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    Georgia will allow Trump to challenge order keeping Fani Willis on election interference case

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    The Georgia state court of appeals on Wednesday said it would consider an appeal from Donald Trump of an order allowing Fani Willis, the district attorney, to continue prosecuting his election interference case in Fulton county.In a one-page order, the appeals court said it would allow Trump to challenge the decision not to disqualify Willis over her relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired to lead the Trump case. Scott McAfee, the trial judge overseeing the case, ruled in March that Willis could stay on the case as long as Wade resigned. Wade subsequently resigned the same day McAfee issued his decision.Trump now has 10 days to file a notice of appeal, the court said. His legal team had asked the court of appeals to consider the case in March and clarify the standard for when a prosecutor should be disqualified.“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,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s attorney, said in a statement.The decision to hear the appeal is a significant win for Trump. It decreases the chances that the case will go to trial before the November election and allows Trump and his lawyers to continue to undermine Willis’s credibility and keep questions about her judgment in the public eye. McAfee has already excoriated Willis for her conduct, saying she had a “tremendous lapse in judgment”.Trump’s attorneys may petition the court to stay the trial pending the outcome of their appeal. Otherwise, the appeal will not immediately impede the prosecution as McAfee takes up pending motions. But if the appeals court decides that Willis must be removed, it would reset the years-long case back to square one while a new prosecutor can be appointed to oversee the case.Last month, prosecutors urged the appeals court not to hear the appeal. “The present application merely reflects the applicants’ dissatisfaction with the trial court’s proper application of well-established law to the facts,” prosecutors wrote in a 19-page filing.Trump and more than a dozen of his allies were charged last year with racketeering over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump and his co-defendants tried to dismiss the case by alleging that Willis’s relationship, and statements she made at a Black church in Atlanta suggesting criticism of her was racist, meant she should be recused from the case.Wade defended his relationship with Willis in an interview with ABC News last weekend. “Workplace romances are as American as apple pie,” Wade said. “It happens to everyone. But it happened to the two of us.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I regret that that private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution,” Wade added. “This is a very important case.”The order comes one day after Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely delayed Trump’s trial in Florida for charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club. More

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      Fani Willis: ‘Train is coming’ for Trump despite efforts to derail Georgia case

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      The Georgia prosecutor overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case in that state promised Saturday that “the train is coming” for him despite defense efforts to derail her office’s pursuit of charges against the former president and nearly two dozen co-defendants.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s remarks came after a court challenge centering on a romantic relationship that she had with a special prosecutor whom she appointed to the case, Nathan Wade. After the relationship was exposed, Wade stepped down from the prosecution to defuse any appearances of a potential conflict of interest and so Willis could stay on the case.“I don’t feel like we have been slowed down at all” by Trump’s efforts to use the relationship with Wade to disqualify her from prosecuting him, Willis told CNN on Saturday at a Georgia Easter egg hunt. “I think there are efforts to slow down the train, but the train is coming.”Willis’s case alleges a conspiracy to commit election fraud after Trump came up narrowly short in the state’s vote during the 2020 presidential race that he lost to Joe Biden. But it has been beset with complications.A little more than 10 days ago, Fulton county judge Scott McAfee dismissed six counts against Trump and his co-defendants relating to an infamous phone call in which the former president urged Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” more than 11,000 votes that would put Trump over Biden.Of the 13 counts Trump faces, three of them were thrown out. McAfee essentially agreed with defense lawyers that the charges “fail to allege sufficient detail” regarding what aspect of Raffensperger’s oath of office the defendants were allegedly trying to get him to break.But the attention on Willis, who had hired Wade to draw up the charges, continues to hang over the case. Earlier in March, McAfee held three days of hearings weighing motions to disqualify her.Wade and Willis admitted they had been in a relationship but said it did “not amount to a disqualifying conflict of interest”. They maintained that Willis had not benefitted financially, directly or indirectly, when they took several holidays and trips together.McAfee ruled there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove the defense’s claims but rebuked Willis for what he called a “tremendous lapse in judgment”.Attorneys for Trump argued that Willis – who is Black – committed “appalling and unforgivable” forms of forensic misconduct by “stoking racial and religious prejudice” against the defendants after she claimed that the allegations against her had been motivated by race.The judge later agreed that attorneys for Trump’s co-defendants are free to appeal his ruling that she could stay on the case. That proceeding is almost certain to lead to a new set of legal challenges relating to prosecutorial impropriety, actual or in appearance, around the Willis-Wade affair.Willis told CNN that she did not feel that her professional reputation had been sullied or that she had done anything embarrassing.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m not embarrassed by anything I’ve done,” Willis said. “I guess my greatest crime is that I had a relationship with a man, but that’s not something I find embarrassing in any way.”But some questioned her decision to speak to the media after the intense attention around her personal decisions around the case have come close to derailing it entirely.In a series of posts on X, Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis, who’s been following the case against Trump, noted that McAfee had previously threatened to impose a gag order on Willis.“If I were Fani Willis, I would simply not talk to the media at all at this point just out of an abundance of caution,” Kreis wrote. More

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      Defendants can appeal decision to keep Fani Willis on Trump case, judge rules

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      The judge overseeing the election interference criminal case against Donald Trump and others in Georgia on Wednesday ruled that the defendants can appeal the decision last week to allow the prosecutor Fani Willis to remain on the case despite a past romantic relationship with her deputy.Last Friday the judge, Scott McAfee, in Georgia ruled that the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, could continue to head the prosecution of Trump for trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election in the state, as long as the top deputy agreed to step down.The deputy, the special prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom Willis had a romantic relationship, resigned on Friday, clearing the way for Willis to continue.Now the judge will allow an appeal, according to a new court filing.Reuters contributed reportingskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore details soon … More

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      in US Politics

      Fani Willis thanks deputy Nathan Wade for ‘patriotism and courage’ after accepting his resignation – as it happened

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      Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the Georgia racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants, has resigned.Wade’s resignation comes after a ruling by the judge overseeing the Trump Georgia case that district attorney Fani Willis can continue to head the prosecution, as long as Wade steps down from the case.Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the Georgia racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants, has resigned. Wade’s resignation comes after a ruling by the judge overseeing the Trump Georgia case that district attorney Fani Willis can continue to head the prosecution, as long as Wade steps down from the case.
      Donald Trump has responded to Nathan Wade’s resignation in yet another fiery Truth Social post. Writing on his social media platform, Trump said: “…Nathan was the ‘Special,’ in more ways than one, Prosecutor ‘engaged’ by Fani (pronounced Fauni!) Willis, to persecute TRUMP for Crooked Joe Biden and his Department of Injustice…”
      Donald Trump has endorsed John Barrasso for the next Senate Republican whip, the conference’s number two spot. Barrasso is a “fantastic” senator for Wyoming who will “never let you down”, Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday evening.
      New York judge Juan Merchan has delayed Donald Trump’s hush money trial, which was set to begin on March 25, to mid-April. “There are significant questions of fact which this Court must resolve before it may rule on Defendant’s motion,” Merchant wrote.
      The White House’s top lawyer told House Republicans to give up on their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden in a letter addressed to the House speaker, Mike Johnson. A spokesperson for Johnson said it was not up to the White House to decide what happened with the inquiry.
      Joe Biden defended the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, over comments he made on Thursday calling on Israel to hold new elections and harshly criticizing its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “I’m not going to elaborate on the speech. He made a good speech,” Biden said.
      Joe Biden welcomed the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, at the White House. Varadkar told Biden that his priority was to get a ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible to allow humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
      New York judge Juan Merchan has delayed Donald Trump’s hush money trial, which was set to begin on March 25, to mid-April.“There are significant questions of fact which this Court must resolve before it may rule on Defendant’s motion,” Merchant wrote.Earlier this month, Trump’s lawyers had argued for a 90-day delay, saying that they needed more time to review thousands of pages of evidence. However, they later said that they agreed to the 30-day delay “in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.”The hush money case revolves around alleged payments Trump secretly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 during his presidential campaign in an attempt to conceal their alleged sexual encounter.Last year, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in the case.Donald Trump is the true winner in the decision on Fani Willis in the Georgia election interference case, the Guardian’s Sam Levine writes:Fani Willis may have survived a high-stakes effort to disqualify her from prosecuting the high-stakes election interference case in Georgia. But the biggest winner from the episode is likely Donald Trump.The Fulton county district attorney can now continue prosecuting her case against Trump and 14 co-defendants as long as Nathan Wade, a top deputy with whom she had a romantic relationship with, resigns, Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee ruled on Friday. Wade did just that a few hours later.But both the opinion and the extraordinary hearing that preceded it lends a hugely significant judicial imprimatur to Trump’s successful effort to diminish Willis’ credibility in the public eye.Trump and his co-defendants have waged a successful campaign to diminish the perception of her – puncturing her reputation as an impartial prosecutor seeking justice and instead offering up the image of a flawed public official whose romantic feelings led to a lapse in judgment.For the full story, click here:Donald Trump has responded to Nathan Wade’s resignation in yet another fiery Truth Social post.Writing on his social media platform, Trump said:“The Fani Willis lover, Mr. Nathan Wade Esq., has just resigned in disgrace, as per his and her reading of the Judge’s Order today. Nathan was the ‘Special,’ in more ways than one, Prosecutor ‘engaged’ by Fani (pronounced Fauni!) Willis, to persecute TRUMP for Crooked Joe Biden and his Department of Injustice, for purposes of Election Interference and living the life of the Rich & Famous…”In his resignation letter to district attorney Fani Willis, Nathan Wade said:“I am offering my resignation in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public, and to move this case forward as quickly as possible.I am proud of the work our team has accomplished in investigating, indicting and litigating this case. Seeking justice for the people of Georgia and the United States, and being part of the effort to ensure that the rule of law and democracy are preserved, has been the honor of a lifetime.”Nathan Wade’s resignation allows Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis to remain on the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump, but the long-term damage to her credibility and the public perception of the prosecution remains unclear.Despite Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling giving Willis the option to stay on the case, his decision offered a harsh analysis of her conduct and underscoring questions about her judgment that were exposed during a multi-day hearing.In his ruling, McAfee said Willis had demonstrated “tremendous lapse in judgment”, noting that Georgia law “does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices – even repeatedly maintaining such a relationship.”Trump and allies are likely to seize on those punches as they continue to defend themselves in the case.Donald Trump has endorsed John Barrasso for the next Senate Republican whip, the conference’s number two spot.Barrasso is a “fantastic” senator for Wyoming who will “never let you down”, Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday evening.Barrasso, 71, is the third-ranking Senate Republican as chair of the Senate Republican conference and relatively popular with the Republican right. He endorsed Trump in January and has also supported several “Make America great again” candidates for the Senate, including election denier Kari Lake in Arizona.Barrasso is running unopposed for the whip position to replace John Thune, who is running to replace Mitch McConnell as Senate Republican leader.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis accepted Nathan Wade’s resignation from the election interference case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia in a letter where she thanked him for his “patriotism, courage, and dedication to justice.”In the letter, Willis said she accepted her top deputy’s resignation effective immediately, and said she will “always remember … that you were brave enough to step forward and take on” the investigation into the former president and his allies. She wrote:
      I compliment you for the professionalism and dignity you have shown over the last 865 days, as you have endured threats against you and your family, as well as unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation as a lawyer.
      She concluded the letter by writing:
      Please accept my sincere gratitude on behalf of the citizens of Fulton county Georgia for your patriotism, courage, and dedication to justice. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.
      The decision by Nathan Wade to step down from his role as special prosecutor in the Georgia racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants means that district attorney Fani Willis can continue leading the prosecution.The ruling earlier today by Judge Scott McAfee came after hearings that offered a dramatic deviation from the case against Trump and his allies as it investigated Willis’s romantic relationship with Wade, her top deputy.The question at the heart of the matter was whether Willis had a conflict of interest in the case because of her relationship with Wade. Michael Roman, one of the 14 remaining defendants in the case, filed a motion in January saying Willis should be disqualified from handling the case because of her romantic relationship with Wade, which was not publicly known at the time.The two eventually admitted their relationship, but said it did not begin until 2022, after Wade was hired to work on the Trump case. Wade acknowledged that he paid for vacations for the two of them to places such as Napa in California and Aruba, but he and Willis both said she paid him back in cash.In his ruling, the judge said Wade could withdraw from the case, “allowing the district attorney, the defendants, and the public to move forward without his presence or remuneration distracting from and potentially compromising the merits of this case”.Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the Georgia racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants, has resigned.Wade’s resignation comes after a ruling by the judge overseeing the Trump Georgia case that district attorney Fani Willis can continue to head the prosecution, as long as Wade steps down from the case.After the House fast-tracked a bill that would force China-based ByteDance to divest from TikTok or face a nationwide ban, senators say they want the chamber to take its time deciding whether to back the legislation.The House voted 352-65 on Wednesday, just eight days after the proposal was introduced. There is broad support in the Senate for taking action to address national security threats from foreign apps like TikTok but no agreement on the right approach.The Senate commerce committee chair, Maria Cantwell, said in an interview with Reuters she wants legislation to address broad concerns about foreign apps that will hold up in court and is not sure the House bill goes far enough.“We’ll probably have a better idea in a week what we think the options are,” Cantwell said, adding that she had thought about holding hearings.Senator Ron Wyden, a leading Democrat on tech issues, said he was still reviewing the House bill and has “serious concerns about any app that gives the Chinese government access to Americans’ private data.
      I’ll also say this: history teaches us that when lawmakers rush to legislate on tech and social media, mistakes get made.
      Fani Willis may have survived a high-stakes effort to disqualify her from prosecuting the high-stakes election interference case in Georgia. But the biggest winner from the episode is likely Donald Trump.The Fulton county district attorney can now continue prosecuting her case against Trump and 14 co-defendants as long as Nathan Wade, a top deputy with whom she had a romantic relationship with, resigns, Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee ruled on Friday.But both the opinion and the extraordinary hearing that preceded it lends a hugely significant judicial imprimatur to Trump’s successful effort to diminish Willis’ credibility in the public eye.Trump and his co-defendants have waged a successful campaign to diminish the perception of her – puncturing her reputation as an impartial prosecutor seeking justice and instead offering up the image of a flawed public official whose romantic feelings led to a lapse in judgment.Friday’s developments are extremely significant. The Georgia case has long been considered one of the strongest against Trump. Unlike the two criminal cases being pursued by the justice department, it is also insulated from any direct interference by Trump should he win the 2024 election since he cannot dismiss the prosecutor or pardon himself in Georgia, even if he occupies the White House.Read the full analysis by the Guardian’s voting rights reporter, Sam Levine: Trump is the true winner in the decision on Fani Willis in the Georgia caseThe Georgia judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state on Friday declined to remove Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, from leading the prosecution, finding there was no conflict of interest stemming from her romantic relationship with her top deputy.But the judge, Scott McAfee, ruled the relationship had the “appearance of impropriety” and gave Willis a choice: either she could step down, or the deputy, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, could do so.If, as seems likely, Wade is now to be dropped from the prosecution, the case against Trump can continue with Willis leading it. But it will be one that is deeply politically damaged, especially due to the scathing criticism of her by McAfee.Here are the top takeaways from the 23-page ruling.Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, is in Washington today visiting Joe Biden and attending happenings on Capitol Hill.Varadkar used his remarks at a luncheon to thank the United States for its work to bring peace between Ireland and Northern Ireland — part of the United Kingdom — with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, The Associated Press reports.Joe Biden said:
      May the hinge of our friendship never grow rusty.”
      Both the US president and the Irish taoiseach, or prime minister, spoke up for continued international support for Ukraine in its grinding resistance two years into Russia’s invasion.
      Ukraine must not fall and together, we need to stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes. We look forward to working with America for the next 100 years,” said Varadkar.
      Joe Biden and Mike Johnson have been shaking hands, smiling, sitting next to each other. You’d almost think Congress was functioning and the Democratic-controlled White House was happy with everything that’s going on in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.The US president and the Speaker of the House are at, to quote the White House, the Friends of Ireland Caucus St Patrick’s Day Luncheon.You know that when someone says “luncheon” it’s an official function calling for decorum and delicacies, both diplomatic and gastronomic.The White House pool report says that Johnson stepped to the microphone first in the Rayburn Room. He introduced Biden, who was smiling while he sat nearby listening, as “someone who is known everywhere as America’s most famous Irishman.”Pool continues: The president, in a blue suit and green tie, then made general remarks about Ireland – Irish poets, Irish history, Irish American heritage.“And excuse me for saying this,” Biden said turning his attention to the situation in Ukraine after noting the shared US and Irish commitment to freedom, “but I think the vast majority of members of Congress” are willing to do their part” to stand up to Russian aggression.The latest tranche of US funding for Ukraine to counter the Russian invasion passed the Senate but has stalled in the House.Irish leader Leo Varadkar is visiting Biden today and is attending the luncheon.Israel said on Friday it would send a delegation to Qatar for fresh talks on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza, keeping faint hopes for a truce alive despite rejecting a long-awaited counter-offer from Hamas, Reuters reports.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also said he had approved a plan for an assault on Rafah, the city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where more than half of the territory’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering, though it gave no timeframe for such an attack.Negotiators failed this week to reach a ceasefire agreement for the Gaza war in time for the Ramadan Muslim holy month. But Washington and Arab mediators are still determined to reach a deal to head off an Israeli assault on Rafah and let in humanitarian aid to stave off mass starvation.Underlining growing disquiet in Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinkentold reporters in Austria that the United States needed to see a clear and implementable plan for Rafah, including to get civilians out of harm’s way.You can follow all the developments from the Middle East in our story coverage and, currently, our separate live blog on the situation in Gaza.The lawyer who filed the original motion against Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has called the judge’s ruling “a vindication”.Ashleigh Merchant, who represents Donald Trump’s co-defendant Michael Roman, released the following statement:
      The judge clearly agreed with the defense that the actions of Willis are a result of her poor judgment and that there is a risk to the future of this case if she doesn’t quickly work to cure her conflict.
      While we do not agree that the courts suggested cure is adequate in response to the egregious conduct by the district attorney, we look forward to the district attorneys response to the demands by the court.
      The Georgia judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state has ruled that the district attorney Fani Willis can continue to head the prosecution, as long as a special prosecutor in the case and her top deputy, Nathan Wade, steps down. The decision avoids catastrophe for Willis, but it still significantly harms her credibility and underscores questions about her judgment.
      Here are the top takeaways from the 23-page ruling by the judge, Scott McAfee.
      You can also read the judge’s full decision here.
      Trump lawyer Steve Sadow said his team will “use all legal options available” to continue to fight the Georgia election case.
      A former assistant US attorney, Andrew Weissmann, called on Willis to voluntarily recuse herself from the case against Trump and his allies.
      Republican senator Lindsey Graham called the judge’s decision “nonsensical” and “bizarre”.
      Also:
      The White House’s top lawyer told House Republicans to give up on their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden in a letter addressed to the House speaker, Mike Johnson. A spokesperson for Johnson said it was not up to the White House to decide what happened with the inquiry.
      Joe Biden defended the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, over comments he made on Thursday calling on Israel to hold new elections and harshly criticizing its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
      The supreme court will hear oral arguments on Monday in a case with the potential to radically redefine how the US government interacts with social media companies.
      Biden welcomed the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, at the White House. Varadkar told Biden that his priority was to get a ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible to allow humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
      A spokesperson for House speaker Mike Johnson has responded to a letter sent by the White House’s top lawyer urging House Republicans to give up on their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.In a scathing letter on Friday, White House counsel Ed Siskel told Johnson “it is clear the House Republican impeachment is over” and noting that despite collecting over 100,000 pages of records and conducting interviews with dozens of witnesses, including multiple public hearings, “none of the evidence has demonstrated that the president did anything wrong.”Raj Shah, a spokesperson for Johnson, accused Biden of lying and said it was not up to the White House to decide what happened with the inquiry. An email shared by Reuters reads:
      The White House does not get to decide how impeachment gets resolved, that is for Congress to decide. More

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      in US Politics

      Fani Willis accepts resignation of deputy Nathan Wade in Trump Georgia case

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      The Fulton county district attorney on Friday formally accepted the resignation of her top deputy with whom she had a romantic relationship, ensuring she would continue to prosecute the criminal case against Donald Trump over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.The move by Fani Willis came shortly after the judge overseeing the case ruled that the relationship had created enough of a distraction that either Willis or the deputy, Nathan Wade, needed to step down.The choice to step down was straightforward and expected, and Wade submitted his resignation to allow Willis to stay on as lead prosecutor against Trump and dozens of allies indicted on charges of violating Georgia’s state racketeering statute.“You led a team that secured a true bill of indictment against nineteen individuals who are accused of violating Georgia law to undermine the 2020 election for the former President of the United States,” Willis wrote in a letter obtained by the Guardian.“Please accept my sincere gratitude on behalf of the citizens of Fulton county, Georgia, for your patriotism, courage, and dedication to justice. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.”The ruling by the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee stopped short of disqualifying Willis, which Trump and his co-defendants had sought over allegations that the relationship was a conflict of interest.The decision avoided catastrophe for Willis. An order removing her and her office from the case would have almost certainly delayed the prosecution significantly during reassignment to another prosecutor in Georgia, who might have opted to toss the charges altogether.Although the judge found the evidence insufficient to disqualify her from bringing the case, he was unsparing in his criticism of the way Willis so casually handled the relationship and the manner of her testimony on the witness stand during a series of hearings on the matter.The Wade-Willis relationship amounted to such a fatal appearance of impropriety that one of the pair needed to resign even if no actual conflict of interest existed, the judge wrote, making clear that the commingling of personal and professional relations was untenable.Shortly after Willis announced that she had accepted Wade’s resignation, Trump went on his Truth Social site and said the development was “BIG STUFF”.“The Fani Willis lover, Mr Nathan Wade Esq, has just resigned in disgrace,” Trump wrote, among other things.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump co-defendant Michael Roman in January moved to disqualify Willis because of her relationship with Wade, which at the time was not publicly known. Willis and Wade admitted to having a relationship but said it did not begin until after Wade had been hired to work on the Trump case in 2022.The case being led by Willis’s office contains only some of the dozens of criminal charges against Trump for subversion of his failed 2020 re-election run, retention of classified documents and hush-money payments. In civil litigation, Trump has been found liable of sexual abuse of writer E Jean Carroll and has been adjudicated as having committed business fraud.Trump nonetheless has secured the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic incumbent Joe Biden for a second presidency in November. More

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      in US Politics

      Fani Willis and Judge Scott McAfee draw challengers in Fulton county primary

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      The embattled Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, and F Judge Scott McAfee have drawn re-election opponents for the 12 May primary ballot as qualification closes for Georgia’s 2024 election cycle. Willis will also face a Republican in November.Christian Wise Smith is challenging Willis in the Democratic primary. Smith is an attorney from Sandy Springs, Georgia. and a former prosecutor who came in third in the 2020 race behind Willis and the previous Fulton county district attorney, Paul Howard.In 2020, Smith’s campaign was to the left of Willis, arguing for an end to death penalty prosecutions, an end to cash bail and the decriminalization of marijuana. He marched with Black Lives Matter activists during the George Floyd protests in Atlanta, and made the prosecution of Atlanta police officers for the fatal shooting of Jimmy Atcheson a centerpiece of his campaign. He was also critical of the prosecution of teachers in the Atlanta cheating scandal – a prosecution led by Willis as an assistant district attorney.In contrast, Willis drew support from moderate Democrats and Republicans – who are often politically irrelevant in deep blue Fulton county – who were deeply dissatisfied with Howard’s approach to prosecution in an environment of rising crime, as well as with allegations of corruption in his office. With nothing else on the ballot, Willis went on to trounce Howard in a runoff that August, replacing a 20-year-incumbent; Smith endorsed Howard.Republicans will have Courtney Kramer on the general election ballot challenging Willis. Kramer is an Atlanta attorney who assisted former president Donald Trump’s legal team in Georgia, including working with Trump lawyer Ray Smith during the “fake elector” effort that led to the indictment of Trump and 18 others by Willis’ office. Kramer is also the former executive director of True the Vote and represented the organization in court cases against Fair Fight Action, the advocacy organization founded by Stacey Abrams.Willis has been under legal fire since court filings revealed that she had been in a relationship with Nathan Wade, special prosecutor on the Trump case in Georgia. McAfee is expected to rule next week on whether she and the Fulton county office will remain prosecutors in the trial, or if instead it will be assigned to another prosecutor.McAfee, who presides over the Trump election interference and racketeering case in Fulton County, faces two challengers from the left: Robert Patillo, a progressive attorney and talk show host in Atlanta, Tiffani Johnson, a former senior staff attorney for Fulton county judge Melynee Leftridge.McAfee, 34, who served as prosecutor both in Fulton county and for the US Department of Justice, is a Federalist Society conservative appointed to the bench by Governor Brian Kemp in 2023. Judicial appointees in Georgia must subsequently run for office in order to fill the remainder of a term.Patillo, 39, has practiced civil rights law for more than 15 years in Georgia. He also has a long-running radio show on Atlanta’s WAOK, in which his occasionally-idiosyncratic political views have an airing.“There are a lot more things that are broken in the Fulton county court, that deserve attention, more than Fani and the Trump trial,” Patillo said. “There are people who have been in that jail for five years awaiting trial. Anyone who is going to be a judge needs a plan to bring these cases to court.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJohnson worked for the Davis Bozeman law firm, also notable for civil rights cases in Atlanta.Judicial races are nonpartisan in Georgia, but Fulton county has a three-to-one Democratic voter advantage. More

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      Trump Georgia case: judge says he hopes to have decision on whether to disqualify Fani Willis in two weeks – live

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      A lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system.John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case.Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on … the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported.If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.The Republican senator for Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, has endorsed Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary, marking the first endorsement from a sitting senator for Haley.“I’m proud to endorse Gov Nikki Haley,” Murkowski said in a statement.
      America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next President – and in this race, there is no one better than her.
      The endorsement comes just days before Super Tuesday, when Alaska and several other states will cast their ballots.Murkowski was among seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump for his alleged role in the January 6 insurrection.In closing arguments in the hearing to determine whether the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, should be disqualified from handling the Trump election interference case, lawyers for the district attorney’s office argued that the defendants had failed to show any actual conflict of interest.Adam Abbate, a lawyer with the district attorney’s office, accused the defendants’ attorneys of pushing “speculation and conjecture” and trying to harass and embarrass Willis with questions on the witness stand that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, AP reported.“We have absolutely no evidence that Ms Willis received any financial gain or benefit” from the relationship, Abbate told the judge.Judge Scott McAfee has said he hopes to have a resolution on the motion to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from the case she brought against Donald Trump within the next two weeks.The hearing is now adjourned.It’s been a big day for two of Donald Trump’s most significant court cases. In the matter of the classified documents found in his possession at Mar-a-Lago, judge Aileen Cannon sounded skeptical of prosecutors’ request for a July trial, but did not set a new date. In the case alleging meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election, Trump’s attorneys argued for the removal of district attorney Fani Willis, saying failing to do so would undermine faith in the legal system. Willis is now in court as her office is expected to argue why it should remain on the case.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Joe Biden said the United States would airdrop aid into Gaza, and may also make deliveries by sea, while calling on Israel to facilitate access by land.
      Trump said Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is a potential candidate to be his vice-president.
      Nikki Haley campaigned in Virginia ahead of its primary next week, and was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
      Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fani Willis is back in the courtroom where a judge is considering whether to remove her from the election meddling case she brought against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants:Joe Biden’s vow to get humanitarian aid into Gaza by air and potentially sea comes after more than 100 people were killed amid a scramble to pick up food in the besieged territory, leading even some of Israel’s allies to demand an investigation. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood, Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger:Israel is facing growing international pressure for an investigation after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire on Thursday.Israel said people died in a crush or were run over by aid lorries although it admitted its troops had opened fire on what it called a “mob”. But the head of a hospital in Gaza said 80% of injured people brought in had gunshot wounds.The UK called for an “urgent investigation and accountability”. In a statement, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said: “The deaths of people in Gaza waiting for an aid convoy were horrific … this must not happen again.” Israel must allow more aid into Gaza, Lord Cameron added.France called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of the disaster, and Germany said the Israeli army must fully explain what happened. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “Every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency.”The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 112 people were killed and more than 750 others were injured as crowds rushed towards a convoy of trucks carrying food aid.The United States will work with Jordan to drop food into Gaza by air and will consider make deliveries by sea, Joe Biden said, while noting he will “insist” Israel allow more trucks bearing aid to enter the territory by land.“In the coming days, we are going to join with our friends in Jordan and others in providing airdrops of additional food and supplies into [Gaza] and seek to continue to open up other avenues into [Gaza], including the possibility of a marine corridor to deliver large amounts of humanitarian assistance,” Biden said in the Oval Office. The president initially misspoke, saying the airdrops would be done in Ukraine rather than Gaza.“In addition to expanding deliveries by land, as I said, we’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now – it’s nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line.”In a statement released just as Joe Biden announced the US would airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza, the independent senator Bernie Sanders called on the president to approve such action – while also insisting the onus lay on Israel to help civilians.“The United States, which has helped fund the Israeli military for years, cannot sit back and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent children to starve to death. As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on humanitarian aid, the people of Gaza are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster. Whether Netanyahu’s rightwing government likes it or not, the United States must immediately begin to airdrop food, water, and other lifesaving supplies into Gaza,” the progressive lawmaker from Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, wrote.Here’s more:
      But while an airdrop will buy time and save lives, there is no substitute for sustained ground deliveries of what is needed to sustain life in Gaza. Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The United States should make clear that failure to do so immediately will lead to a fundamental break in the U.S. – Israeli relationship and the immediate halt of all military aid.
      The US will begin airdropping humanitarian aid into Gaza, Joe Biden has said.Biden said the airdrops will begin in the “coming days”, an announcement that came a day after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire.Donald Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow has argued that Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election interference case because she may have lied to the court about her undisclosed affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.Sadow said Willis’s claim under oath that her relationship with Wade did not begin until after she hired him was not credible, Reuters reports. He told the judge:
      Once you have the appearance of impropriety … the law in Georgia is clear: That’s enough to disqualify.
      Joe Biden has signed into law a short-term stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown, the White House has said.The bill was approved by the Senate on Thursday following a House vote that narrowly averted a shutdown that was due to occur this weekend.The temporary extension funds the departments of agriculture, transportation, interior and others through 8 March. It funds the Pentagon, homeland security, health and state through 22 March.A lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system.John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case.Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on … the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported.If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.Judge Scott McAfee has said he might be able to make a decision on the hearing on Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis as he hears closing arguments in the case. CNN quotes him as saying:
      I think we’ve reached the point where I’d like to hear more of how the legal argument apply to what has already been presented, and it may already be possible for me to make a decision without those needing to be material to that decision.
      Closing arguments began about half an hour ago over whether Willis should be disqualified from handling the election interference against Trump because of her romantic relationship with a deputy handling the case. More

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      Judge hears closing arguments in ‘daytime soap opera’ Fani Willis hearing

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      A Fulton county judge began hearing closing arguments on Friday afternoon in a three-day evidentiary hearing to determine whether the district attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from handling the election interference against Donald Trump because of her romantic relationship with a deputy handling the case.The hearing has offered a dramatic deviation from the racketeering case against the former US president and 14 remaining co-defendants for trying to overturn the election in Georgia.The matter kicked off in January when Michael Roman, a Republican operative and one of the defendants in the case, filed a motion claiming Willis financially benefitted from the case because of a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a top prosecutor in the case. Trump and several other defendants later joined the request.Willis and Wade both admitted to a romantic relationship, but both said it only began after he was hired on 1 November 2021. They both testified about vacations they had taken together and revealed personal details about a romantic relationship that they say only began in 2022, after he was hired, and ended last summer.A star witness who was supposed to undercut their claims ultimately failed to produce meaningful evidence.On the surface, the question at the heart of the matter was whether Willis had a conflict of interest because of her relationship with Wade. But over several hours of testimony, lawyers for Roman, Trump and the other defendants did not produce any concrete evidence showing that she did.Willis testified that she repaid Wade in cash for any travel they had taken together – a claim that drew skepticism from defense lawyers, but no evidence to prove otherwise.“This was a disqualification hearing that quickly denigrated into a daytime soap opera,” said J Tom Morgan, a former district attorney in DeKalb county, a Fulton county neighbor. “Have they proven a conflict of interest, where this all started, absolutely not.”Lawyers may use Friday’s hearing to try and introduce additional evidence, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, including cellphone records that defense lawyers say undercut Wade’s claims that he never spent the night at Willis’s condo.It’s not exactly clear what the standard Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing the case, will use to determine whether Willis should be disqualified. Georgia law allows for a prosecutor to be disqualified if there is an actual conflict of interest. Experts say state law has long established this high bar to clear and the defendants in the case have not done so.But McAfee has suggested that defense lawyers may not need to prove an actual conflict, but merely the appearance of one. “I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” he said at a recent hearing.Robert CI McBurney, a different Fulton county judge who was overseeing the case at an earlier stage, disqualified Willis from investigating a fake elector after she appeared at a fundraiser for his political rival. That appearance, he said, would lead to questions about her motives in every step of the case, which was enough to disqualify her.A disqualification would upend the case and delay it past the 2024 election. The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, a state agency, would have the sole discretion to reassign the case to another prosecutor, and there’s no timeline for how long that could take.But even if Willis and Wade aren’t disqualified, defense attorneys have used the hearings to damage the two prosecutors’ judgment and credibility in the public’s eye.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBy bringing to light something they failed to disclose on their own, they’ve seeded the impression that the two were trying to conceal something.While it may not stand up legally, defense lawyers have also showed text messages from an associate of Nathan Wade’s in which he says the affair “absolutely” began before he was hired (the witness, Terrence Bradley, later testified he was only speculating). They also put a former friend of Willis on the stand that said she was certain the relationship began before Wade was hired. And they have also sought to introduce cellphone evidence that could undermine Wade’s claims he never spent the night at Willis’s condo before the relationship began.“I was standing in the grocery store and I would guess that the two women in front of me have not really paid much attention to this case or the politics,” Morgan said. “But they start talking about the text messages … it’s more interesting. People who haven’t paid any attention to this all of a sudden are paying attention to it.”Morgan also said the timing or existence of a relationship between Willis and Wade wasn’t really relevant to whether there was a conflict of interest. But during the hearing, the two prosecutors had boxed themselves in to a story that the romantic relationship only began after Wade was hired.Any evidence that comes to light questioning that undermines their credibility and could lead to accusations of perjury. Willis herself has said with certainty that the relationship definitely did not begin until after Wade was hired, but also acknowledged that it was difficult to say exactly when a romantic relationship begins.“It’s not like when you’re in grade school and you send a little letter saying, will you be my girlfriend? and you check it,” she said during one point in the hearing.More than anything, Trump’s team has succeeded in muddying the waters of the case and taking the attention off his efforts to undermine democracy. Willis underscores that when she testified during the first day of the hearing.“You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial,” she said. More

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      Fani Willis must prove herself before a judge, her voters and the whole country

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      When Fani Willis took the stand to trade sharp elbows with lawyers defending Donald Trump and his co-defendants, she stood before three audiences.But Willis only really cares about two of them.The first is an audience of one: the superior court judge Scott McAfee, who will rule sometime two weeks or so from now on whether Willis, the special prosecutor Nathan Wade and the rest of the Fulton county district attorney’s office will continue to handle the Trump trial, or if instead it will be handed to another attorney chosen by the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.If Willis is bumped off the case, it almost certainly means there will be no resolution before the US presidential election in November, in which Trump is almost certainly going to be the Republican nominee for president again.Willis and her team have been presenting evidence and testimony to rebut questions about financial motivations for pressing the case against Trump by showing how much personal harm Willis and her staff have had to endure in the process. Willis’s father, the venerable civil rights attorney John C Floyd, gave florid testimony today about the death threats and harassment that drove Willis from her home as she prosecuted the case, for example.McAfee recognizes high-drama courtroom confrontations for what they are: irrelevant to the legal question. He must decide if the appearance of impropriety and the legal question of alleged unjust enrichment raised by the defense are sufficient to create an appellate court problem if Trump and others are convicted at trial. Has there been misconduct, and is removing Willis the appropriate remedy under the law if there has been misconduct? That’s the legal question.But it’s not the only issue for Fani Willis, who is up for re-election in 263 days.Until this moment, Willis looked like an unbeatable shoe-in for re-election. She is, arguably, the highest-profile district attorney in the US today, and she’s as recognizable to a Fulton county voter as the president, governor or Georgia’s senators. In a game of name recognition … well, people have stopped mispronouncing her first name in Atlanta now.But the revelation that she had been dating a highly paid office subordinate while working on a trial with the presidency on the line raises questions about her judgment. She may be contemplating a political challenger, who will argue that Willis is not the one to continue the case … assuming it is still in court in November.Her challenge here was to remind voters why they voted for her in the first place: to aggressively confront crime in Atlanta. Willis beat a 20-year incumbent in 2020 amid sharply rising crime and issues with prosecutions by her predecessor. She won in part by arguing that she would get the job done where her previous boss could not.Willis has to make her case to the Fulton county voters that she’s still their best choice. That’s where the sharp elbows and Black cultural callbacks on the stand come from: she’s speaking to the second audience – the primarily Black, majority-female, predominantly Democratic Fulton county electorate who is watching all of this unfold dreading the possibility that the county’s chance to impose justice on the powerful may be slipping through her fingers.By showing her grief and rage, she humanizes herself before this audience, which is likely to be sympathetic to the horrors of a Black professional’s love life aired like a reality television show before the American public as a Trump defendant’s legal ploy.It’s telling, perhaps, that Atlanta’s mayor, Andre Dickens, and the former mayor Shirley Franklin were both in attendance at the hearing on Friday morning, ostensibly as a show of political and moral support for Willis.There is, of course, a third audience. Every other person in the free world.Americans of all political stripes recognize that there’s a lot riding on the outcome of this case. Of all the criminal and civil cases Trump faces today, a conviction in Georgia is the only one for which he is almost certain to do time in prison, because there’s effectively no pardon power to save him. And Trump’s recorded phone call provides powerful evidence for a prosecutor to present to a jury.Voters across the country have a stake in the outcome here. But the only voters that count for Willis’s purposes are the ones that live in Fulton county. And until that changes, she’s not going to care about what they think. More