Live Updates: Judge Says Fani Willis Can Stay on Trump Case, but Only if Former Romantic Partner Leaves
"The Atlanta district attorney came under scrutiny because of a romantic relationship with the lead prosecutor she hired to oversee the case. The judge said the prosecution can’t proceed unless he withdraws or she steps aside.
Pinned
An Atlanta judge on Friday ruled that Fani T. Willis, the Fulton Country district attorney, could continue leading the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia, but only if her former romantic partner, Nathan J. Wade, withdraws as the lead prosecutor of the case.
The ruling by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court cut a middle path between removing Ms. Willis for a conflict of interest, which defense lawyers had sought, and her full vindication, with the judge sharply criticizing her behavior. Still, with delays mounting, the case is now unlikely to come to trial before the 2024 presidential election, when Mr. Trump is almost certain to be the Republican nominee.
Danny Hakim
Reporting from AtlantaIn his ruling, Judge McAfee was critical of recent public comments about the Trump case by Fani Willis, the district attorney, and wrote that “the time may well have arrived for an order preventing the State from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity, but that is not the motion presently before the Court.”
A special committee of the Georgia State Senate held a hearing last week into accusations of misconduct by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, making it clear that the effort to disqualify her from the prosecution of Donald J. Trump is not the only threat to her case against the former president.
Ms. Willis faces a series of inquiries that could perpetuate questions about her character and uncertainty around the Trump case for months to come.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, described Judge McAfee’s decision as the “best ruling” Fani Willis could have hoped for. The judge concluded that the facts “do not reveal an actual conflict of interest,” and any appearance of conflict can be easily remedied by removing Nathan Wade as lead prosecutor. “And even better for Willis, this is unlikely to be disturbed on appeal.”
Danny Hakim
Reporting from AtlantaJudge McAfee, a Republican appointee, has said that he had already decided how to rule last week, even before he knew that a Democrat would be challenging him for his seat on the Fulton County Superior Court later this year. “No ruling of mine is ever going to be based on politics,” he told a local TV station this week.
At 34, Judge Scott McAfee is not old enough under the U.S. Constitution to be president himself. But since last summer, the Fulton County Superior Court judge has presided over one of the nation’s most important cases: The prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump and his allies on charges of election interference in Georgia.
Deciding whether to disqualify the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis — his former boss — is just one of the many difficult calls that Judge McAfee, who was sworn in as a judge early last year, has had to make in his Atlanta courtroom while overseeing the Trump case.
The allegations of a romance between Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and Nathan J. Wade first emerged in a January filing by Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for Michael Roman, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia.
In her filing, Ms. Merchant said that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade, whom she hired to manage the Trump case, had been “profiting personally from this prosecution” at taxpayers’ expense. Ms. Merchant also said that Mr. Wade was underqualified, and argued that the entire indictment should be dismissed.
Danny Hakim
Reporting from AtlantaScott McAfee, the judge presiding over the Trump case, said in his ruling on whether the former romantic relationship between prosecutors creates a conflict of interest that there was an “appearance of impropriety” that needs to be remedied.
Danny Hakim
Reporting from AtlantaThe judge did not find enough evidence to disqualify Fani Willis, the district attorney, from the case, however. McAfee said “the allegations and evidence” were “legally insufficient to support a finding of an actual conflict of interest.”
In a surprise move on Wednesday, a judge in Atlanta quashed six of the charges against former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in the sprawling Georgia election interference case, including one related to a call that Mr. Trump made to pressure Georgia’s secretary of state in early January 2021.
The judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court, left intact the rest of the racketeering indictment, which initially included 41 counts against 19 co-defendants. Four of them have pleaded guilty since the indictment was handed up by a grand jury in August."
No comments:
Post a Comment