Donald Trump Lawyers Think They Found ‘Death Knell’ for Fani Willis

Donald Trump’s lawyers believe they have found a “death knell” for Fani Willis, the district attorney of Georgia’s Fulton County.
In a new court filing on Monday, Trump attorney Steven Sadow argued that Willis’ election interference case against the former president should be dismissed, in part because he believes Willis has been prejudiced against Trump.
Willis, a Democrat, is leading the prosecution in the case, which alleges that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, a swing state that narrowly backed President Joe Biden four years ago. Her probe focuses on his call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump urged him to “find” enough votes to tilt the election in his favor, as well as an alleged plot to submit a false slate of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College.
Willis’ handling of the case has come under scrutiny. She has faced criticism for a speech at an Atlanta church in January in which she suggested she was targeted because of her race. While Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case, has described the speech as “improper,” he has ruled it was not sufficient to remove her from the case.
Sadow wrote that he has found a “death knell” for Willis, citing an opinion from former Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harold Nelson Hill that he believes would support dropping the case.
“[B]efore a trial, the court should be sensitive to the potential for prejudice to the defendant. I believe that a trial court should disqualify the state’s attorney if his continued presence in the case would cause a reasonable potential for prejudice to the defendant,” Hill wrote.
“A reasonable potential for prejudice standard would rigorously protect defendants,” Hill continued. “It would not require a showing of actual, or likely, harm. Rather, the trial court would focus on the possibility of an unfair trial. Yet, this rule would place the burden on defendants of demonstrating some real, not imagined, chance of prejudice.'”
Hill’s opinion stemmed from a 1981 case. Sadow argued that the state has improperly relied on a dissent from the Georgia Supreme Court’s 1988 case Williams v. State.
“Here, even Hill’s ‘reasonable potential for prejudice’ pretrial standard is
easily met,” Sadow wrote. “With nationwide slanderous media coverage on every available network, appellants have shown that there is not only a ‘real chance,’ but a substantial probability, for unfair treatment during the trial process,” he wrote.
Willis has not responded to the filing. She has previously disputed the notion that her previous comments revealed prejudice against Trump.
In an earlier filing, her office wrote: “The District Attorney did not express any personal opinions regarding a defendant’s guilt or discuss the actual substance of the present case at all. She did not ‘mention any Defendant by name,’ did not ‘address the merits of the indicted offenses in an effort to move the trial itself to the court of public opinion.'”
Newsweek reached out to Willis’ office via email for comment on Sadow’s filing.
It remains unclear when, or if, a trial will be held, but the case is unlikely to go to trial before November’s presidential election.
Update 8/26/24, 1:32 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information and background.