Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis is grasping for straws in her case against former President Donald Trump, with her latest motion representing a desperate plea to keep an appeals court from reconsidering a previous decision allowing her to stay on the case.
According to the Huffington Post, attorneys for Trump have requested that a district appeals court reconsider an earlier decision by Judge Scott McAfee allowing Willis to remain in charge of the case if she dismissed Nathan Wade, the prosecutor with whom she carried on a private personal relationship that likely began before he was hired to join the case. The president’s attorneys have pointed to a rambling speech she gave in January as proof that her politicization of the case goes well beyond the nepotism of hiring Wade.
“There is simply no trial court error to be found in the decision to deny disqualification,” Willis wrote in a filing on Monday, adding her speech was “too vague, brief and limited in scope” to warrant disqualification.
“Days of evidence and testimony failed to disclose anything like a calculated pre-trial plan designed to prejudice the defendants or secure their convictions,” the district attorney added. “The applicants have not identified any public statement injecting the District Attorney’s personal belief as to the defendants’ guilt or appealing to the public weighing of evidence.”
An appeals court now has until the middle of May to consider whether to overturn Judge McAfee’s original decision.
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In January, Willis appeared at the Big Bethel AME church in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, railing against Republicans like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) whom she claimed are provoking racist attacks against her. She rejected assertions that her performance of duties warrants disqualifying, at one point telling the congregation, “You can’t expect black women to be perfect.”
“Dear God, I do not want to be like those that attacked me. I never want to be a Marjorie Taylor Greene who has never met me, but has allowed her spirit to be filled with hate,” she said at the time. “How does this woman, who has the honor of being a leader in my state, how is it that she has not reached out to me?”
President Trump’s attorneys have stated that the decision allowing Willis to remain in charge of the case “confounds logic.”
Legal observers believe that whether or not Willis remains on the case, the damage done to her reputation may be too great to result in a conviction. For weeks, the case alleging Trump and co-defendants conspired to overturn the state’s 2020 results was bogged down by a review of Willis’ romantic relationship with Wade. Former friends and attorneys testified that the two began their relationship in 2019, contradicting sworn testimony from Willis that would indicate Wade was hired and paid $700,000 long after their relationship had begun. A Trump co-defendant has threatened to pursue legal actions against Willis if she doesn’t recuse herself, claiming the Fulton County Democrat illegally recorded a phone call with his attorney in violation of Maryland law.
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