Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, has requested that the Georgia Supreme Court reconsider a decision from a lower appeals court that excluded her from the Georgia election interference lawsuit against Donald Trump and others.
Last month, the Georgia Court of Appeals decided that Willis and her office could not proceed with the case due to a “appearance of impropriety” caused by her intimate relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she had recruited to handle the case. Willis requested that the Georgia Supreme Court examine and overturn that ruling in a petition that was submitted late Wednesday.
According to the complaint, the 2-1 decision “overreached the Court of Appeals’ authority,” setting a new criteria for a prosecutor to be disqualified and ignoring decades of precedent.
The possibility that Willis will be able to bring charges against Trump, who returns to the White House on January 20, appears slim, even if the high court ultimately decides in her favor. 14 additional individuals, however, are still being charged in this case.
Trump and 18 other people were arrested by an Atlanta grand jury in August 2023 under the state’s anti-racketeering law for allegedly engaging in a complex plot to unlawfully attempt to rescind Trump’s close defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020. The alleged plot involved Trump calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and requesting his assistance in obtaining enough votes to defeat Biden. There have been four guilty pleas. Trump entered a not guilty plea along with the others.
Last year, Trump was the target of four criminal cases, including the Georgia case. Following Trump’s victory in the November election, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith dropped two federal prosecutions. Trump is attempting to thwart the sentencing hearing that the judge in his New York hush money case has set for this Friday.
In her motion, Willis requests that the Georgia high court examine whether the lower appeals court erred in rejecting her “without a finding of an actual conflict of interest or forensic misconduct and based solely upon an appearance of impropriety.” The question of whether the Court of Appeals erred “in substituting the trial court’s discretion with its own” in this case is also put to the state Supreme Court.
According to Willis’ motion, “no Georgia court has ever disqualified a district attorney for the only appearance of impropriety without the existence of an actual conflict of interest.” Additionally, no Georgia court has ever overturned a trial court’s decision to ban a prosecutor for just appearing improper.
Reference News :- Fani Willis seeks to overturn her disqualification from Trump Georgia election case
