In another legal gain for US President-elect Donald Trump, an appeals court threw out on Thursday the Georgia prosecutor on the case, accusing him of election interference.
The state appeals court cited Fani Willis’ romantic link to a lawyer she hired to help prosecute the case and said that it created an appearance of conflict of interest.
The court did not throw out the case itself, which can continue with another prosecutor, but the decision effectively pauses the prosecution, which could extend to Trump’s four years as President.
The two federal cases against him, accusing him of election interference and of mishandling secret documents have been dropped.
The sentencing in the New York case in which he was convicted has been paused.
In that case, he was convicted of falsifying business records to hide the hush money paid to a porn star to keep her from going public with her claims of a tryst with him — which he has denied.
The New York judge, however, did not dismiss the criminal conviction leaving open the possibility of sentencing him at a later date.
Willis, the prosecutor in a Georgia county, hired Nathan Wade, a lawyer without experience in cases like that against Trump, and paid his office about $653,000.
Their romantic links were revealed in a divorce case his wife brought against Wade.
Judge Trenton Brown wrote in the appellate court’s ruling, “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 case centres on alleged attempts by Trump and his allies to change the results of the 2020 election, which he lost nationally and in the swing state.
In this year’s election, however, he won the state.
Wills can appeal to a full bench of the Georgia appeals court as the verdict was by a three-member bench, which voted 2-1 to bar her from continuing with the case.