Trump’s appeal hearing in Georgia set for October
The Georgia Court of Appeals is scheduled to hold a hearing in October to review the appeal filed by former President Donald Trump in Georgia. The appeal is regarding the challenge to the qualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is handling the case involving Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election in Georgia. Willis has been instructed to submit a brief on the case by June 23. She has 20 days to respond with a summary. Oral arguments are set to be conducted by a panel of three judges on October 4.
President Trump and eight co-defendants appealed the ruling of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. The ruling determined that as long as Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor hired by Ms. Willis for this case, steps down, her qualification will not be revoked. The Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to review this ruling on May 9.
Willis is currently prosecuting Trump and 14 others under Georgia’s Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, alleging that their questioning of the 2020 election results amounts to conspiracy. One of the defendants, Michael Roman, filed a motion in early January to disqualify Willis. He accused her and Mr. Wade of having an extramarital affair and misusing funds, triggering multiple investigations into Willis. Approximately half of the co-defendants joined in on the motion. Willis and Wade admitted to having an affair during the evidentiary hearing but objected to the timeline presented by the defense. They stated that their romantic relationship had ended after the complaint was filed.
Following several days of dramatic hearings, Judge McAfee ruled that while the events and related controversies appeared to be inappropriate, they did not constitute actual impropriety or a conflict of interest. He determined that the impropriety could be rectified by either Willis or Wade stepping down, but not both simultaneously. McAfee subsequently allowed Trump’s team of defendants to challenge his ruling in a higher court.
Trump’s defense team argued that Judge McAfee violated their due process rights. Whether Willis and her office will continue to handle this case may be a deciding factor in whether the case proceeds. In addition to Willis’s extramarital affair, the Trump team of defendants also claimed that her statements outside the courtroom constituted improper conduct warranting disqualification. Furthermore, they argued that Willis provided false testimony during the evidentiary hearing regarding the disqualification motion.
Willis has been outspoken about the case, mentioning the disqualification motion and defendants in media interviews and public speeches. In a widely publicized speech days after the motion was filed, Willis implied that the defendants were targeting her because of her race. She boasted about her “superstar” team with a conviction rate as high as 95%, suggesting that the defendants were presumed guilty before trial and conviction.
Two weeks later, Willis granted an interview to an author working on a book about her pursuit of the “rogue president” as a “tough” prosecutor. Shortly after Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify her, Willis told CNN in an interview that the Trump team of defendants had attempted to delay the proceedings. “I do believe that there are efforts to slow this train down, but the train is coming,” she said.
The Trump team of defendants noted that Willis showed no remorse in her interview comments. “Let me be perfectly clear, I’m not ashamed of anything that I’ve done,” Willis said. “I think my biggest offense was having a relationship with a man, but that’s not something that I feel should be ashamed of.”
The defendants argued that Willis had “severely compromised” their due process rights. “No prosecutor has so recklessly and callously pursued personal interests to the extent that she has by providing endless pretrial interviews to the media, unprecedentedly engaging in pretrial negotiations with an author, or attempting to shift peoples’ focus away from her unethical disqualification through public and erroneous harsh criticisms,” they alleged. They believed that extrajudicial pretrial comments constituted misconduct in legal proceedings. The defendants also argued that Willis’s alleged perjury had serious legal and ethical ramifications.
During the trial court proceedings, Judge McAfee raised concerns about Willis’s testimony, suggesting that her responses regarding her relationship with Mr. Wade “may not be truthful.” While Judge McAfee found the testimony inconsistent and acknowledged lingering doubts about the nature and timeline of the affair, he ruled that it was not the court’s responsibility to “ferret out every potential dishonest act,” indicating that other authorities such as the State Bar or the Georgia Bar Association have that duty. The defendants stated, “While all lawyers are officers of the court with an obligation to be candid, prosecutors have a ‘heightened duty to the court in candor and in fulfilling other professional responsibilities.'”