Legal Experts Agree: There Are No Legal Grounds to Disqualify DA Willis in Trump Case
Yesterday, Slate published a piece sharing insights from legal experts who don’t think DA Willis should be disqualified.
Donald Trump and his co-conspirators, who have been indicted for their alleged involvement in an insurrection and are facing the prospect of considerable prison time, are firing off allegations against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to distract from the criminal case brought against them. In true Trumpian fashion, they are stirring up a manufactured controversy to escape accountability in court.
But is there a legal basis for DA Willis’ removal from the case? Several legal experts who spoke to Slate say no. Legal experts agree that there is no legal basis to disqualify DA Willis from the Georgia election interference case.
- Ankush Khardori, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department who specialized in financial fraud and white-collar crime, says “The claim that Mike Roman and his lawyer Ashleigh Merchant are seeking—to have the case dismissed—should be a non-starter… These are not allegations that, even if true, would warrant the dismissal of the case.”
- Stephen Gillers, an ethics law professor at New York University School of Law and former vice dean of the school contends that the motion doesn’t connect the dots between Willis and Wade’s personal relationship and any decisions made in the indictment. The motion alleges prejudice, but “to disqualify [Willis], the motion papers would have had to show a significant reason to believe that she could not make the independent decisions she has to make prosecuting the case… And the fact that they may have had a romantic relationship does not do that. That’s not enough,” Gillers said.
- J. Tom Morgan, former DA of Georgia’s DeKalb County and now an ethics professor at Western Carolina University believes, based on his reading of Georgia’s ethical code, a special counsel taking the DA on a few trips does not come “anywhere close to what the ethical code was meant to do.” Morgan explained that when considering the ethical code, “you’re thinking about kickbacks, you’re thinking about harming someone [if] their conviction benefits you personally. That is not what we have here. We have some great, salacious gossip.”
For full details, read Slate’s new reporting, which breaks down the analysis from these legal experts on why the Trump Team’s allegations tactics are unlikely to succeed and have no bearing on the underlying facts of the case.
