The Georgia district attorney seeking to convict Donald Trump has a record of being disqualified for political bias in election cases.
A report in the Daily Caller noted that a judge had barred Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in fall 2022 from pursuing a case against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones over his involvement in Mr. Trump’s contesting the 2020 Georgia presidential election.
Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney criticized Ms. Willis for hosting a fundraiser for Charlie Bailey, Mr. Jones’ Democratic opponent in the 2022 lieutenant governor’s race.
“Any decision the district attorney makes about Senator Jones in connection with the grand jury investigation is necessarily infected by it,” Judge McBurney ruled during the campaign when Mr. Jones was a state senator.
The report comes as Ms. Willis is facing criticism over hiring a man with whom she allegedly was having an affair to handle the Trump case and thereby shipping public funds his way. Some of that money was reportedly spent on her.
The judge said that while Ms. Willis’ donations to the Bailey campaign wouldn’t themselves force him to kick her off the case, there also was “extensive, direct, public and job-related campaign work the district attorney performed on behalf of candidate Bailey.”
“This choice — which the district attorney was within her rights as an elected official to make — has consequences. She had bestowed her office’s imprimatur upon Senator Jones’s opponent,” Judge McBurney added.