Voters will decide whether prosecutor and judge in Georgia Trump election case will keep their jobs

ATLANTA – Voters will decide whether two key players in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump keep their jobs.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee are both on the ballot for Tuesday’s election. Willis is the prosecutor who last year obtained a broad racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others, and McAfee is the judge randomly assigned to preside over the case.

Willis has a single opponent in the Democratic primary, and if he wins, he will face a Republican candidate in the fall. McAfee has an opponent — after a second was disqualified — in a nonpartisan race who will be the final word on whether he can keep his seat.

Intense public interest in the election case has thrust both Willis and McAfee into the national spotlight, giving them greater name recognition than their incumbents might otherwise have had. That, coupled with the incumbency and fundraising advantages that have far outweighed their opponents, could give each of them an edge on Tuesday.

Whether they win or lose, Willis and McAfee will remain in office until the end of this year, when their current terms expire. If one of them ends up being removed from office, it could further delay the election interference case, which has already been delayed by attempts to remove Willis from the charge.

Willis and his progressive Democratic opponent, Christian Wise Smith, worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s office under then-District Attorney Paul Howard. Both challenged their former boss in the 2020 Democratic primary. Willis and Howard advanced to a runoff that she won, and she ran unopposed in that year’s November general election.

Wise Smith said that as district attorney he would focus on victims, work to end mass incarceration and direct school-to-prison pipeline. When he filed his paperwork to run, he told reporters he was keeping his options open, but has since embraced his campaign, giving interviews and appearing at candidate events.

Courtney Kramer is running unopposed in the Republican primary and has already focused her attention on attacking Willis. A lawyer who interned in the Trump White House, she has ties to some of the former president’s prominent allies in Georgia.

While Trump’s election case and racketeering cases against well-known rappers have boosted Willis’ public profile, her campaign has focused its efforts on reducing the staggering backlog of cases that existed when she took office, combating gang violence, and capturing young people. at risk before they get caught in the criminal justice system.

In what many considered a huge mistake, she began a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor she hired for the election case. Claims by defense lawyers in the case that the romance created a conflict of interest threatened to derail the prosecution.

McAfee ultimately ruled that this did not create a conflict of interest that should disqualify Willis, but said she could only continue the case if the special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, stepped aside. Wade promptly dropped the case, but a defense appeal of McAfee’s decision is now pending in the Georgia Court of Appeals.

In just over a year on the court, the election case made McAfee one of the most recognized judges in Georgia. He previously served as a federal and state prosecutor and as a state inspector general. He was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to fill a vacancy and has campaigned vigorously in recent weeks to win a full four-year term. His campaign drew support from a bipartisan slate of heavyweights, including Kemp and former Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat.

Robert Patillo, a civil rights lawyer and media commentator, emphasized “competence, compassion and change” in his campaign to replace McAfee. He avoided directly attacking McAfee, but emphasized the importance of a diverse background and said the “channel between prosecutor and judge” can lead to bias.

Tiffani Johnson, who worked as a prosecutor and defense attorney, also filed documents to challenge McAfee. But she was disqualified after failing to appear at a hearing over a challenge to her eligibility. After a judge upheld the disqualification, she asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in, but the high court has not yet acted.