Prior to his appointment, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is in charge of the prosecution against former President Donald Trump, gave a modest $150 payment to the campaign of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
While still working for the Department of Justice (DOJ) as an assistant U.S. Attorney, McAfee made his gift in June 2020 following his appointment by Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. He was sworn in on February 1, 2023. He must shortly choose whether to disqualify Willis due to claims that she received financial gain from assigning her love boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to work on the Trump case.
According to the New York Times, McAfee also used to work for Fani Willis, who oversaw the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s complicated trial section.
Even though McAfee’s donation was “nominal,” Atlanta-based criminal defense lawyer and legal analyst Philip Holloway told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the defendants should have been informed so they could decide “whether they believed that meant a conflict of interest on the part of the judge.”
He said that the gift was made before he was appointed judge and that it was just a nominal sum. ” However, it may appear that there is a conflict of interest if the prosecutor received a political gift without telling the defendants about it. Judges must refrain from even appearing to have a conflict of interest.
Willis has received several reprimands from McAfee for her actions on the stand, and the supervisor has not hesitated to make adverse choices for her.
McAfee presided over the hearing on Michael Roman, a co-defendant of Trump, seeking to have Willis removed from office last week. He had turned down the district attorney’s plea to postpone the hearing earlier.
Financial reports show that McAfee also donated $200 to Kemp’s campaign in 2018 and another $200 to GOP state representative candidate Lyndsey Rudder’s campaign in 2020. The widow of McAfee gave $101 in 2018 and $99 to Willis’ campaign in 2020.
Willis faced off against Paul Howard Jr., a former Democratic district attorney in Fulton County, during the primary.
Criminal defense lawyer Andrew Fleischman of Atlanta disagreed that the gift had to be revealed to the defense.
He told the DCNF, “I don’t think that should have been published, necessarily, beyond the necessary disclosures. That is such a common part of how Georgia judges and counsel communicate.”
According to the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct, judges have to make an effort to steer clear of any instances of misconduct in both their personal and professional lives.
Despite testimony from Willis’s longtime friend to the contrary, during last week’s hearing, Wade and Willis insisted on the witness stand that their connection began after Wade’s contract began. The two claimed that since Wade paid Willis in cash, there is no record proving that he compensated her for her trip expenditures.
In response to requests for comment, neither the Fulton County Superior Court nor the district attorney’s office responded right away. McAfee was not reachable.