Friday marks the end of the self-imposed two-week deadline set by a judge to decide whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from former President Donald Trump‘s Georgia election interference case.
Two weeks ago, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had just finished hearing dozens of hours of testimony concerning the allegation that Willis’s romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, one of the case’s top prosecutors, amounts to a conflict of interest and that could result in her removal from the case. Now he’s expected to issue his final decision on Friday.
“I made a promise to everybody. These kind of orders take time to write. I need to say exactly what I want to, and I plan to stick to the timeline I gave everyone,” McAfee said this week in an interview with WSB-TV.
“The message I want to convey is no ruling of mine is ever going to be based on politics. I’m going to be following the law the best I understand it,” the judge added.
Attorneys for Trump and several of the remaining 14 co-defendants joined a motion in January alleging that Willis acted improperly because Wade had used his own credit card to take her on several vacations and cruises while he was working for her office. Willis and Wade have vehemently defended their work and their relationship, and both testified under oath that Willis paid him back using cash she kept in her house.
McAfee has wide latitude to rule as he sees fit over this dispute. He could remove Willis and Wade from the case, remove just one of them, or keep the prosecutorial team together, with perhaps a written warning issued to the state.
If Willis were to be disqualified from the case, it would likely be handed over to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, which has already had some involvement in the indictment.
Willis was previously barred from including Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones as a co-defendant in the indictment after hosting a fundraiser for his political opponent. Jones’s potential prosecution was handed over to PACG, which has yet to determine a prosecutor to take on that investigation.
If the district attorney gets to keep her position on the case, the road toward an eventual trial, which she has previously asked the judge to schedule in early August, is not entirely clear either.
Trump has had success so far in delaying his four criminal trials as he mounts his bid for reelection against his opponent, President Joe Biden, and the Georgia case has always had the potential to be delayed the longest, with some legal experts saying the proceedings could stretch into 2025. That has raised some doubts about the prospects of a Fulton County trial occurring at all given the thorny undertaking it would be to litigate the case if Trump won the November election.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Willis must also decide whether she wants to bring a superseding indictment in the case after McAfee on Wednesday tossed out six of the 41 charges that defendants are facing.
Attempting to bring those charges back into the case could prove difficult if Willis is angling for a trial before November, as any additional indictment would likely create another delay in Trump’s favor. If he were to win reelection, he would likely claim immunity from prosecution while he is in office.