By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
ATLANTA/WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump received a major legal victory Thursday as a court in the U.S. state of Georgia disqualified the Atlanta prosecutor who brought an election interference case against him and his allies.
A three-judge panel reversed the trial judge’s decision, who in March had allowed Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., to keep the case despite revelations about her romantic relationship with a lawyer she hired to run the case.
In a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court in Atlanta found that Willis’s romantic relationship with a former top deputy, Nathan Wade, created “a significant appearance of impropriety.”
“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated, and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the court wrote in its opinion.
Though the decision was due to be appealed again to a full court, experts said it could doom the entire case if it stands.
Trump and 18 of his allies were initially charged in 2023 in what prosecutors alleged was a “sprawling conspiracy” to undo Trump’s announced narrow defeat in the battleground state of Georgia in the 2020 election.
SEVERAL DEFENDANTS
The defendants include former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Four people initially charged pleaded guilty to lesser offenses. Trump and 14 others pleaded not guilty.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, reacted to the latest ruling by saying: “In granting President Trump an overwhelming mandate, the American people have demanded an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all the witch hunts against him.”
Thursday’s court move occurred a month before Trump’s inauguration as America’s 47th president on January 20.
The case was one of four criminal prosecutions that Trump faced in the years since his proclaimed 2020 presidential re-election loss.
Just one — a New York case over a hush money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign — went to trial.
He was found guilty in that case but has not yet been sentenced. Trump criticized all four cases as “politically motivated attempts” to keep him from returning to power.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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