Former President Donald Trump‘s attorneys told an appeals court in Georgia that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s attempt to toss out their request for her disqualification was a “Hail Mary,” according to a court document filed Thursday.
The attorneys’ filing comes in response to Willis asking the Georgia Court of Appeals last week to dismiss Trump’s request for Willis’s disqualification from the election interference case she brought against him.
Trump and eight of his co-defendants in the case had asked the appellate court to reverse a lower court’s decision that Willis could remain on the case despite what Judge Scott McAfee found was her “tremendous lapse in judgment” related to her past romantic relationship with a prosecutor on the case.
Willis had argued that higher courts in Georgia have not typically entertained appeals in lower court cases unless a judge, such as McAfee, has made “flatly incorrect” findings in them.
“The trial court’s careful and extensive evaluation of the resulting record, and its utter dismissal of the central evidence proffered by the Appellants, forecloses any possibility of reversal,” prosecutors wrote.
Trump’s defense team called Willis’s plea to the appellate court a “desperate bid to avoid disqualification of a deeply conflicted District Attorney.”
“The State argues that the trial court’s factual findings were not clearly erroneous. According to the State, then, this Court is powerless to overturn the trial court’s order denying the dismissal of the case and the disqualification of District Attorney Willis and her office. Of course, as this Court well knows, that has never been, and is not now, the law,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Earlier this month, the appellate court temporarily halted the election interference case while Trump’s appeal remains pending.
The court said it would tentatively hold oral arguments on the matter in October, but it could wait until as late as March 2025 to rule on whether to disqualify Willis from the case. The indefinite postponement of the case came as a massive blow to prosecutors, who were hoping to hold a trial before the presidential election.
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Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner that Willis’s motion to dismiss Trump’s appeal was “meritless” and that he was “optimistic” the court would deny it.
“The Georgia Court of Appeals granted us the right to appeal after due and proper consideration,” Sadow said. “The State’s ‘Hail Mary’ motion is an obvious attempt to stop appellate review of DA Willis’ misconduct. We are optimistic that the Court will deny the motion and proceed to favorably decide the appeal on the merits.”