the cases should be dismissed because criminal charges against a sitting president are not permitted under the U.S. Constitution.
“Importantly, the State has not filed a cross appeal asserting that the trial court’s finding of this appearance of impropriety should be reversed,” the appellate panel wrote in Thursday’s opinion. “Accordingly, whether the evidence presented to the trial court adequately supported, under the appropriate standard of review on appeal, its finding of the existence of an appearance of impropriety is not before this court.
“Instead, we must determine whether the remedy fashioned by the trial court for this undisputed finding of a ‘significant’ appearance of impropriety was improper as contended by the appellants.”
A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 19 of his allies in August 2023 in a sweeping racketeering case charging that they illegally conspired to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Willis, a Democrat, won a second four-year term as Georgia’s top prosecutor after a decisive victory in the November general election.
This story first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, a member with the Phoenix in the nonprofit States Newsroom.
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