Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, overseeing the Trump election interference case, made a $150 donation to county prosecutor Fani Willis in June 2020, while he was employed at the Justice Department, as financial records reveal.
“The donation itself is more or less a token amount and was made prior to his becoming a judge,” legal analyst Philip Holloway told the Daily Caller. “But failure to disclose to the defendants a political donation to the prosecutor can be seen as a present appearance of a conflict of interest. Judges are required to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who declined to initiate a criminal investigation against Willis, selected McAfee for the bench. McAfee, who had previously worked under Willis at the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office prior to her 2020 election victory, was subsequently sworn in on February 1, 2023, as reported by the New York Times in August.
Fani Willis says the lawyer questioning her has interests "contrary to democracy" pic.twitter.com/Mu07uLkalj
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 15, 2024
Willis, who replaced a long-serving former county prosecutor accused of corruption, took office on January 1, 2021, running her campaign on a pledge to avoid sexual misconduct, a charge her predecessor had faced. The irony of Willis’s campaign promise was apparent when allegations surfaced of her own affair, accompanied by financial implications.
In 2023, former President Donald Trump and co-defendant Mike Roman accused Willis of maintaining an improper romantic relationship with her lead prosecutor in the Trump case, Nathan Wade.
Wade testified before McAfee on Thursday that his relationship with Willis began in 2022 after Willis initiated the case against Trump in 2021. However, Robin Yeartie, a former employee of the Fulton County District Attorney’s office and Willis’s college friend, stated that she was indeed in a relationship with Nathan Wade since 2019, contradicting Wade and Willis.
If McAfee finds that Willis was indeed involved in a conflict of interest with her partner and fellow prosecutor, Willis would be disqualified from the case, a significant win for Trump in the Georgia election interference case.
