Fani Willis Disqualified as Prosecutor in Trump Election Crimes Case: ‘This Case Is Dead In the Water Now’
A Georgia Appeals Court ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from prosecuting the Georgia election case against President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants.
In August 2023, a Georgia grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others (including former New York City Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, former Trump staffer Mike Roman, and several lawyers who have represented Trump and his campaign, including Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and Kenneth Chesebro) for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.
Willis charged the 19 co-defendants with a total of 41 counts in a 98-page indictment. Several of the co-defendants have already pled guilty, including attorneys Ellis, Powell, and Chesebro. Earlier this year, Willis had to fend off a motion to disqualify her from the case related to a romantic relationship she had with prosecutor Nathan Wade. The trial court ruled in Willis’ favor — disqualifying Wade but not Willis — but this appellate ruling reverses that and disqualified Willis as well. The ruling was 2 to 1.
CNN Newsroom anchor Jim Acosta began the hour with the breaking news and brought on senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz.
“This is a big development,” said Acosta.
The appeal court’s ruling was indeed a big development, Polantz agreed, “and a big development that Donald Trump has wanted for a long time.” The case had “already been paused,” she said, but “now it’s not even back burner.”
“This is a case that will be dead in the water,” she continued, “because the Georgia Court of Appeals is now saying that Fani Willis, the leader of the prosecution against Donald Trump, the district attorney in Fulton county, Georgia, she should be disqualified from being able to bring that case.”
The ruling was based on a finding of “a significant appearance of impropriety caused by the conduct of a public prosecutor,” Polantz explained. “That is Willis, how she behaved, how she was speaking about the case, about Trump publicly, about how she was having a relationship with the top prosecutor that was concealed in this, a man named Nathan Wade — all of that.”
Trying to replace Willis would “be a long process,” said Polantz, “which is why I say this case is dead in the water now.”
Acosta brought on CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig and asked him about Polantz’s assessment that the case was now dead, “Is it completely dead, or is it possible you could have another prosecutor come in and take it over?” he asked.
“Well, Jim, for all practical purposes, it’s over,” replied Honig. “This case was already in deep trouble because of the conduct of the district attorney, Fani Willis. And now it’s all but over.”
The case was “not quite dismissed,” Honig added, but this ruling “means that Fani Willis and her office will be disqualified from handling it. And as a practical matter, it now goes into a sort of purgatory for an undefined amount of time. It’s not coming back. It’s over.”
CNN.com’s report included several quotes from the court’s opinion:
The appeals court found that a “significant appearance of impropriety” was enough to potentially taint the case in the public eye. The appellate court decided, however, it wouldn’t dismiss the sprawling racketeering conspiracy case entirely.
“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 court wrote in Thursday’s opinion.
The court added: “We cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
