In a new attempt to delay his judgment, former President Donald Trump requested in February the dismissal of prosecutor Fani Willis, who is investigating the case against him and his fourteen co-defendants in the American state of Georgia (southeast) for illicit manipulations in order to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election. He had seized a judge and requested that the charges be dropped, claiming that the prosecutor was guilty of professional misconduct linked to an intimate affair. On Friday, March 15, Judge Scott McAfee rejected this request, but imposed conditions on the prosecutor's stay.
The magistrate concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a “conflict of interest” due to her intimate relationship with investigator Nathan Wade, whom she hired in the case.
For her part, the prosecutor admitted in February to a romantic relationship with the lawyer she had hired, but denied any professional misconduct. Mr. Trump's request is "unfounded", said Fani Willis in a court document, ensuring that she had no intimate relationship with Nathan Wade when she recruited him in November 2021. The latter also declared in a court document that he initiated this relationship with Fani Willis in 2022, and claimed to have "derived no funds or personal financial gain from his role as special prosecutor", contrary to what Mr. Trump and his co-defendants.
“Huge lack of judgment”
Judge Scott McAfee, however, denounced what he called a “tremendous lack of judgment” on the part of the prosecutor, and concluded that there was “an appearance of inappropriate behavior”. As a result, he demands that she withdraw from the case with her entire team, or that the investigator, Nathan Wade, withdraws from it.
Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in the November election against the outgoing Democratic President, Joe Biden, is seeking through his multiple appeals to go to trial as late as possible, i.e. after the ballot. The judge on Wednesday, March 6, granted part of the defendants' requests to quash some of the forty-one charges contained in the indictment issued on August 14, notably under a Georgia law on crime in organized gang. A withdrawal of the prosecutor would have considerably delayed the holding of this trial, for which no date has been set.
Four of the nineteen people initially targeted by the indictment issued on August 14, notably under a Georgia law on organized crime used by the prosecutor, have already pleaded guilty. They were sentenced to reduced sentences, without prison time, in exchange for their testimony at the future trial of the other defendants. Mr. Trump's co-defendants include his former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his most recent White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
