by Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]

December 19, 2024

This post was updated 6:30 p.m. Dec. 19 to include more reaction to the DA’s disqualification.

Georgia’s Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis cannot continue prosecuting the 2020 presidential election interference case against Republican President-elect Donald Trump and 14 of his allies.

The 2-1 majority panel ruling prevents Willis and her office from moving forward in a historic case that’s slogged through several setbacks for the Fulton County district attorney dating back to early this year.

The ruling does not dismiss the remaining charges against Trump and the remaining 14 co-defendants. However, the only chance for the case to proceed would be if Willis won a successful appeal before the Georgia Supreme Court or if the state’s prosecuting attorneys’ council appointed another prosecutor to take over the case.

A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 18 of his allies in August 2023 in a sweeping racketeering case charging that they illegally conspired to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

The future of the case remained in doubt since May as the case was mostly on hold in the state appellate court leading up to Trump winning the Nov. 5 presidential election, which some argue now shields him with presidential immunity from criminal prosecution in Georgia and several other ongoing cases. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that a president held broad immunity for official actions while in office. 

In February, Willis defended her professional and personal reputations against a push from defense attorneys seeking to disqualify her for misconduct because she had a romantic relationship with the lead prosecutor in the long-running probe.

Thursday’s appellate court ruling overturns Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s March ruling allowing Willis to remain on the case following the resignation of special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a man she admitted to having a prior romantic relationship with during a February Fulton court hearing. McAfee wrote in the order that Willis’ relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to investigate 2020 election interference was inappropriate professional conduct.

The appellate ruling does not dismiss the long-standing election interference criminal charges against Trump and his co-defendants prior to his Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump’s attorneys have argued that the cases should be dismissed because criminal charges against a sitting president are not permitted under the U.S. Constitution. 

“Importantly, the State has not filed a cross appeal asserting that the trial court’s finding of this appearance of impropriety should be reversed,” the appellate panel wrote in Thursday’s opinion. “Accordingly, whether the evidence presented to the trial court adequately supported, under the appropriate standard of review on appeal, its finding of the existence of an appearance of impropriety is not before this court.

“Instead, we must determine whether the remedy fashioned by the trial court for this undisputed finding of a ‘significant’ appearance of impropriety was improper as contended by the appellants.” 

The incoming president and his attorney Steve Sadow publicly chastised Willis following Thursday’s ruling, accusing her of unfairly pursuing a politically vindictive attack against Trump and a number of his Republican allies.

Trump said the Georgia case was a reaction to Biden’s U.S. Department of Justice launching its case against Trump connected to the 2020 election and the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“It was started by the Biden DOJ as an attack on his political opponent, Donald Trump,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with Fox News Digital. “They used anyone and anybody, and she has been disqualified, and her boyfriend has been disqualified, and they stole funds and went on trips.”

Sadow commended the Georgia Court of Appeals for issuing a “just decision” holding Willis accountable for prosecutorial misconduct and conflict of interest.

“The court highlighted that Willis’ misconduct created an ‘odor of mendacity’ and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by the disqualification of her and her entire office,” Sadow said in a statement. “As the court rightfully noted, only the remedy of disqualification will suffice to restore public confidence. This decision puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next president of the United States.”

Willis’ announced Thursday that she intends to appeal the decision to the state’s highest court. And some legal experts aren’t ready to drive the final death nail into the longstanding case following Thursday’s bombshell decision.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University constitutional law professor, said he agreed with appellate court Judge Benjamin Land’s dissenting opinion criticizing Judges Todd Markle and Trenton Brown for not explaining their reason to overrule McAfee’s decision to allow Willis to continue prosecuting the case.

Kreis said the Supreme Court justices will have to determine whether the appellate ruling failed to provide adequate explanation behind overruling McAfee’s decision or if the high court should even proceed with taking up the case. 

Trump’s infamous phone call spurs investigation

Willis’ decision to open a criminal probe into Trump and his allies’ actions in 2020 followed the public release of a January 2021 recorded phone call during which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough ballots to overcome the nearly 12,000 vote gap between Biden and Trump in 2020. 

In 2022, Willis would convene a special grand jury that would meet intermittently throughout the rest of the year, reviewing evidence and hearing testimony from about 75 witnesses.

The witness list included Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s overtures, and Trump allies such as Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani who visited Georgia in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump’s allies called and visited state officials in Georgia after the 2020 election in an attempt to stop the presidential election from being certified as they leveled unfounded claims of mass fraud.

In 2023, a Fulton County special grand jury issued a recommendations that prosecutors pursue criminal charges against Trump, members of his inner circle, and other supporters for allegedly illegally interfering with the 2020 election.

Willis, a Democrat, won a second four-year term as Georgia’s top prosecutor after a decisive victory in the November general election.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.