By Darren Lyn
HOUSTON, United States (AA) - An appellate court in the US state of Georgia ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must be disqualified from prosecuting Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, media reports said Thursday.
"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 said, referring to a previous ruling that allowed Willis to remain on the case.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAffee said there was an "appearance of impropriety" that was created due to a romantic relationship Willis had with the special prosecutor assigned to the case, Nathan Wade.
McAffee determined one of the two needed to leave the case and ruled to dismiss Willis.
"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 court said. "While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings."
Within hours of the decision, Wade resigned as special prosecutor.
Willis had been under scrutiny because of her relationship with Wade, which had Trump and his co-defendants calling for her to remove herself from the case.
Legal experts said the decision is likely to cripple the case and stop efforts to prosecute Trump and his allies for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
The court did not completely dismiss the case, and under Georgia law, it could be assigned to a different county prosecutor. Legal analysts, however, believe it is likely to be a difficult task, given the complicated and politically novel nature of the charges.
The case may follow suit with prosecutors already dropping Trump's federal criminal charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results and taking classified documents from the White House.