Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been allowed to continue leading the prosecution in former President Trump’s Georgia election interference case, but her racially charged rhetoric has been deemed “legally improper” by the judge. The judge ruled that an insufficient amount of evidence was provided to justify the removal of Willis, but he ordered the firing of special counsel Nathan Wade for the case to proceed without the “appearance of impropriety.” However, the judge also took issue with Willis’s speech at an Atlanta church earlier this year, where she claimed she and Wade were being scrutinized because of their race. While Willis later claimed she was not referring to the defendants in her accusations of racism, the judge warned that such a distinction was not clear. He found that Willis’s references to “so many others” in her speech left ambiguous who she was accusing of racial motivations, potentially compromising the case. The judge further criticized Willis for frequently referring to Wade as the “black man” while labeling her other unchallenged special assistant district attorneys as “one white woman” and “one white man.” Despite ruling that these statements did not deny the defendants a fair trial, the judge deemed them “legally improper” and warned about the dangers of public comments by a prosecuting attorney. It remains uncertain whether Willis will fire Wade or step down from the trial.
