The judge and district attorney handling former President Trump’s Georgia election fraud case this week met opponents in their reelection races.
While Judge Scott McAfee and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) are still expected to win, their opponents could potentially remove them from office before Trump's trial.
Both Fulton County officials are being challenged, and Willis also has a Republican opponent. This comes at a critical point in the prosecution as McAfee considers whether to disqualify Willis and her office from Trump’s case due to her past relationship with Nathan Wade, a top prosecutor involved in the case.
A decision from McAfee is anticipated soon, well before his nonpartisan election on May 21. Willis's Democratic primary is also set for that day, and she will also have to compete in the general election in November.
McAfee, a former Fulton County and federal prosecutor, was appointed to the bench by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in 2022. He’s seeking a four-year term, focusing on issues like clearing the state’s COVID-19 case backlog, holding violent offenders accountable, and maintaining transparency.
On his campaign website, the judge referenced his YouTube channel — where the proceedings he oversees, including Trump’s, have been livestreamed — as evidence of his commitment to being “fully transparent with all public matters that come before him.” He has not specifically mentioned Trump’s case.
McAfee currently has two challengers. The May 21 election is officially nonpartisan, and a runoff will be held on June 18 if needed.
The first challenger is Robert Patillo, an attorney and civil rights activist who is executive director of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s Peachtree Street Project. Established in 1999, the project works on researching equal opportunity in the American Southeast and is part of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Citizenship Education Fund.
Unlike McAfee, who has connections to the conservative Federalist Society and has received praise from defense attorneys for being fair in Trump’s case, Patillo is a vocal critic of the former president online. His social media is filled with memes making jokes about Trump’s legal woes, mental state and campaign — including Trump’s gold-colored sneaker line.
“Yall these judgments got #Trump so broke he’s selling Chinese bootleg Uptowns,” Patillo wrote in a Facebook post, sharing an image describing the sneakers as “Air Treasons.”
Although Trump has criticized many of the judges involved in his legal troubles, he has not shown the same animosity toward McAfee. Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead Georgia attorney, has publicly expressed confidence in the judge as Patillo’s challenge emerged.
“In our democracy, anyone can choose to run for public office. But does anyone following the Willis-Wade Fulton County fiasco really believe it is a coincidence that this particular gentleman has (been) chosen to run against Judge McAfee? I don’t,” Sadow wrote on LinkedIn.
He said if the pro-Willis group wants to influence the court by choosing this judicial candidate, they are underestimating Judge McAfee's character.
In a later post on XSadow wrote, "Mr. Patillo, President Trump’s Fulton County defense team is not afraid of you. We are only sorry your obvious pro-Willis bias and motive for running makes a mockery of your candidacy."
Tiffani Johnson, a staff attorney for another judge in McAfee’s court, is also challenging McAfee this spring. Johnson — who previously served as a Fulton County solicitor general, according to her campaign website — describes herself as a “champion for fairness, equity and accountability” in the judicial system.
Willis, meanwhile, is set to face challengers in the primary and general election.
In November, Willis’s Republican challenger is Courtney Kramer, a self-described “MAGA attorney” who worked in Trump’s White House counsel’s office and later for his 2020 presidential campaign on “election integrity matters,” according to her LinkedIn.
Kramer’s LinkedIn shows she also worked for Smith & Liss LLC — the law firm at which Ray S. Smith III, a co-defendant of Trump in the 2020 election interference case, is a partner.
Kramer has vocally opposed Willis on social media, sharing posts that describe the district attorney as a “disgrace to the legal community” and urging she be “held criminally liable” for failing to disclose vacations paid for by Wade, the special prosecutor with whom Willis had a relationship.
But before going on to the general election, Willis first faces a challenge from her own party: Christian Wise Smith, a former prosecutor and father of four who founded a nonprofit aimed at ending police brutality.
In 2020, Smith unsuccessfully ran against Willis in a three-way primary, landing in last place with just less than 23 percent of the vote. Willis that year ousted six-term incumbent Paul Howard, Willis’s longtime mentor who was implicated in multiple scandals.
After losing to Willis, Smith published a children’s book titled “WISEUP Adventure Series: Chris and Key Go Vote!” that he said was inspired by his run for Fulton County district attorney and people who “believed their vote didn’t matter.” Smith wrote on his website that he was the first in his family to graduate from college after a police officer “took interest in helping him break free of the low expectations inherent” in his upbringing.
Smith later unsuccessfully ran for Georgia attorney general, earning a little more than 22 percent of the vote in the race’s 2022 Democratic primary.
The weeks-long detour in the Trump case into Willis’s personal relationship with Wade, the special prosecutor, could make her more vulnerable to a challenge to her role.
Defense attorneys contend Willis hired her romantic partner to prosecute Trump and has since benefitted from his large salary in the form of lavish vacations. Willis and Wade have maintained that they began dating in early 2022 — after Wade was hired to the team.
McAfee previously stated that the accusations against Willis and Wade might lead to their disqualification if proof suggests a real conflict of interest or the appearance of one.
