Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr asked the state’s Supreme Court to reject Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s appeal to regain her authority to prosecute President-elect Donald Trump for alleged attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
“’Lawfare’ has become far too common in American politics, and it must end,” Carr stated on X. “I would encourage the Georgia Supreme Court to not take her appeal.”
Please see my statement below on Fulton County DA Fani Willis. pic.twitter.com/2ATSw3t10V
— GA AG Chris Carr (@Georgia_AG) December 30, 2024
Willis’s appeal stems from a Georgia Court of Appeals ruling earlier this month disqualifying Willis and her office from prosecuting Trump due to her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she appointed to the case. Although Wade stepped aside, the trial court initially allowed Willis to continue leading the prosecution. Willis is now seeking the Georgia Supreme Court’s review to reclaim her role in the high-profile case.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense attorney in Georgia, praised Carr’s statement, calling Willis’s removal from the case a “one-time situation” that does not meet the Supreme Court’s standards for review.
GA Attorney General Carr’s statement – DA WILLIS MUST END THE PROSECUTION OF PRESIDENT TRUMP pic.twitter.com/RY8CS0Gs59
— Steve Sadow (@stevesadow) December 30, 2024
“AG Carr is right,” Sadow wrote on X, adding that the appellate decision appropriately addressed the “appearance of impropriety” created by Willis and Wade’s conduct.
While Willis’s disqualification complicates the prosecution, the charges against Trump remain active. If the Georgia Supreme Court declines to consider Willis’s effort to take back the case under her office, a nonpartisan state agency will assume control of the prosecution. The agency could choose to pursue the charges, negotiate resolutions, or drop the case entirely.
But the legal proceedings are further complicated by Trump’s argument that his status as president-elect renders the charges invalid. Trump’s election has already led to the dismissal of two federal prosecutions led by special counsel Jack Smith, and he is pursuing similar motions in New York regarding a 2016 hush money payment case.
Carr’s stance prompted pushback from a local Atlanta-based attorney, Andrew Fleischman, who posted on X that the attorney general’s statement could have been addressed without making a “political” statement to the top court.
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“If your goal is for the Court to deny cert, the argument should be it’s ‘a one-off case with no substantive legal reasoning unlikely to make meaningful precedent,’” Fleischman said, adding it should not be “for political reasons I forbid you from taking this case.”
The Georgia Supreme Court’s decision will be the final determination of whether Willis can regain the case she brought against the former president, in which he and 18 others are accused of attempting to subvert the state’s 2020 election results after Trump lost to President Joe Biden.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
