Trump bid to remove Fani Willis set for Octo­ber: Appeals court

An effort by Don­ald Trump to secure a review of a Geor­gia judge’s order declin­ing to dis­qual­i­fy Ful­ton Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney Fani Willis was sched­uled on Mon­day for an oral argu­ment in Octo­ber, cement­ing the like­li­hood of no tri­al until after the elec­tion.
Ful­ton Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to remove Willis from the case ear­li­er this year after Trump and sev­er­al of his co-defen­dants alleged there was a con­flict of inter­est fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions of a secret rela­tion­ship between Willis and her hired spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor, Nathan Wade. Now an appeals court will weigh the same ques­tion lat­er this year, just one month before the high-stakes pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Novem­ber.

Ful­ton Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney Fani Willis speaks after win­ning the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry on May 21, 2024, in Buck­head, Geor­gia. (AP Photo/Brynn Ander­son, file)

McAfee on March 15 declined to remove Willis under the con­di­tion that Wade resign as spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor. He wrote that their rela­tion­ship left an “odor of men …