By Ashley Oliver | Washington Examiner
The most pressing question in the election interference case against former President Donald Trump in Georgia has become whether a judge will disqualify the lead prosecutor from it.
Judge Scott McAfee presided over a stunning, drama-filled two-day hearing on Thursday and Friday to examine the matter, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could now learn her fate within a few weeks.
The hearing, for its part, involved Willis taking the stand in her own case, appearing heated at times as attorneys questioned her about a secret relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired in November 2021 to help with the Trump case.
The previously undisclosed relationship first surfaced in a court document filed last month by co-defendant Mike Roman. He argued Willis should be dismissed from the case because she allegedly financially benefited from going on vacations, cruises, and day trips with Wade while she was paying him a hefty hourly wage using public funds.
Willis and Wade both claimed during their testimonies, however, that they split costs involved with spending time together roughly evenly. Asked to explain travel costs Wade had booked on his credit card, he and Willis both testified that she always reimbursed him in untraceable cash.
Now, aside from addressing a few straggling items of evidence, McAfee said he will schedule closing arguments sometime in the coming two weeks on the question of whether Willis and Wade’s relationship presents a conflict of interest that is grounds for her disqualification.
It is unclear how soon after closing arguments McAfee will issue a ruling, but the stakes are enormous, meaning the judge could want to take weeks to piece through evidence and court precedents.
If he were to decide Willis has an irreversible conflict of interest, a designated state official would then be tasked with deciding where to move the case against Trump and 18 co-defendants. That task may present insurmountable hurdles.
“It’s difficult for me to imagine any other district attorney that would be willing to take up the case because they will probably have to start over from scratch,” Phil Holloway, an Atlanta-based attorney for more than two decades, told the Washington Examiner.
“The reason for that is if the case is so tainted at this point by virtue of a Fani Willis conflict of interest, then the whole thing might need to start over, and that’s a big ask,” Holloway said.
Georgia-based political law attorney Courtney Kramer, who worked in the Trump White House counsel’s office in 2018, agreed.
“No one’s going to pick [the case] up. No DA really wants to touch this,” Kramer said during a phone interview. “What they are trying to convict these defendants of … she has not proved all of the elements of all of those crimes in the indictment at the outset.”
Kramer added, “The problem is that she did not properly prepare for this indictment or for this case at all.”
Holloway said he believes disqualification will be possible, especially if McAfee ends up finding the claim that Willis reimbursed Wade in cash not credible.
Wade also struggled during his testimony on Thursday to corroborate certain parts of sworn statements he had submitted to the Fulton court and in his divorce proceedings, particularly about receipts and when his relationship with Willis started.
If the judge believes evidence supports that Wade or Willis lied, Holloway said, then “theoretically that could be enough to prove fraud on the court, and if we get to that point, Fani Willis and Nathan Wade have bigger problems than the outcome of this particular court case.”
Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University College of Law professor, said in a statement on social media that he did not see how defense lawyers “have met their evidentiary burden.”
“Given all the mud-slinging, however… is there enough to constitute an *appearance of impropriety* at this point? That’s where I’d be nervous if I were the Fulton County DA,” Kreis continued. “But in terms of an actual, concrete conflict of interest, which I believe is the standard? That is DOA.”
Trump said in a statement on his social media platform Truth Social that the Willis controversy was a “MAJOR LEAGUE SCANDAL.”
“The legal pundits, experts, and scholars are all screaming that this Witch Hunt, which has hurt so many fine people and patriots, should be immediately terminated and permanently erased from everyone’s memory,” Trump said.
