An attorney representing former President Trump in his Georgia election interference case argued a judge did not go far enough after ruling Friday the case can move forward if either Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) or the prosecutor she had a romantic relationship with step aside.
“While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis’ extrajudicial MLK ‘church speech,’ where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel in the case, said in a statement.
“We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place,” Sadow said.
Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday morning that Willis’s once-romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted an appearance of conflict of interest in the racketeering case and barred the prosecutors from continuing to oversee it unless either Willis or Wade leaves the case.
The Trump prosecution was sidetracked by the probe into Willis and Wade’s relationship. In more than three days of hearings, defense attorneys sought to prove that Willis hired her romantic partner to prosecute Trump and has since benefited from his appointment in the form of lavish vacations they took together.
“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed,” McAfee wrote in Friday’s ruling.
“Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.”
The judge’s decision is a middle ground between the two sides. Trump and eight of his co-defendants argued the relationship meant the entire district attorney’s office should be thrown off the case, which would’ve hurled the prosecution into chaos. Prosecutors described the calls to step aside as baseless.
Scott Grubman, a defense attorney who had been representing co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, said on CNN after the ruling he was “disappointed” in the judge’s decision.
“If you were being charged with a crime that could land you in prison for a decade plus and this was happening, would you feel like you were getting a fair shake?” Grubman said. “No, of course you wouldn’t. And so I’d be very disappointed if I were on the case. I think there’s going to be a possibility of an interlocutory appeal.”