When Fani Willis indicted Donald Trump and 18 of his allies for election fraud in August, 2023, the Atlanta district attorney made global headlines and was heaped with praise by her fellow Democrats.
Just over a year later, Willis has been forcibly removed from the case by an appeal court, her chief prosecutor has been removed by a lower court and the indictment of Trump is all but over.
Newsweek sought email comment on Friday from Willis, and Trump’s spokesperson.
Here is a timeline of the spectacular rise and fall of Willis and her Trump indictment:
Alex Slitz/Getty Images
August 14, 2023
Willis, the District Attorney for Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta, Georgia, indicts Trump and 18 others for seeking to illegally overturn the result of the 2020 election.
Trump was charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization [RICO] Act, which allows Willis to tie together various criminal acts to show an overall pattern. He pleaded not guilty.
At a packed press conference, Wilis issued an ultimatum to Trump, former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani and the 17 others accused.
“I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday, the 25th day of August 2023,” she said.
Trump did surrender, and had his mug shot taken at the Fulton County jail.
The photo was on the front page of newspapers around the world and Trump supporters later wore it on T-shirts as a statement of defiance.
October-November 2023
Willis’ case gets off to a very strong start as the middle-ranking Trump lawyers on the indictment start to crack.
Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro both plead guilty and agree to cooperate.
Powell, in particular, is a key figure and ran Trump’s legal team, along with Rudy Giuliani, after the 2020 presidential election.
Jenna Ellis, breaks down in tears in court as she admits her guilt and asks for forgiveness.
On November 1, her lawyer, Frank Hogue, tells the Altanta Journal-Constitution that it was Powell and Chesebro’s decision to cooperate that led Ellis to strike a deal with Willis’ office.
Legal pundits predict that it is only a matter of time before bigger fish on the indictment, such as Giuliani or former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, agree to cooperate. Willis couldn’t be flying higher.
January 8, 2024
The new year brings a bombshell revelation. Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for Trump co-accused, Mike Roman, files a complaint to trial judge, Scott McAfee, alleging that Willis had been in a relationship with the chief prosecutor in the case, Nathan Wade.
Merchant suggests that Wade, who had no prosecution experience, was only chosen to prosecute the enormously complex case because of the relationship.
Newsweek sought email comment on Friday from Wade.
January 19, 2024
A leaked court record from Wade’s divorce reveals Wade’s credit card transactions. It shows that he and Willis went on a Royal Caribbean cruise together in October 2022 and that he paid for at least two flights, months after her office hired him in January of that year.
Merchant later filed documents showing that they booked a double bed in a hotel in Aruba and a photograph of a typical luxurious room in the same hotel.
Later documents subpoenaed by Merchant show that Willis and Wade went on a wine-tasting holiday in California together.
February 15, 2024
Judge McAfee organizes a special hearing with Willis and Wade called to give evidence about their relationship.
Willis goes on the offensive, repeatedly attacking Merchant, Trump and the other accused.
McAfee urged her and other attorneys to keep to “professionalism” and to not “talk over each other.”
His pleas didn’t work.
“You’ve lied in this. … I think you lied right here,” Willis told Merchant, pointing to Merchant’s court filings about Willis and Wade’s relationship.
‘”You think I’m on trial,” Willis told Merchant. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
March, 8 2024
Trump seizes the opportunity. At a rally in Rome, Georgia, he tells the crowd:
“You have a woman named Fani Willis,” which leads to booing from the audience.
“I believe it’s spelled F-A-N-I. To my way of thinking, that’s Fanny. But once she became the district attorney, I think she put a little emphasis on the U. Fani,” he said, to laughter and applause from the crowd.
“So corrupt Fani Willis hired her lover, Nathan Wade, so they could fraudulently make money together. ‘Let’s make money, darling. Let’s see. Who can we go after? Well, if we go after somebody that nobody ever heard of, we can’t make much. I got an idea. Let’s do what Joe Biden and everybody else wants. Let’s go after Trump’,” he said.
March 15, 2024
McAfee delivers a blistering ruling in which he says that either Willis or Wade have to leave the case. He admonishes Willis for her lack of professionalism during her testimony and says that a taint of malfeasance still hung over the case. Wade resigns from the case hours later.
November 5, 2024
Trump wins the U.S. presidential election, and comfortably wins every swing state, including Georgia. Willis is reelected Fulton County District Attorney on the same night.
As no sitting president can be put on trial, Trump is free of the Georgia case until at least 2029.
December 19, 2024
On a petition from Trump and several other co-accused, the Georgia Court of Appeals removes Willis from the Trump case, while stating that she had undermined public confidence in the legal system.
“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the court ruled.
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, told Newsweek on Thursday that the case against Trump is now in extreme difficulty.
“The Georgia election interference case is really stuck in the mud. It can’t move forward against Trump until after he’s out of office in four years. Who knows what the world or Trump will be like in four years,” he said.
He said the evidence “will have to be limited” as a July 1 Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity has given Trump broad protection from prosecution.
“Who is going to prosecute it if Willis does not get her dismissal overturned on appeal? They can proceed with the case against the other defendants, and maybe they will, but even that is bogged down over Willis’s dismissal,” he said.
