OPINION: Judge should remove Fani Willis, voters should reject her

Willis’ conflict of interest shatters any notion that the case against Trump has been prosecuted fairly. Her scheme is disqualifying – and Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has already signaled a willingness to remove her from the case if the evidence bears out.

This would be a step in the right direction. But anything less than a complete dismissal of the case is a bandage on the open wound of a justice system that is hemorrhaging its core principle of due process.

Too many prosecutors today are like Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg: avid partisans trading impartial justice for political calculation. The incentives are clear, sideline and slander President Joe Biden’s political opponent, deliver him the 2024 election and jump to the front of the party’s line for higher office.

It’s no coincidence that Willis launched her re-election campaign a mere five days before she brought her formal grand jury indictment against Trump last year, or that she initially requested his trial begin exactly one week before Georgia’s 2024 presidential primary.

Although I didn’t know it when I testified as a witness, I was also a target in the Fulton County grand jury investigation. I was under scrutiny for asking questions, as a U.S. senator, about unilateral election law changes and inconsistencies in the 2020 election. I refused to apologize – but to a partisan prosecutor, free speech that challenges the Democratic narrative is reasonable grounds to consider bringing charges.

{Editor’s note: The special grand jury in the Trump case recommended 39 people be indicted on criminal charges in relation to the “national effort to overturn the 2020 election,” including former Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Willis did not charge them.}

This is the issue: sidelining one district attorney from one case won’t fix a justice system increasingly plagued by partisans motivated to target political opponents. By the time their cases reach a judge, the damage to public opinion and to their intended target has already been done. With George Soros and other Democrat megadonors getting more involved in the courts, how can we have confidence they won’t rule with the same political agenda?

Relying on judges or post hoc investigations simply cannot be the way forward for the conservative movement or our communities. In the final analysis, taxpayers and families are the real victims of activist DAs who no longer see their role as bringing real criminals to justice – and whose dereliction of duty is responsible for the rise in lawlessness across America’s cities.

But there is a way to stop the bleeding. Vote them out.

District attorneys and solicitors general in all but a handful of states are elected, along with many judges. Willis will be on the ballot in November – representing a rare opportunity to restore balance to an office that has supported the left’s pro-criminal activism for far too long.

As Americans, we must acknowledge and end the left’s lawfare by removing partisans from a system that demands impartiality and a commitment to upholding the law. This is not a mission for Georgia alone but for every community where failed or political prosecutors are working to change American justice to “equity.” For all their talk of democracy, Democrats have made clear they will use the courts for their agenda when the ballot fails to get their result.

The Fulton judge might well remove Willis from Trump’s trial in the coming weeks. But it will be up to the voters of Georgia to remove her from the office of district attorney this November.

Businesswoman Kelly Loeffler is a former Republican U.S. senator representing Georgia.