Explosive Revelation: Judge Presiding Over Trump Case Donated to Fani Willis
by Matt Margolis
Fulton County, Ga., Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case involving former President Donald Trump in Georgia and will soon decide whether District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from the case, donated to Willis’ campaign before Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) appointed him last year.
“McAfee, who was sworn in on Feb. 1, 2023, after being appointed by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, made his donation in June 2020 while still working as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to financial disclosures,” reports the Daily Caller.
The New York Times revealed last year that McAfee worked under Willis when she led the complex trial division of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.
The donation may have been small, just $150, but according to Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Philip Holloway, the donation still should have been disclosed so that the defendants could have determined “whether they believed that amounted to a conflict of interest on the part of the judge.”
“The donation itself is more or less a token amount and was made prior to his becoming a judge,” 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.”
However, Andrew Fleischman, a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta, disagreed that the donation should have been disclosed.