New Setback for Fani Willis as Georgia Law Could Force Atlanta Residents To Pay Trump’s Legal Bills

A new law on the books in Georgia could mean that Fulton County taxpayers may be on the hook for President Trump’s legal bills — to the tune of millions of dollars — stemming from his prosecution by the county’s district attorney, Fani Willis. Governor Kemp last week signed into law a bill, supported by Republican state lawmakers, that allows for the “award of reasonable attorney’s fees and costs in a criminal case to the defendant upon such defendant making a successful motion to disqualify the prosecuting attorney for misconduct.” The Georgia court of appeals has disqualified Ms. Willis from the racketeering case she brought against Mr. Trump and 18 others. If Ms. Willis’s disqualification survives her appeal to the Georgia supreme court — the Peach State’s highest tribunal possesses the discretion to take up Ms. Willis’s petition or reject it — the responsibility for the prosecution she began will pass to an independent committee, whose task it will be to appoint a new prosecutor. That lawyer could either press forward or drop the case.The Georgia court of appeals ruled in December that Ms. Willis’s was the “rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.” At issue was the “significant appearance of impropriety” generated by Ms. Willis’s secret romance with her handpicked special prosecutor, Nathan Wade.Ms. Willis’s office paid Mr. Wade, who has never prosecuted a felony case, more than $650,000. During his employment the two took vacations to destinations like Napa Valley, Aruba, and Belize. Mr. Wade paid for those trips, and Ms. Willis testified under oath she reimbursed him in cash. Her father, a former member of the Black Panthers, testified that practice was a “Black thing.”Ms. Willis also testified that her romance with Mr. Wade began only after he was hired. Cellular phone data, though, show the exchange of thousands of text messages and calls between the two even before he joined the election interference case. Judge McAfee found that Ms. Willis’s denials emitted an “odor of mendacity” and that her comments about the case — accusing her opponents of “playing the race card” — were “legally improper.”Judge McAfee hit upon something of a Solomonic solution — he determined that either Ms. Willis or Mr. Wade would have to depart from the case. Mr. Wade resigned immediately, though he continues to insist that workplace romances are “as American as apple pie” and has been spotted with Ms. Willis multiple times despite the pair claiming their romance is over. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Mr. Trump, who was charged with 13 criminal counts, has spent some $2.7 million in defense bills. There are also the legal bills of his co-defendants.The legislation’s sponsor, Senator Brandon Beach, told the Sun in March that Ms. Willis’s affair with Mr. Wade was “top of mind” when he crafted the bill, and that he hoped that it would curb “personal and prosecutorial misconduct.” The bill passed the Georgia senate by a 55-0 vote, meaning that it also garnered support from Democratic lawmakers. Ms. Willis’s office receives some $36 million a year from Fulton County’s $1 billion budget.Mr. Trump’s bills — and those of his co-defendants — now appear on the way to being the responsibility of Fulton County taxpayers, who re-elected Ms. Willis in November with some 70 percent of the vote. Her opponent, Courtney Kramer, previously served as a litigation consultant for Mr. Trump’s legal team. Fulton County, which includes downtown Atlanta, gave 72 percent of its vote to Vice President Harris in November’s presidential election.Ms. Willis is no stranger to being compelled to pay attorneys’ fees. In recent months she has twice, to the combined tune of some $75,000, been ordered by Fulton County judges to compensate her opponents in court. At issue in both proceedings was Ms. Willis’s compliance — or lack thereof — with respect to open records requests from both one of her defendants and a conservative legal group, Judicial Watch. Judge Rachel Krause found Ms. Willis’s office to be “openly hostile” to requests for information, and another judge, Robert McBurney, is weighing whether to appoint a special master to chaperone her compliance with open records cases.

New Setback for Fani Willis as Georgia Law Could Force Atlanta Residents To Pay Trump’s Legal Bills

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