Georgia appeals court agrees to consider Trump effort to oust Fulton County DA Fani Willis

The Georgia state Court of Appeals on Wednesday agreed to hear the appeal of former President Donald Trump as to whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from his election fraud case for improper conduct.

The court granted the application for what’s known as interlocutory appeal without comment, saying that Trump and at least eight other co-defendants have 10 days to file their formal appeal. That means the appellate court will hear the case before the trial gets underway rather than afterward if Trump or any of the other 14 co-defendants were convicted.

“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,” said Steve Sadow, lead defense counsel for Trump in the case.

Trump and the others face charges of conspiring to commit election fraud in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia that Trump lost to President Joe Biden.

The presiding judge in the case, Scott McAfee, ruled in March that Willis could stay on the case despite admitting to having an affair with a private lawyer she hired to oversee the investigation, Nathan Wade, as long as she forced him off of the prosecution team. Willis and Wade have denied wrongdoing and said their affair started after she hired him to oversee the sprawling election racketeering case in November 2021. Wade resigned from the case.

Trump and a majority of the defendants sought to appeal that ruling, saying McAfee’s ruling didn’t go far enough, and that Willis – and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office – should be disqualified and the case dismissed because of her alleged financial and ethical conflicts of interest.

The appeal could significantly delay the trial, possibly until after the Nov. 5 election that is shaping up to be a Biden-Trump rematch. But McAfee, who has not set a trial date, has said he will allow trial preparations to go forward while the appeal is underway.

District Attorney's office spokesman Jeff DiSantis said the office would have "no comment at this point."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fani Willis could be removed from Trump's Georgia election fraud case