Fulton County District Attorney urged the Georgia Court of Appeals to reject an effort by Donald Trump and his co-defendants to have her office disqualified from prosecuting the election interference case, CNN reported.
In an April 8 filing, the district attorney’s office asked the appellate court to uphold Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s decision to allow Willis to remain on the case if her special prosecutor Nathan Wade stepped down. Wade submitted his resignation shortly after the ruling.
Trump and several of his co-defendants appealed McAfee’s ruling in late March, arguing that the judge “erred as a matter of law” when he did dismiss the case or, at the least, disqualify Willis’ office from prosecuting it.
In its April 8 filing, the district attorney’s office urged the appellate court to reject the defense’s appeal, arguing that there was “no error” by Judge McAfee. Instead, the defendants’ application merely reflected their “dissatisfaction” with McAfee’s “proper application of well-established law to the facts,” prosecutors argued.
The district attorney’s office reiterated in its filing that there was no conflict of interest and the allegations against Willis’ office did not rise to the level of misconduct that would require disqualification.
Trump’s lawyers also asked the appellate court to review Judge McAfee’s rejection of the motion to dismiss the indictment based on the First Amendment, arguing that the defendants believed that their actions fell “within the almost absolute First Amendment protections” for political speech.
Prosecutors from the district attorney’s office previously argued that the First Amendment question should be argued before the jury during the trial.
If the Georgia Court of Appeals takes up the appeal, it will not pause the prosecution of the case, which prosecutors are continuing to prepare for trial.
Willis has insisted that the case would come to trial well before the November election but as yet, a trial date has not been scheduled.
