Trump Disqualify Fani

Fulton County Superior Court
***EFILED***FD
Date: 1/25/2024 12:09 PM
Che Alexander, Clerk
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF FULTON COUNTY

STATE OF GEORGIA
STATE OF GEORGIA, :
:
Plaintiff, :
:
v. : CASE NO. 23SC188947
:
DONALD JOHN TRUMP, : Judge: Scott McAfee
:
Defendant. :
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MOTION TO ADOPT AND SUPPLEMENT CO-

DEFENDANT ROMAN’S MOTION TO DISMISS GRAND JURY
INDICTMENT AS FATALLY DEFECTIVE AND MOTION TO
DISQUALIFY THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY, HER OFFICE, AND THE
SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FROM FURTHER PROSECUTING THIS
MATTER
President Trump moves the Court to adopt and supplement the above-titled
motion filed by co-defendant Roman on January 8, 2024, which alleged, among
other misconduct, that an improper intimate personal relationship existed between
Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney (DA) Willis, that Wade has been
paid over $650,000 by the DA, and that taxpayer monies were used by Wade to take
the DA on lavish vacations.
Highly significant to the merits of the adopted motion, President Trump points
out that after Roman’s motion was filed, and after the Court announced in open court
on Friday, January 12 that it intended to hold a hearing on the motion in February,
DA Willis chose, two days later, on Sunday, January 14, during Martin Luther King,
Jr. national holiday weekend, in a religious public forum, to make racially charged,
extrajudicial statements designed to defend against, as well as divert and deflect
attention from, the alleged misconduct outlined in Roman’s motion. DA Willis gave
a keynote speech at Atlanta’s historic Black church, Big Bethel AME Church, a
speech wherein, without mentioning the alleged affair or even trying to put her
alleged malfeasance in context, she repeatedly and inappropriately injected race into
the case and stoked racial animus by, among other statements, asking God why the
defendants were questioning her conduct in hiring a Black man but not his White
counterparts, and why the judgment of a Black female Democrat wasn’t as good as
White male Republicans. The DA’s speech lasted approximately 35 minutes, was
widely reported on by local and national media outlets and broadcast on YouTube.1
1
See Atlanta News First article, which includes a transcription of DA Willis’ speech, at
https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/01/15/read-fulton-county-da-fani-willis-improper-
relationship-charges/ (From transcription: “I’m a little confused. I appointed three special counsel,
as is my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one. I hired one white
woman, a good personal friend and great lawyer. A superstar, I tell you, I hired one white man,
brilliant, my friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one black man. Another superstar a great friend
and a great lawyer. Oh, Lord, they’re going to be mad when I call them out on this nonsense. First
thing they say. Oh, she going to play the race card now? But no. God, isn’t it them who’s playing
the race card when they only question one? Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly
think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job
I’ve been doing almost 30 years. God why don’t they look at themselves and just be honest? I
mean, can’t they keep it a hundred with themselves, right? Come on. Why are they so surprised
that a diverse team that I assembled, your child can accomplish extraordinary things? Yes. God,
wasn’t it them that attacked this lawyer of impeccable credentials? The black man I chose has been
a judge more than ten years, huh? Run a private practice. More than 20 represented businesses and
civil litigation. I ain’t done. Y’all are served as a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special
assistant attorney general one chief Justice Robert Benham award from the state bar of Georgia.
You know, they ain’t just giving this to black men. How come God, the same black man I hired
was acceptable when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate? “Oh,
y’all ain’t hear me. All right. In another county, the elected official has the authority to pay him
twice the rate. Why is the white male Republicans judgment good enough? But the black female
Democrats Not yet.”); Fox 5 video at https://www.fox5atlanta.com/video/1395442; ABC News
article at https://abcnews.go.com/US/fulton-county-da-fani-willis-defends-special-
2
Specifically, the DA’s extrajudicial comments set out in footnote 1 constitute
a glaring, flagrant, and calculated effort to foment racial bias into this case by
publicly denouncing the defendants for somehow daring to question her decision to
hire a Black man (without also mentioning that she is alleged to have had a
workplace affair with the same man) to be a special prosecutor. These assertions by
the DA engender a great likelihood of substantial prejudice towards the defendants
in the eyes of the public in general, and prospective jurors in Fulton County in
particular. Moreover, the DA’s self-serving comments came with the added, sought
after, benefit of garnering racially based sympathy for her self-inflicted quagmire.
That being so, the DA’s comments directly ran afoul of Georgia Rules of
Professional Conduct, Rule 3.8 Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor, subsection
(g): The prosecutor in a criminal case shall “… refrain from making extrajudicial
comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of
the accused.”2 The maximum penalty for a violation of Rule 3.8 is disbarment.
prosecutor/story?id=106367044; Washington Post at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-

security/2024/01/14/fani-willis-georgia-trump/; New York Times article at
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/us/fani-willis-nathan-wade-trump-georgia.html.
2
As if subsection (g) wasn’t clear enough on its face, Comment [5] to Rule 3.8 states: “Paragraph
(g) supplements Rule 3.6: Trial Publicity, which prohibits extrajudicial statements that have a
substantial likelihood of prejudicing an adjudicatory proceeding. In the context of a criminal
prosecution, a prosecutor's extrajudicial statement can create the additional problem of increasing
public condemnation of the accused. Although the announcement of an indictment, for example,
will necessarily have severe consequences for the accused, a prosecutor can, and should, avoid
comments which have no legitimate law enforcement purpose and have a substantial likelihood of
increasing public opprobrium of the accused.”
3
As the Supreme Court made crystal clear in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S.
78, 88 (1935):
The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to

a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern
impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and
whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it
shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, [s]he is in
a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the
twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence
suffer. [S]he may prosecute with earnestness and vigor-indeed,
[s]he should do so. But, while [s]he may strike hard blows, [s]he
is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much [her] duty to
refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful
conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a
just one. (gender alterations added).
The awesome power to prosecute ought never to be manipulated for personal
or political profit. In addition to the extensive misconduct alleged in Roman’s
motion, the DA did just that in her speech by wrongfully inserting racial animus into
this case to publicly denounce and rebuke the defendants, and to defend her personal
and political reputation against the numerous and diverse allegations Roman made
in his court filing. The DA’s provocative and inflammatory extrajudicial racial
comments, made in a widely publicized speech at a historical Black church in
Atlanta, and cloaked in repeated references to God, reinforce and amplify the
“appearance of impropriety” in her judgment and prosecutorial conduct. Although
this Court may not have the authority to disbar DA Willis, it certainly does have the
power to dismiss the indictment and to disqualify her, the special prosecutors she
4
hired and her office from any further involvement in this case or any related matter,
and should do so here.
WHEREFORE, President Trump respectfully prays that the Court grant his
motion to adopt and supplement co-defendant Roman’s motion and the relief he
requested; dismissal of the indictment and disqualification of DA Willis, the special
prosecutors she hired, and her office.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Steven H. Sadow

STEVEN H. SADOW
Georgia Bar No. 622075
Lead Counsel for Defendant
260 Peachtree Street, N.W.

Suite 2502
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
404-577-1400
[email protected]
/s/ Jennifer L. Little

JENNIFER L. LITTLE
Georgia Bar No. 141596
Counsel for Defendant
400 Galleria Pkwy
Suite 1920
Atlanta, Georgia 30339
404-947-7778
[email protected]
5
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify I electronically filed the foregoing document with the Clerk
of Court using Odyssey Efile Georgia electronic filing system that will send
notification of such filing to all parties of record.
This 25th day of January, 2024.
/s/Steven H. Sadow
STEVEN H. SADOW

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Fulton County Superior Court

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF FULTON COUNTY

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MOTION TO ADOPT AND SUPPLEMENT CO-

motion filed by co-defendant Roman on January 8, 2024, which alleged, among

other misconduct, that an improper intimate personal relationship existed between

the DA on lavish vacations.

on Friday, January 12 that it intended to hold a hearing on the motion in February,

the DA engender a great likelihood of substantial prejudice towards the defendants

Professional Conduct, Rule 3.8 Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor, subsection

comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of

prosecutor/story?id=106367044; Washington Post at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-

The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to

The awesome power to prosecute ought never to be manipulated for personal

or political profit. In addition to the extensive misconduct alleged in Roman’s

comments, made in a widely publicized speech at a historical Black church in

“appearance of impropriety” in her judgment and prosecutorial conduct. Although

and should do so here.

requested; dismissal of the indictment and disqualification of DA Willis, the special

prosecutors she hired, and her office.

/s/ Steven H. Sadow

260 Peachtree Street, N.W.

/s/ Jennifer L. Little

notification of such filing to all parties of record.

This 25th day of January, 2024.

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