Georgia court boots prosecutor Fani Willis from Trump 2020 election case

An appeal court in the US state of Georgia disqualified the district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump for election interference on Thursday, but rejected the US president-elect’s bid to throw the case out.

The Georgia Court of Appeal removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case citing the “impropriety” of an intimate relationship she had with the man she hired to be a special prosecutor.

The trial judge had ruled earlier this year that Willis could remain on the case but the appeal court disagreed.

“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the three-judge appeal court panel said.

“While we recognise 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,” they said.

Trump was charged with racketeering in Georgia over his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election in the southern state. The case has been stalled for months, however, and was likely to be frozen under the US Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.