A secret love affair sank a prosecutor’s chance to take down Trump
The Georgia prosecutor who brought election interference charges against Donald Trump and some of his allies has been disqualified from the case.
Lawyers for Trump and his co-accused successfully argued Fani Willis, a Democrat district attorney, had compromised the case by having a secret relationship with a lawyer she hired to lead it.
In March, a lower court found the relationship had created a “significant appearance of impropriety”. It ruled that either Willis or the other lawyer, Nathan Wade, had to stop working on the case.
But an appeals court has now found that didn’t solve the problem, and disqualified Willis from the case too.
What’s the case about?
Fani Willis accused Donald Trump and 18 of his advisers and allies of illegally trying to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in the state of Georgia.
She was prosecuting them under the state’s racketeering law, known as RICO. The law is commonly used to prosecute outlaw gangs.
Willis was essentially accusing Trump and his team — including lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House aide Mark Meadows — of running a criminal enterprise.
In charging documents, she pointed to Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to give him the state.
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It also points to the team of so-called “fake electors”, organised by Trump’s team to allegedly misrepresent how the state voted at the January 6 certification of results in Congress.
Other allegations relate to conspiracy theories spread about false results, intimidation of election workers, filing false documents, and recruiting Justice Department officials and former vice-president Mike Pence to the scheme.
Four of Trump’s 18 co-accused have already pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
Why would a relationship between lawyers affect the case?
Fani Willis hired Nathan Wade in November, 2021, to lead the investigation that led to Trump and his allies being charged.
About a year later, they began taking holidays together, and Wade spent thousands of dollars on cruises, resort accommodation, winery visits and other expenses for them both. (Willis argued she paid at least some of this back.)
The court ruling in March said this created “the possibility and appearance that the district attorney benefited — albeit non-materially — from a contract whose award lay solely within her purview and policing”.
It found the fact they weren’t transparent about the relationship made matters worse.
“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the district attorney.”
Nathan Wade (right) was initially ordered to withdraw from the case to allow Fani Willis (left) to continue it. (Reuters: Elijah Nouvelage)
The court said either Wade or Willis needed to step aside, to remove any perceptions of a conflict of interest.
But Trump and his allies took the matter to an appeals court, arguing for stronger action against Willis and her case.
And the appeals court gave Trump a win, ruling the lower court “erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office”.
“While we recognise 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 appeals court found.
What happens to the case now?
Whatever happens next, any prosecution of Trump is highly unlikely to go ahead during his term as president.
Trump and his co-defendants had asked the Georgia appeals court to dismiss the case completely, but it did not go that far.
The case against Donald Trump in Georgia produced his famous mugshot. (Fulton County Jail via Reuters)
That means it could be assigned to another prosecutor.
Trump told Fox News it should “not be allowed to go any further” and “everybody should receive an apology, including those wonderful patriots who have been caught up in this for years”.
Willis’s office has meanwhile filed paperwork to appeal to the state’s Supreme Court. So there’s still a chance she could pursue it.
What about Trump’s other cases?
This is the last ongoing criminal case against Trump.
After his election win, the Justice Department abandoned two other cases against him — one relating to election interference, and another over the handling of classified documents.
Trump was found guilty in a so-called “hush money” case in May. But sentencing is indefinitely on hold, as he prepares to assume the presidency on January 20.
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