OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A group of legal experts have sounded off on whether they believe Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee will remove District Attorney Fani Willis from the election case she filed against former President Donald Trump after a series of allegations alleging she committed improprieties that ought to disqualify her.
The legal opinions come after Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants in the case, submitted a motion to the court earlier this month that Willis and a special prosecutor she hired to help with the case, Nathan Wade, were romantically involved during the Trump investigation. He further alleged that the special prosecutor and district attorney had been “profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”
Both have confirmed that they had a relationship but have said in court papers — under penalty of perjury — that it began after she appointed him.
Newsweek noted that Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney under the Obama administration and currently a legal analyst for far-left MSNBC, wrote on X on Sunday, “Fani Willis made a terrible decision to date Nathan Wade, and that may bring ethics issues for her, but her testimony dispelled any kickback scheme that would disqualify her. Nothing about this affects the fair trial rights of Trump and co-defendants.”
Meanwhile, Richard W. Painter, a law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, wrote on the platform last weekend that “the evidence does not meet Georgia’s legal standard for disqualifying Ms. Willis.” He added, “It would be best for the case that Willis voluntarily resign and that Wade also not continue to work on the case.”
Newsweek added:
Anna Bower, a courts correspondent at the legal news site Lawfare who has been covering the Fulton County case against Trump, told MSNBC’s Katie Phang on Saturday that “it is really important for people to understand what” Georgia’s legal standard to disqualify a prosecutor is, adding “it is if there is an actual conflict. It’s not enough to show an appearance of impropriety under Georgia law.”
“What the defense has to show here to meet their burden of disqualifying Fani Willis means that they have to show that her relationship with Nathan Wade caused or gave rise to a personal or financial interest that gave her a kind of interest or incentive in convicting Trump and others,” Bower continued.
“What they needed to show here this week is, at the very least, either Wade and Willis comingled their assets or shared some type of income, or they needed to show that these vacations that they took together that Wade allegedly paid for, it was something that was not reimbursed and that therefore Fani Willis benefited from those vacations financially and it kind of amounted to a kickback scheme of sorts. I do not think, however, that the defense ultimately met that burden,” she added.
Willis faces another round of trouble as she fights to stay on the case.
Newsweek reported Wednesday that she’s now facing a “special meeting” on March 7 related to a pair of ethics complaints filed against her.
“The Fulton County Board of Ethics will take up two other ethics complaints against Willis, which will be addressed during a ‘special meeting’ on March 7. Greg Mantell, founder of the Substack blog Investigative News Service, is said to be the source of one of the complaints that will be addressed in March, along with Steven Kramer’s complaint,” the report said.
“This comes after Mantell accused Willis of several ethics violations relating to Roman’s filing in a letter to the Fulton County Board of Ethics in January, which Newsweek had previously seen,” the outlet noted further.
