A state appeals court in Georgia has agreed to take up an appeal of a judge’s ruling that initially allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue prosecuting former President Donald Trump and 19 co-defendants.
CBS reports the Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted a motion, filed by attorneys for Trump, to undertake a review of a decision by Judge Scott McAfee in March to allow Willis to stay on the case as long as her lover and subordinate, Nathan Wade, resigned. He ultimately did so days later. Attorney Steve Sadow made the announcement on X.
“The GA Court of Appeals has GRANTED President Trump’s Application for Interlocutory Appeal from the trial court’s order refusing to disqualify Fulton County DA Fani Willis!!!” Saddow wrote.
A timeline for the appeals court to issue a ruling is uncertain, though Willis’ office is bound to push for an expeditious one. Already, her case alleging election interference by Trump and co-defendants has been badly hampered by revelations about her romantic relationship and sidelined amid a backlog of hearings in the former president’s other criminal cases. Legal observers have predicted that her case may never recover.
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At the same time, Willis is being boxed in by multiple investigations into her office’s handling of federal and state funds. Whistleblowers who spoke with the U.S. House Oversight Committee have claimed that she redirected funds intended for an anti-gang unit to continue supporting her Trump investigation, which paid Wade at last $700,000 for two years’ work. At the state level, a special committee has been convened to question other county officials about the hiring of Wade.
The Democrat’s response to both probes has been predictably defiant.
“We will not shut down this office’s efforts to prosecute crimes — including gang activity, acts of violence and public corruption — to meet unreasonable deadlines in your politically motivated ‘investigation’ of this office,” Willis wrote to Oversight Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in March. The day after the Georgia committee convened, Willis clapped back at Republican lawmakers she said were trying to derail her case against their party’s presidential candidate.
“Isn’t it interesting when we got a bunch of African-American DAs, now we need daddy to tell us what to do,” Willis said at a campaign event at K&K Soul Food on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. “So y’all can go put that in your sound byte for today. But today I am here so I can reach my community and this is really messing up my business.”
Minor plotlines in the Willis drama include a lawsuit by a lawmaker who alleges the prosecutor failed to protect her from a stalker, and emerging evidence that a prosecutor in her office may have lied to a judge in her case against rapper Young Thug, who is affiliated with a gang member Trump said may have also had a romantic relationship with Willis.
