A Georgia appeals court agreed Wednesday to hear Donald Trump’s bid to boot embattled Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the Peach State election fraud case against him.
The decision is likely to cause further delays in the case — which was initially set for trial in August before revelations emerged that Fulton County DA Willis had engaged in an affair with her lead prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ruled in March that Willis could continue her work against Trump and his remaining 14 co-defendants as long as Wade quit the case, which he did the same day.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee and eight other defendants had asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to hear their arguments accusing Willis of prosecutorial misconduct over the affair with Wade.
“President Trump looks forward to presenting interlocutory arguments to the Georgia Court of Appeals as to why the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct in this unjustified, unwarranted political persecution,” Steven Sadow, an attorney for the 45th president, said in a statement.
Trump, 77, argued that Willis wrongfully appointed her boyfriend to the lucrative special prosecutor post and then benefitted from his earnings when he took her on lavish vacations.
Willis and Wade both admitted during tense hearings in February that they had been together but maintained their relationship didn’t become romantic until after Wade began working on the probe in November 2021. They both testified that they split in the summer of 2023.
They also claimed that Willis didn’t benefit financially from Wade’s position as they would roughly split the cost of their getaways with Wade fronting the money on his credit cards and Willis repaying her portion in cash.
McAfee’s decision, however, found that even the appearance of misconduct was enough that one of the two prosecutors had to go.
Willis was undeterred by McAfee’s ruling at the time, saying “the train is coming” for Trump and adding that she was “not embarrassed” by her tryst.
Trump is currently on trial in a separate criminal hush money case in Manhattan, which is likely to be the only time he will face a jury before Election Day Nov. 5.
He also faces two other federal criminal cases, one in Florida for allegedly hoarding confidential documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office and then lying about it and the other in Washington DC on charges he unlawfully conspired to remain in office after his 2020 election defeat.
The real estate tycoon has denied all the charges and claims the cases are part of a Democratic witch hunt to keep him from getting reelected.
