(16 Sep 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Atlanta – 14 August 2023
1. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announcing charges against Donald Trump
POOL
ARCHIVE: Atlanta – 2 May 2022
2. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in court
POOL
ARCHIVE: Atlanta – 15 February 2024
3. Willis on the stand ++MUTE
4. Willis walking away from the stand ++MUTE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Atlanta – 13 December 2023
5. Willis sits in office during interview
POOL
ARCHIVE: Atlanta – 15 February 2024
6. Wide of Willis walking into courtroom ++MUTE++
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Fani Willis, Fulton County District Attorney:
"I did hear the arguments this morning, it’s ridiculous to me that you lied on Monday, and yet here we still are. And I did listen to that argument."
++BLACK FRAMES++
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Fani Willis, Fulton County District Attorney:
"Well it’s highly offensive, when someone lies on you and it’s highly offensive when they try to implicate that you slept with somebody the first day you met with them. And I take exception to it."
STORYLINE:
Georgia’s highest court has declined to consider Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ appeal of her removal from the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others.
Citing an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case, the Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue to prosecute the case.
Trump hailed the court’s ruling as “a great decision” and called Willis’ prosecution of him and others for their attempts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia “a rigged case to start off with.”
“What Fani Willis did to innocent people, patriots that love our country, what she did to them by indicting them and destroying them, she should be put in jail,” Trump told reporters.
Ashleigh Merchant, who exposed Willis’ romantic relationship with Wade as defense attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, said: “We hope this will finally close this chapter."
Willis said she disagreed with the court’s decision, but would direct her office to make the case file and evidence available to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia so it can appoint a new prosecutor to replace her.
“I hope that whoever is assigned to handle the case will have the courage to do what the evidence and the law demand,” Willis said in an emailed statement.
Willis in January asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review that ruling, and the high court on Tuesday declined in a 4-3 decision to take up the case. One judge didn’t participate and one judge was disqualified.
That means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find another prosecutor to take the case. The council’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, said Tuesday he will begin searching for a new prosecutor to replace Willis but didn’t know how long that might take.
Skandalakis said that once the new prosecutor is appointed it is “up to him or her what to do with the case.”
That person could continue on the track that Willis has taken, decide to pursue only some charges or dismiss the case altogether. It could be difficult to find a prosecutor willing to take the case, given its complex nature and the resources required.
Even if a new prosecutor wants to continue on the path charted by Willis, it seems unlikely that Trump could be prosecuted now that he’s the sitting president. But there are 14 other defendants who still face charges in the case.
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