Trump Scores a Win as Hearing on Fani Willis Disqualification Likely Puts a Pre-Election Trial Out of Reach

The Georgia Court of Appeals’ scheduling of a tentative October 4 date to hear President Trump’s motion to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis is a victory for the 45th president regardless of the court’s ultimate ruling. Odds that the case will be tried before November’s election now appear dwindled. The docketing of the case on Monday comes after the Court of Appeals agreed to the request of Trump and his co defendants to review Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling allowing Ms. Willis to stay atop the prosecution. He mandated that if she remained her special prosecutor and former boyfriend, Nathan Wade, had to step aside.A panel of three appellate judges — Todd Markle, Trenton Brown, and Benjamin Land — will hear the appeal. Briefs from Trump and the other defendants challenging the ruling are due in 20 days. Ms. Willis told CNN in March in respect of her prosecution that “there are efforts to slow down the train, but the train is coming.” All three judges were appointed by Republican governors.The October 4 date is tentative because, per Georgia rules of appellate procedure, a party must request oral argument. The court can then decide whether to grant that request, or decide the matter based on briefs already filed. While Judge McAfee has not frozen the case pending this appeal, it will not go to trial without clarity as to who is heading the prosecution. The sprawling racketeering case brought by the district attorney of Fulton Count against Trump and 18 others has been roiled by the disclosure that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were engaged in a romantic relationship. Her office paid Mr. Wade more than $650,000 despite him never having prosecuted a felony. The two also took trips together to destinations like Aruba, Belize, and Napa Valley.Ms. Willis maintains that Mr. Wade’s credentials were “impeccable” and that she reimbursed him for the trips with cash she kept at her house, which her father testified in open court is a “Black thing” to do. For his part, Mr. Wade told ABC News that engaging in a workplace romance is as “American as apple pie.” Trump, though, contends that the relationship preceded Mr. Wade’s hiring, and amounted to a disqualifying conflict of interest.Judge McAfee, a 34 year-old jurist who last month won reelection to another term on the bench, instead ruled that the arrangement presented a “significant appearance of impropriety” and detected an “odor of mendacity” in how she and Mr. Wade communicated their romance to the court. The judge also derided as “legally improper” comments Ms. Willis made during a speech at a church. In that address, she accused her defendants of “playing the race card.” Mr. Trump’s attorney, Steven Sadow, in a statement emailed to the Sun, declares that he looks forward to arguing “why this case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for the trial court’s acknowledged ‘odor of mendacity’ misconduct in violation of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.” The Fulton County Code mandates that even the appearance of impropriety is enough to merit removal from a case. Also casting a shadow over Ms. Willis’s prosecution is the pending ruling from the United States Supreme Court on the issue of presidential immunity. Trump contends that former presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity” for official acts. That argument is made in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 case, which overlaps with the Georgia prosecution. A decision from the Nine could deliver yet another jolt to Fulton County’s efforts.

Trump Scores a Win as Hearing on Fani Willis Disqualification Likely Puts a Pre-Election Trial Out of Reach

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