Legal experts believe that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will not be disqualified from her election interference case against former President Donald Trump in Georgia. Willis’ office has taken on the task of prosecuting Trump and 18 co-defendants after they were indicted in August 2023 for allegedly conspiring to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has claimed the case is politically motivated as he is the GOP frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election. In an attempt to disqualify Willis and her team, Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and one of the co-defendants in the case, brought forward allegations of a personal relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Roman, meanwhile, has pleaded not guilty in the case.
Willis and Wade later confirmed that they had a relationship but said neither of them financially benefited from the coupling, which ended in the summer of 2023. This week, the pair took the witness stand during a series of hearings led by Judge Scott McAfee to determine if the district attorney should be disqualified from the case. The defense has to show that her relationship with Nathan Wade caused or gave rise to a personal or financial interest that gave her a kind of interest or incentive in convicting Trump and others.
Georgia lawyer Doug Weinstein expressed disappointment in Willis and argued that putting the Trump trial at risk in this fashion demonstrates poor judgment. Judge McAfee announced that he and the lawyers representing both sides will reconvene at the end of next week or early the following week to focus on arguments based on the evidence presented during the hearings.
