Fani Willis loses bid to regain control of Trump Georgia case
ATLANTA—The Georgia Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis’s appeal of a lower-court decision that disqualified her from the criminal racketeering case against President Donald Trump and several allies charged with illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.
In a 4-3 ruling, the court declined to review a December order by the Georgia Court of Appeals that overturned a lower-court decision allowing Willis (D) and her office to remain on the case after she was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an outside lawyer she appointed to lead the prosecution.
The decision probably dooms the high-profile prosecution, the last active criminal case against Trump, who has sought to have charges dropped, citing his return to the presidency. The case’s fate shifts to a Republican-led state agency, which will assign a new prosecutor not affiliated with Fulton County to take on the matter—a move many believe will ultimately lead to charges being dismissed.
“While I disagree with the decision of the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Georgia Supreme Court’s divided decision not to review it, I respect the legal process and the courts,” Willis said in a statement.
She said her office would make the case file and evidence available to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, the agency that will tap a new prosecutor in the case. “I hope that whoever is assigned to handle the case will have the courage to do what the evidence and the law demand,” Willis said.
But Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, who had previously pushed for charges against his client to be dropped, called for the case to come to an end.
“This proper decision should bring an end to the wrongful political, lawfare persecutions of the president,” Sadow said.
Georgia Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson wrote in the majority opinion that the appellate court decision that removed Willis and her office from the case did not warrant further review.
Pinson, appointed to the court in 2022 by Gov. Brian Kemp (R), said there was a high bar for the state supreme court to intercede even if the “case or a subject matter had found its way into the public spotlight.”
“Whether a trial court abused its discretion in choosing a particular disqualification remedy under the specific and unusual circumstances of this case is not a question of Georgia law at all likely to arise in future cases,” Pinson wrote.
But Justice Carla Wong McMillan, also a Kemp appointee, vigorously disagreed in a dissent, arguing the appellate decision interpreting when a prosecutor can be removed from the case “affects every single active lawyer in the State of Georgia” and should have been settled by the high court.
McMillan pointed to legislation Kemp signed into law in May that would allow defendants to recoup attorneys’ fees and other legal costs if a prosecutor is removed from the case for misconduct and the case is dismissed. “There is now a financial incentive to move to disqualify prosecutors,” she wrote.
The decision comes after the state Court of Appeals sided with Trump and eight co-defendants who sought to overturn a March 2024 order by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee that rejected motions to disqualify Willis over claims her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade had compromised the case. But McAfee also ordered that either Willis or Wade leave the prosecution team. Wade quickly resigned.
In a 2-1 ruling issued Dec. 19, the appellate court said that McAfee had “erred” and that his “remedy … 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 majority decision said Willis should be removed from the case, suggesting “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.” Willis appealed that decision in January, arguing the appellate court had legally overreached.
“No Georgia court has ever disqualified a district attorney for the mere appearance of impropriety without the existence of an actual conflict of interest,” Willis’s filing said. “And no Georgia court has ever reversed a trial court’s order declining to disqualify a prosecutor based solely on an appearance of impropriety.”
The state supreme court decision comes more than two years after Willis brought charges against Trump and more than a dozen allies in August 2023, alleging criminal election interference. Four co-defendants pleaded guilty in the months after the indictment, agreeing to provide evidence in the case in exchange for no jail time.
But then the case was brought to an abrupt halt by misconduct allegations against Willis in January 2024—and has remained essentially frozen for more than a year.
In November, Sadow sought to have charges against Trump dismissed, citing his client’s then-imminent return to the presidency. He asked the appellate court to find it did not have legal jurisdiction over the matter because it is unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president “in any way.” He also pressed the court to instruct McAfee, the Fulton County judge overseeing the case, to dismiss the indictment against Trump.
The appellate court did not act on Trump’s request, and even as it removed Willis from the case, the court declined to fully dismiss the indictment in response to her behavior, calling that an “extreme sanction.”
In an email Tuesday, Sadow said the state supreme court had “correctly denied review” of the appellate decision that removed Willis from the case, calling her conduct during the case “egregious.”
“She deserved nothing less than disqualification,” Sadow said.
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