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 been prosecuting Trump and 18 co-defendants for allegedly conspiring to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia. Former President Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims 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 has pleaded not guilty in the case.
Willis and Wade later confirmed their relationship but said neither financially benefited from the coupling, which ended in the summer of 2023. This week, the pair took the witness stand during hearings led by Judge Scott McAfee to determine if the district attorney should be disqualified from the case.
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney under the Barack Obama administration and MSNBC legal analyst, wrote on X that “Fani Willis made a terrible decision to date Nathan Wade, and that may bring ethics issues for her, but her testimony dispelled any kickback scheme that would disqualify her.” Richard W. Painter, a law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, wrote on X that “the evidence does not meet Georgia’s legal standard for disqualifying Ms. Willis” and suggested that Willis voluntarily resign and Wade not continue working on the case.
