The Georgia Court of Appeals on Tuesday issued an order granting a request from former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants to hear oral arguments in their disqualification efforts of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after the 2024 general election.
At issue is whether Ms. Willis should be removed from the sweeping racketeering and election-related case involving the former president and several of his co-defendants, with defense lawyers arguing that her relationship with a former special prosecutor in the case, Nathan Wade, creates an appearance of impropriety.
The appeal is to be decided by a three-judge panel of the intermediate appeals court, which will then have until mid-March to rule. The judges assigned to the case are Trenton Brown, Todd Markle, and Benjamin Land. Once the panel rules, the losing side could ask the Georgia Supreme Court to consider an appeal.
In March, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Ms. Willis can remain unless Mr. Wade does not leave the case. Hours later, Mr. Wade tendered his resignation letter.
The judge allowed the former president and the other defendants to appeal the case, while saying that he wanted to proceed with pretrial motions. In his ruling, however, he concluded that an “odor of mendacity” permeates the case after the romantic relationship was disclosed.
He added that “reasonable questions” remain on whether the pair had testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship, which may underpin “the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”
During heated court testimony in February, both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade confirmed that they were involved romantically but disputed allegations foisted by a Trump co-defendant, former aide Michael Roman, that both financially benefitted from the arrangement. They also disputed a witness account claiming they were involved in a relationship before Mr. Wade was hired as special prosecutor in the case.
The former president’s attorneys led by Steve Sadow have separately argued that some of Ms. Willis’s public comments improperly injected race into the case and accused her of trying to influence the potential jury pool. In his ruling, Judge McAfee chided the district attorney for her remarks but took no action.
“The trial court’s careful and extensive evaluation of the resulting record, and its utter dismissal of the central evidence proffered by the Appellants, forecloses any possibility of reversal,” her office wrote.
Two months ago, Mr. Wade told ABC News in an exclusive interview that he believes his relationship with Ms. Wade was normal and added that workplace romances are “American as apple pie.”While denying that the relationship had any bearing on the Trump case, he said, “I regret that that private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution. This is a very important case.”
Former President Trump and 18 co-defendants were charged with racketeering and election fraud for their activity after the 2020 election. The former president has pleaded not guilty.
In June, the Georgia Court of Appeals halted proceedings in the case for former President Trump and about a half-dozen of his co-defendants who appealed Judge McAfee’s ruling
The case is one of four criminal cases brought against former President Trump, which have all seen favorable developments for the former president recently. The former president was convicted by a Manhattan jury in late May on 34 counts of falsifying business records, which he had denied. The judge overseeing that case set a September sentencing date.
