With the decision, it places the case against Trump effectively in limbo.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Thursday was removed by a state court as prosecutor from President-elect Donald Trump’s election-related criminal case.
The Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Willis amid allegations she engaged in improper behavior amid her relationship with her former special counsel in the case, Nathan Wade. She has since appealed the matter to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Willis’s Office Appeals Decision
With the decision, it places the case against Trump and more than a dozen other codefendants in limbo as the state will now have to find a prosecutor to oversee the matter.
Hours after the Court of Appeals’ majority rendered their decision, the Fulton County district attorney’s office notified the courts in Georgia that she would appeal Wednesday’s ruling to disqualify her.
“You are hereby notified that it is the intention of the State of Georgia, appellee, to petition the Supreme Court of Georgia for a writ of certiorari to review Division 2 of this Honorable Court’s December 19, 2024 decision in Appellants’ favor in the above-styled cases regarding disqualification,” her office wrote.
What Happened?
In a 2–1 decision, the appeals court judges sided with Trump and eight codefendants, who had attempted to overturn Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee’s decision in March that allowed Willis to remain on the case. McAfee had given an ultimatum to Willis and Wade: Either she step down or Wade would have to step down. Hours after the order was handed down, Wade submitted his resignation letter.
Willis had been accused by Trump and his codefendants of having what they said was an inappropriate relationship with Wade and financially benefitting from the arrangement. The two confirmed they were in a relationship but denied any financial benefits and denied that it adversely impacted the 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 appeals court stated in Thursday’s decision.
The court said McAfee’s remedy in handling the accusations against Willis “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 appeals court ruling said.
What Was Alleged
Trump’s codefendant Michael Roman, through an attorney, first alleged in January of this year that Willis and Wade were romantically involved but further stipulated that they were taking vacations together that were being funded, in part, by the payment that was being given by Fulton County to Wade.
The district attorney, they said at the time, engaged in a “personal, romantic relationship” with Wade, whose law firm has been paid more than $653,000 by her office since he was hired in November 2021.
Another witness, identified as a former friend of Willis, on Feb. 16 claimed in court that the relationship appeared to have begun in 2019, two years before Willis claimed it started and before Wade’s firm was hired by the district attorney’s office.
Both Willis and Wade, during a contentious court hearing weeks later, confirmed the relationship but denied any financial benefits. They also denied that their relationship started before he was hired as special counsel by Willis and said that their relationship ended in the summer of 2023.
In the hearing, Wade confirmed that he purchased plane tickets and other items, claiming that Willis paid him back in cash. The pair also admitted to having no receipts and no record of the cash repayments, with Wade saying he only had credit card statements.
While McAfee wrote in his March order that not enough evidence was produced to warrant Willis’s disqualification, he said that there was an “odor of mendacity” that permeated over the case against Trump and the others. He also chided her for what he called a lapse in judgment over her relationship.
What Willis Has Said
Both Wade and Willis have denied any wrongdoing, describing their relationship as normal.
Willis wrote in a filing in February that she and Wade had a professional relationship when she appointed him as special prosecutor, adding that their is now a personal relationship.
“To be absolutely clear, the personal relationship between special prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit to District Attorney Willis,” she said in the filing.
Willis said in court that the allegations from Roman’s attorney were intrusive and were designed to tarnish her reputation amid the ongoing criminal case. At one point, the district attorney accused Roman’s lawyer of lying, raising her voice.
Some of the suggestions about their relationship, she said, were “highly offensive.”
“You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives,” Willis told the attorney. “You’re confused, you think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
What Wade Has Said
After confirming the relationship, Wade told the court that he did not keep records of expenses when traveling with Willis
During the court testimony, Wade said that when the district attorney’s office paid him for his work in the Trump case, “the expenses balanced out.”
“In relationships, ma’am, especially men, you’re not keeping a ledger,” he added.
“She’s a very independent, proud woman. She’s going to insist that she carries her own weight. It was actually a point of contention between the two of us.”
After he stepped down as special prosecutor, Wade was interviewed weeks later by ABC News and defended having a relationship with Willis.
“Workplace romances are as American as apple pie,” he said at one point. “It happens to everyone. But it happened to the two of us.”
He also indicated that he has no regrets and suggested that a “private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution.”
What Trump Has Said
After the court of appeals disqualified the district attorney, Trump declared the election case was “dead” and accused Willis’s office of corruption.
“The case has to be thrown out because it was started corruptly by an incompetent prosecutor who received millions of dollars through her boyfriend—who received it from her—and then they went on cruises all the time,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday.
As a result, “the case is entirely dead,” Trump said. “Everybody should receive an apology, including those wonderful patriots who have been caught up in this for years.”
Other Cases
Two cases brought against the president-elect by special counsel Jack Smith have effectively been wound down by his office in recent weeks, following Trump’s election victory last month.
In late November, Smith’s team wrote of Trump’s federal election case in Washington that the Department of Justice determined that the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel has “prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”
“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” they wrote.
Smith also wrote that he would drop his appeal of a Florida federal judge’s decision in July to dismiss his separate classified documents case against Trump.
An appeals court and a U.S. district judge in Washington have since agreed to Smith’s terms to drop the classified documents case and the election case, respectively.
In May, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to payments he made during the 2016 election. Trump has yet to be sentenced in the case, although the Manhattan district attorney’s office has argued in recent court papers that the conviction should still stand.
Judge Juan Merchan on Monday rejected Trump’s arguments that a Supreme Court ruling in July rendered the conviction null, upholding the felony conviction. In response, Trump wrote on social media that the judge “completely disrespected” the Supreme Court and called the case “illegitimate.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.