On Thursday, a Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the case against President-elect Donald Trump and his alleged co-conspirators over their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The state criminal case against Trump was already on hold—but now it is uncertain if it will move forward at all per CNN. Now that Willis’ office can’t prosecute the case, a new special prosecutor would need to be appointed for the case to go on.
“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 stated in Thursday’s opinion.
“We cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment.”
This is the latest string of setbacks Willis has experienced. Earlier this month, a Georgia judge ordered Willis to fork over any communications she may have with special counsel Jack Smith—or the now-disbanded House Jan. 6 committee—to a conservative watchdog group.
This revelation occurred right around the same time that the long-running racketeering trial against YSL, the Atlanta rap label that prosecutors claimed doubled as a violent street gang led by Young Thug, finally ended.
In February, Black America rallied behind Willis as she took the stand during Donald Trump’s Georgia election subversion case. Instead of opting out of testifying, she wanted to address rumors of a romantic relationship she allegedly had with Nathan Wade (the man she hired to be part of the prosecution team in 2021).
Not only was she confident and concise on the stand but she was seemingly fearless: Willis was using her power to hold Trump accountable for his false claims that he actually won the 2020 presidential election—not President Joe Biden.
This led her to becoming one of The Root 100's 2023 honorees. Willis does plan to fight to remain on the case, as her team has requested the state’s Supreme Court to review the appeals court’s decision.