Fani Willis disqualified from Trump election case by Georgia appellate court
A Georgia appeals court has removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis from the election interference case against Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool)
ATLANTA—A Georgia appellate court overturned a judge’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) to remain in charge of the criminal racketeering case against Donald Trump and several allies charged with conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state—a decision that could doom the high-profile prosecution.
In a 31-page written opinion published Thursday, the Georgia Court of Appeals sided with Trump and eight co-defendants who sought to overturn a March order by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee that rejected a motion to disqualify Willis and her office after she was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an outside attorney she hired to lead the election interference case.
“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 decision read.
Judges Trenton Brown, Todd Markle and Benjamin A. Land—the three judge panel appointed to review the case—said McAfee’s “remedy … 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.”
“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 order read.
The appellate decision, which Willis is likely to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, is a major victory for Trump and his co-defendants who have repeatedly sought to derail the case. If the decision is not overturned, a state agency that advises Georgia prosecutors would be tasked with finding a prosecutor unaffiliated with Fulton County to take on the matter—a move that many believe would ultimately lead to the case being dismissed.
A spokesman for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The appellate decision comes two weeks after Trump asked the appellate court to have the Georgia charges against him thrown out as he prepares to return to the White House after his November election victory.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, previously argued that if Trump regained the presidency, the case against his client would have to be delayed until 2029. “Under the supremacy clause and its duty to the president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term of office,” Sadow said.
But Willis has strongly implied in the past that she will continue to pursue her office’s case against Trump unless a court blocks her—an unprecedented legal challenge that could play out even as Trump assumes the presidency.
Thursday’s order comes nine months after McAfee, the presiding judge on the case, ruled the now president-elect and his co-defendants had “failed to meet their burden” of proving Willis’s relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade and allegations that she was financially enriched by trips the two took together were enough of a “conflict of interest” to disqualify her from the case. But McAfee’s order also noted “significant appearance of impropriety,” prompting the judge to declare that either Willis and her office or Wade had to leave the case. Wade quickly resigned.
In appealing the order, attorneys for Trump and eight co-defendants argued Wade’s departure was not enough to resolve the “appearance of impropriety” that has “cast a pall over these entire proceedings.” It called McAfee’s decision to keep Willis on the case an “erroneous failure” and a “structural error that would not just cause substantial error at trial” but could later cause a verdict to be overturned.
Trump’s attorneys also accused Willis, who is Black, of displaying “racial animus” toward Trump and suggested that could be grounds for removal and charges dismissed because it jeopardized his right to a fair trial.
Fulton County prosecutors had pushed the appellate court to dismiss the appeal outright—arguing McAfee granted Trump and his co-defendants “substantial leeway” in presenting evidence that Willis and her relationship with Wade had compromised the case. Ultimately, McAfee found they not met the burden necessary for removal, prosecutors argued.
“As both this Court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly held, Georgia appellate courts will not disturb a trial court’s factual findings on disputed issues outside of certain, very rare, circumstances,” Donald Wakeford, an assistant district attorney and prosecutor on the election case, argued in a June filing. “When a trial court makes determinations concerning matters of credibility or evidentiary weight, reviewing courts will not disturb those determinations unless they are flatly incorrect.”
The three-judge panel selected to hear the case—made up of Brown, Markle and Land—had originally scheduled oral arguments on the appeal for Dec. 5—a month after the election. But they abruptly canceled those arguments on Nov. 19 with no explanation, surprising attorneys on both sides.
Ultimately, the panel rendered its decision to disqualify Willis based on filings and the trial record on Thursday—three months before their March 2025 deadline.
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