Donald Trump has appealed the ruling that allowed embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the Georgia election case.
The former president and eight of his co-defendants asked an appeals court to take up their challenge on Friday.
They argue that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was improper and she should have been kicked off the trial.
Attorneys for Trump and the defendants now want the higher court to consider their arguments that she should be disqualified or the case dismissed.
The filing is the latest twist in the legal drama involving Willis and the Georgia case where Trump and 18 co-defendants are accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Her relationship with Wade prompted a hearing held over multiple days where salacious details of her love life were revealed.
Donald Trump has appealed the ruling that allowed embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the Georgia election case
The former president and eight of his co-defendants asked an appeals court to take up their challenge on Friday
As a result, Judge Scott McAfee ruled on March 15 that Willis could stay on the case, if Wade resigned. He stepped down hours later.
The defendants claim that Willis also needs to go.
‘The trial court was bound by existing case law to not only require Wade’s disqualification (which occurred) but also to require the disqualification of D.A. Willis and her entire office,’ the lawyers said in the 51-page document.
‘The trial court’s failure to do so is plain legal error requiring reversal
McAfee said Willis was guilty of a ‘tremendous lapse in judgment’ when she dated Wade and questioned if he told the truth when testifying.
Defendants argue that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was improper and she should have been kicked off the trial
The judge said their conduct left an ‘odor of mendacity’ hanging over the trial, but stopped short of ruling there was an actual conflict of interest.
Willis has maintained that there was nothing improper about their relationship, and claimed the Trump lawyers were trying to delay the trial.
The appeals court has 45 days to consider whether to grant or deny the request.
In his ruling earlier this month Judge McAfee found the prosecution was “encumbered by an appearance of impropriety.”
The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade upended the case for weeks.
Intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February.
The drama overshadowed the allegations in one of four criminal cases against Trump.
He and his co-defendants are accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn his narrow 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia.
The appeal application says McAfee was wrong not to disqualify both Willis and Wade from the case.
It says “providing DA Willis with the option to simply remove Wade confounds logic and is contrary to Georgia law.”
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the case, said the case should have been dismissed and “at a minimum” Willis should have been disqualified from continuing to prosecute it. He said the Court of Appeals should grant the application and consider the merits of the appeal.
A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment.
Willis used Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law, an expansive anti-racketeering statute, to charge Trump and the 18 others.
Four people charged in the case have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.
Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
McAfee clearly found that Willis’ relationship with Wade and his employment as lead prosecutor in the case created an appearance of impropriety.
His decision not to disqualify Willis and her whole office from the case “is plain legal error requiring reversal,” the defense attorneys wrote in their application.
Given the complexity of the case and the number of defendants, the application says, multiple trials will likely be necessary.
Failure to disqualify Willis now could require any verdicts to be overturned, and it would be “neither prudent nor efficient” to risk having to go through “this painful, divisive, and expensive process” multiple times, the defense application says.
The defense attorneys argued it is crucial that prosecutors “remain and appear to be disinterested and impartial” to maintain public faith in the integrity of the judicial system.