Judge grants Trump request to appeal decision to keep Fani Willis on Georgia case

The presiding judge in the Georgia election interference case against former president Donald Trump has granted him and his co-defendants the opportunity to appeal his ruling last week that allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis to remain on the case.

In a Wednesday ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said Trump and eight co-defendants can appeal the decision before the Georgia Court of Appeals, saying his ruling last week “is of such importance to the case that immediate review should be had.”

The deadline to apply for an appeal is 10 days from Wednesday. The higher court then has 45 days to determine whether to take the case. If the appellate court declines to take the case, Trump and his eight co-defendants could ask the Georgia Supreme Court to hear it.

McAfee, in his Wednesday ruling, said the case will continue while the Court of Appeals works through the defendants’ petition.

In a statement to the Washington Post, Willis’s spokesman Jeff DiSantis said Willis and her office will continue working while the appeal is processed.

“As the case is not stayed during the appeal, this office will work to move it forward to trial as quickly as possible,” DiSantis said. “We will limit our comment on the appellate matter to what we file with the Court of Appeals during the briefing process.”

McAfee last week ruled that Trump and his co-defendants failed to “meet their burden” in proving that Willis’s romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade and allegations that she was financially enriched by trips she took with him were enough of a “conflict of interest” to remove her from the case. However, McAfee did find a “significant appearance of impropriety” and ordered that either Willis and her office or Wade leave the case. Wade resigned later Friday.

In their motion to appeal McAfee’s decision, filed on Monday, Trump and the others argued that Wade’s resignation was “insufficient to cure the appearance of impropriety the Court has determined exists.”

“The Court found that District Attorney Willis’ actions had created an appearance of impropriety and an ‘odor of mendacity’ that lingers in this case, as well as the continuing possibility that ‘an outsider could reasonably think that District Attorney Willis is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences,’” the defense motion stated, quoting McAfee’s ruling. “Defendants believe that the relevant case law requires dismissal of the case, or at the very least, the disqualification of the District Attorney and her entire office under the facts that exist here.”

The defense motion was initially filed by attorneys for eight co-defendants who originally sought to disqualify Willis, including Trump, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump campaign aides Mike Roman and Harrison Floyd, former Trump campaign attorney Robert Cheeley, former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer and Trump Georgia elector Cathleen Latham. Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark joined the motion a short time later, a delay caused by a “paperwork mistake,” according to his lawyer Harry MacDougald.

McAfee also ruled on Friday that Trump and his co-defendants had not proved that comments Willis made at a Jan. 14 speech at a historic Black church in Atlanta, in which she suggested that the criticism of her and Wade was racially motivated, had tainted the potential jury pool. He did, however, criticize Willis’s remarks, saying they were “legally improper.”

In their request for an appeal, the defendants pointed to McAfee’s opinion on the speech to argue that a higher court should review his ruling.

“Whether District Attorney Willis and her Office are permitted to continue representing the State of Georgia in prosecuting the Defendants in this action is of the utmost importance to this case, and ensuring the appellate courts have the opportunity to weigh in on these matters pretrial is paramount,” the defense motion stated.