Former president Donald Trump’s legal team is asserting that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must be disqualified from his election interference case in Georgia due to her alleged “extrajudicial racial comments.”
In their recent filing, Mr. Trump’s attorneys, Steve Sadow and Jennifer Little, have responded to Ms. Willis by accusing her of injecting race into the case and fueling racial animosity. They specifically refer to a speech she delivered on Martin Luther King Jr Day at Big Bethel AME Church, a historic Black church in Atlanta.
In her speech, Ms. Willis stood up for Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor hired to handle the case, amid rumors about a romantic relationship between them. In a court filing on Friday, Ms. Willis acknowledged having a “personal relationship” with Mr. Wade but maintained that it only started after his appointment. She argued that there was no wrongdoing that warranted their removal from the case.
During her speech, Ms. Willis did not explicitly refer to Mr. Wade by name. However, she did mention that she had hired three lawyers for the case: two white lawyers and one Black lawyer. Interestingly, it was only the qualifications of the Black lawyer that were called into question.
In a motion published by the Lawfare Institute on Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s attorneys labeled the comments made by Ms. Willis as “undeniably unethical.”
On February 15th, both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade are anticipated to give testimony in relation to the requests for their disqualification from the case, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.