Dem
47
GOP
53
When it comes to the question of whether or not Fani Willis can continue to oversee the prosecution of Donald Trump, et al., for election interference under Georgia law, given that she commenced a romantic relationship with one of her (freelance) underlings, the Georgia appeals court has spent plenty of time futzing around and not making a decision. Yesterday, however, the futzing came to an end, as the all-Republican-appointed 3-person panel ruled 2-1 that Willis has to get off the case.
As soon as the ruling came down, Donald Trump got busy claiming that this marks the end of this particular "witch hunt," and that justice has been done. Not long thereafter, CNN was on the air with legal analyst Elie Honig, agreeing that the case is now dead in the water. Honig is a lawyer, and we are not, so maybe you should go with his opinion. On the other hand, he's made confident assertions like this before, and has been wrong.
It seems to us that there are still two rather important, unresolved matters. The first is that Willis can, and already said she will, appeal the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court. That body is made up of 9 members, 8 of them Republican appointees, one elected in a nonpartisan election. Thus far, Willis has been sustained by one Republican-appointed judge, at the district level, and then lost a 2-1 vote on the appeals level. By our admittedly hasty count, she's gotten two judges' votes in support, and two judges' votes in opposition. That would seem to suggest this case is a leaner, and could go either way, even in the hands of Republican appointees. We'll also add that Georgia law is pretty clearly on Willis' side, and that yesterday's ruling from the appeals court involved some creative interpretation and some hand waving, based on the notion that Willis has created the "impression" of impropriety.
Second, even if Willis loses on appeal, it's possible for her office to hand the case off to outside counsel. Honig said that would not happen, because it's so difficult, and it takes so much time to get someone new up to speed. Maybe that's generally true, but there are two things that are unusual about this particular case: (1) at least a part of it (the Trump part) wasn't going to go forward for 4 years anyhow, meaning there's plenty of time to get someone new up to speed; and (2) Fulton County has invested vast resources in this matter, and seems not likely to give up without a fight.
The only thing that really appears certain, to us, is that there will be no certainty in this case for months, at the very least, and possibly for years. (Z)