Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must be disqualified and removed from President-elect Donald Trump's prosecution over his and his allies' efforts to subvert the state's 2020 election results, a Georgia appeals court ruled Thursday.
The decision throws the case into further disarray and is poised to bring it to a screeching halt as Trump assumes office in 2025. It comes months after the trial court ruled Willis, who the president-elect's lawyers accused of improperly benefiting from hiring a romantic partner as a lead prosecutor, could continue to oversee the case if that prosecutor resigned.
"After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office," the court wrote in the 32-page opinion.
"The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring," the judges added.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung celebrated the decision in a statement to NBC News.
“In granting President Trump an overwhelming mandate, the American People have demanded an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all the Witch Hunts against him," he said.
Willis had come under scrutiny earlier this year over the revelation of her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Though Willis denied Trump's allegations that she benefited financially from Wade's work, she admitted that they had dated while Wade was on the case. He resigned in March, within hours of the trial court's ruling.
The appellate court's Thursday decision, while reversing the lower court ruling allowing Willis to stay, did not dismiss the indictment altogether.
"While this is the rare case in which DA Willis and her office must be disqualified due to a significant appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment under the appropriate standard," the court said.
The court's decision allows the state to assign the matter to another prosecutor, which legal experts have said is likely to be a massive challenge given the complexity and novelty of Willis' case against Trump.
Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institute, argued that state prosecutors should continue to pursue the indictment.
“The disqualification of Fani Willis is entirely unfounded, but there is a silver lining: the indictment against Trump still stands," Eisen said in a statement. "It should be pursued vigorously. As we’ve seen in the New York case, Trump is not immune, and prosecutors must continue to hold him accountable.”
