Fani Willis Handed Boost in Battle to Avoid Disqualification

Fani Willis has received support from ethics experts in her battle to remain in Donald Trump's Georgia election interference case.

Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has come under pressure amid allegations she had an affair with a special prosecutor she hired in the case, Nathan Wade.

Trump and 18 others are accused in a 41-count indictment of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all 13 charges against him and has repeatedly said the case is part of a political witch hunt aimed at undermining his position as frontrunner for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination.

Former Trump staffer Michael Roman, a co-defendant, made the accusations about Willis without evidence, and sought to disqualify her and Wade from the trial. Willis and Wade said they had a romantic relationship on Friday but denied this represented a conflict of interest. An evidentiary hearing on the matter is scheduled for February 16. Newsweek contacted Willis via social media to comment on this story.

On Monday night, a coalition of 17 ethics experts, former prosecutors and defense attorneys filed a court briefing arguing that Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee should dismiss motions alleging Willis acted improperly.

The coalition includes former Georgia-based federal prosecutor Amy Lee Copeland and Richard Painter, the top White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration.

In a 25-page filing, they said Willis' relationship with Wade was irrelevant to the case and defended Willis' conduct.

"Disqualifying conflicts," the group wrote, "occur when a prosecutor's previous representation of a defendant gives the prosecutor forbidden access to confidential information about the defendant or a conflict otherwise directly impacts fairness and due process owed a defendant."

"That kind of conflict is not at issue here," they said.

"Defendants have not shown that their constitutional rights were violated or that these proceedings were rendered fundamentally unfair due to any relationship between DA Willis and Wade," the group stated.

Speaking to Newsweek, Matthew Mangino, a former district attorney in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, said he does not believe Willis' actions were sufficient grounds for her to be disqualified.

"I don't think Fani Willis did enough to get disqualified," he said. "There doesn't appear to be a conflict of interest or any forensic wrongdoing. With that said, at a minimum Nathan Wade should step down. Although the mere appearance of a conflict [of] interest is not enough—this issue has created a distraction."

On Saturday, Glenn Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent critic of Trump, called the alleged scandal "much ado about nothing" in a YouTube video.

"It's a bad look in the court of public opinion, but it looks like it will be much ado about nothing in the court of law," Kirschner said. "Based on what I've reviewed and what I've read, what I've seen. I don't think it will have any impact on the RICO [racketeering] prosecution of Donald Trump and his [alleged] criminal associates down in Georgia."

Despite this support, a fresh Monday filing by lawyers for former state GOP chair and Trump co-defendant David Shafer sought to remove Wallis for making a speech in January in which she questioned why Wade, who is Black, was being singled out when her other two special prosecutors are white.

"All the causes for the disqualification are self-inflicted blows," says the motion. Willis has strayed "wildly from the legal guardrails that are designed to protect the accused from improper, extrajudicial comments."

"The obvious intent of her remarks was to inject and infect the jury pool in Fulton County with unfounded allegations that anyone who dares question her or Mr. Wade's conduct must have done so for racist purposes," the motion says.

"These comments constitute prosecutorial, forensic misconduct and warrant her removal and that of her office from the prosecution of this case."

Update 2/7/24 8:06 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information.