Trump urges appeals court to kick DA Willis off of RICO case after 'calculated and egregious' speech labeling him and co-defendants 'racists'

Left: Fulton County DA Fani Willis speaking at the Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta on Jan. 14 (C-SPAN). Right inset: Former President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Matt Rourke).

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump have fired back in their appeal to, at minimum, have Fulton County DA Fani Willis (D) removed from the Georgia RICO case and, at most, have the indictment tossed out, claiming her “calculated and egregious” misconduct during a January speech at a Black church in Atlanta “falsely” labeled Trump and co-defendants “racists” and showed her disqualifying bias.

In the Monday filing in the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Trump team said that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee didn’t go far enough in March when he ruled that either Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor with whom Willis vacationed and had a romantic relationship from 2022 to 2023, or the DA and her office had to step aside from the case in the face of a “significant appearance of impropriety,” leading to Wade’s swift exit .

The appellant maintains that McAfee’s decision, which stopped short of finding an “actual” conflict of interest, was “utterly insufficient,” considering Willis’ own “unethical, racially charged” words from January in defense of Wade at Big Bethel A.M.E. Church just ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, words that at least “demanded disqualification.”

On Jan. 14, Willis said during a speech that she was “a little confused” — but not really — about why Wade, a Black man, was the only one of three special prosecutors she appointed to face scrutiny from “they” and “them,” whom she said were “playing the race card.”

“I appointed three special counsel, as is my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one. I hired one white woman, a good personal friend and great lawyer. A superstar, I tell you, I hired one white man, brilliant, my friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one Black man. Another superstar, a great friend, and a great lawyer. O, Lord, they going to be mad when I call them out on this nonsense. First thing they said, ‘oh she going to play the race card now.’ But no, God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one?”

When McAfee provided Willis and Wade with the one-of-you-has-to-go ultimatum , he said that he “cannot find that this speech crossed the line to the point where the Defendants have been denied the opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial,” but he did slam Willis for making “legally improper” remarks, the “type of public comment creat[ing] dangerous waters for the District Attorney to wade further into,” noting that she said those words just days after Trump co-defendant Mike Roman moved to disqualify her, a motion at least eight others, including Trump, would join. The judge also criticized Willis for the “unprofessional manner of the District Attorney’s testimony during the evidentiary hearing.”

The Trump reply on Monday — rejecting the state’s arguments that Willis’ words were inconsequential as they “did not express any personal opinions regarding a defendant’s guilt or discuss the actual substance of the present case at all,” didn’t “mention any Defendant by name,” and didn’t prejudice a jury since there isn’t one — said that the DA made “insidious, calculated references to President Trump and the other defendants,” that she “knew what she was doing” when she did so, and got “precisely” what she wanted.

“[O]verwhelming media coverage of her false and pernicious subterfuge would slander the defendants before the entire nation,” the reply said. “Willis calculated this result despite her duty to protect the presumption of innocence, due process, and a fair trial.”

That speech, the filing continued, ran afoul of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct’s 3.8(g ), which states that a prosecutor “shall […] except for statements that are necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor’s action and that serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused.”

“Willis wrongly labeled defendants and their counsel as racists: that’s as ‘severe’ as it gets,” the reply said.

The Trump reply further called the state’s retort “[n]onsense” and said Willis “intentionally injecting false racist claims in a Black church” just blocks away from where Martin Luther King, Jr., lived is the kind of “quintessentially ‘egregious'” extrajudicial commentary that makes the DA’s “disqualification” a legal must.

“According to the State, so long as it refrains from saying ‘the defendant is guilty,’ a prosecutor may do and say anything, no matter how defamatory, unethical, or widely reported it is, because time is a sufficient cure for harm,” the filing said. “The State contends this Court is without recourse to punish the offending prosecutor and must disregard the deliberate ethical violations, false allegations of racism, and claims to ‘do[ing] God’s work,’ because the case will not be tried soon. Nonsense.”

Reached for comment, lead Trump lawyer Steve Sadow told Law&Crime that Willis’ “incendiary racial rhetoric” has doomed her case.

“President Trump’s legal team has filed a reply brief in the Georgia Court of Appeals persuasively rebutting the State’s arguments. The brief makes clear DA Willis should be disqualified and the case dismissed because her proven false, incendiary racial rhetoric in the church speech was calculated to heighten public condemnation of, and thereby prejudice, the defendants in eyes of potential jurors,” Sadow said. “Such misconduct violated the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, therefore President Trump again calls for dismissal and her removal.”

A lawyer in the DA’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read Trump’s reply here .

The post Trump urges appeals court to kick DA Willis off of RICO case after ‘calculated and egregious’ speech labeling him and co-defendants ‘racists’ first appeared on Law & Crime .