Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is pushing back on the latest attempt to remove her from the ongoing election interference case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants.
In a Monday motion, Willis asked the Georgia appeals court to uphold Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling allowing the DA to remain on the racketeering case after her affair with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade was exposed. In his March 15 ruling, McAfee denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment and remove Willis, stating that while the relationship had a “significant appearance of impropriety,” it could be remedied if Wade stepped aside from the case.
Wade resigned from the case hours after McAfee’s ruling.
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Shortly after the ruling, Trump and his co-defendants formally appealed McAfee’s decision, arguing “Willis has covered herself and her office in scandal and disrepute, as she has squandered her credibility and repeatedly and flagrantly violated the heightened ethical standards demanded of her position.”
In a Monday motion, however, Willis argued that an evidentiary trial into Willis and Wade’s relationship found no evidence to establish any “actual conflict of interest” and that McAfee declined to dismiss the indictment alleging Trump and his co-defendants attempted to subvert the Georgia 2020 presidential election.
“There being no error by the trial court, the present application merely reflects the applicants’ dissatisfaction with the trial court’s proper application of well-established law to the facts,” the motion says. “Because the applicants have wholly failed to carry their burden of persuasion, this Court should decline interlocutory review.”
During the evidentiary hearing, Wade and Willis confirmed they had a relationship from early 2022 until last summer—but they denied any misconduct or that the DA financially benefited from the affair after she hired the special prosecutor in November 2022.
Willis reiterated in the motion that the court ruled Willis did not “engage in disqualified forensic misconduct” and the defense could not identify “any public statement injecting the District Attorney’s personal belief as to the defendant’s guilt or appealing to the public weighing of evidence.”
“The applicants having failed to carry their burden as to their request for interlocutory review,” the motion says.
The Georgia Court of Appeals has yet to say whether they will hear the defense’s case, but if it declines the decision could pave the way for a state Supreme Court appeal. The case does not have a trial date, but CNN previously reported that Willis wants to try it before the election.
The DA’s motion also came as Trump and his co-defendants filed another request to have the appeals court review another McAfee ruling. Earlier this month, McAfee denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds that the case violated their First Amendment rights.
“Based on the more than 45+ (mostly U.S. Supreme Court) cases and historical precedent cited to the Court, Defendants believe their arguments are well-founded and fall squarely within the almost absolute First Amendment protections in the context of their core political speech regarding 2020 Presidential election contest,” the Monday defense filing says.
Steve Sadow, a lawyer representing Trump in the Georgia case, said in a statement to The Daily Beast that Monday’s motion “powerfully expresses that the Indictment wrongfully criminalizes core political speech and expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.”
“There is no democracy without robust and uninhibited freedom of expression,” he added. “For these reasons among others, the Court’s Order is ripe for pretrial appellate review.”
