Trump attorneys accuse Fani Willis of injecting ‘racial animus’ in Georgia case

Attorneys for Donald Trump joined a legal effort from one of his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case to disqualify Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting them.

A complaint filed by Mr Trump’s defence attorneys on Thursday accuses Ms Willis of injecting “racial animus” in the case and violating her prosecutorial responsibilities, pointing to allegations that she hired an outside prosecutor with whom she was romantically involved.

The motion from Mr Trump’s lawyers Steve Sadow and Jennifer Little follows allegations from co-defendant Mike Roman, who alleged in a court filing that Ms Willis appointed Nathan Wade as lead prosecutor in the case while engaging in a romantic relationship with him.

In a speech before a congregation at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta this month, Ms Willis suggested attacks against her since taking the case were motivated by racism – both Ms Willis and Mr Wade are Black – and noted that other private attorneys hired by her office, who are white, have not faced similar scrutiny or inflammatory attacks. She did not mention any of the defendants by name.

According to Mr Trump’s lawyers, her remarks on 14 January “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,” they wrote.

Mr Trump’s lawyers accused Ms