A Georgia state judge ruled Friday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue to oversee an election interference case against former President Donald Trump — as long as she removes a special prosecutor with whom she had a romantic relationship from the case. 

Judge Scott McAfee on Friday morning issued a ruling saying that there was an “appearance of impropriety” in Willis’ relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor, and that one of them must be removed from the case. Later in the day, Willis said she accepted Wade’s resignation.

Willis appointed Wade and others to oversee a historic criminal case against Trump and 14 of his allies. It’s one of four felony cases against Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has separately been found liable for sexual assault, defamation and fraud. Willis accused Trump and other defendants of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. 

In his ruling, McAfee wrote that there was no finding of conflict of interest and criticized Willis’ actions as a “tremendous lapse in judgment.” 

It “is the undersigned’s opinion that Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices — even repeatedly — and it is the trial court’s duty to confine itself to the relevant issues and applicable law properly brought before it,” McAfee wrote.

For some, the effort to disqualify Willis began long before the news of her romantic relationship came to light —- and it highlights a double standard for Black women in power.

Shortly after taking office as district attorney in Georgia’s largest county, Willis became a visible face for Trump’s legal woes.

To assist with the prosecution, she assembled a team of private attorneys, including Wade as the lead prosecutor. In January, the lawyer for a former Trump campaign official also facing criminal charges filed a motion requesting Willis be disqualified from the case for engaging in an improper relationship with Wade. The lawyer accused Willis of profiting financially by hiring a romantic partner to oversee Trump’s case.

Willis and Wade acknowledged several weeks later that a personal relationship did develop between them but said it occurred after she hired Wade. Hearings held to consider Willis’ potential disqualification revealed more detail about the nature of her romantic relationship with Wade; however, witnesses offered conflicting testimony about whether the romantic relationship — which has since ended — began before or after Wade’s appointment to the case.

Willis has repeatedly defended herself. 

“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,” she said at one point during the hearings.

The accusations against Willis have prompted mixed reactions among legal experts about the ethical concerns at play. Some also are assessing how to navigate two potential truths: a Black woman prosecutor may have shown poor judgment by engaging in a romantic relationship with Wade, and she may also be experiencing outsized scrutiny because of her race and gender.

Underlying many of the conversations about Willis are public debates about double standards for Black women and the idea of respectability politics, the feeling that Black people need to adhere to a certain code of behavior to be acceptable in a White-dominant society.

“It’s about the grace that is not allowed for this mistake,” said Nadia Brown, a professor of government and director of women’s and gender studies at Georgetown University. “You can think about how certain groups of people are given grace for things that are far worse and have bigger consequential impact. That part, for me, just tells us that Black women are still viewed in our society as people who don’t have access to full humanity.”

Black women are often viewed through a stereotypical lens, she said, one of those tropes being the “jezebel” who is overly sexual and deceitful. 

Derogatory comments about Willis have appeared on Trump’s social media site, Truth Social, including one that called her “another ghetto gang-banging HO.”

This imagery has been leveraged against other Black women in positions of power. In 2008 Fox News Channel referred to then-First Lady Michelle Obama as “Obama’s baby mama.” In 2021 two pastors called Vice President Kamala Harris a “jezebel” at the Southern Baptist Convention. 

The question of how race and gender factor into Willis’ treatment during the hearings may be debatable, but it is clear Willis was a target among some conservatives prior to the revelations of her relationship with Wade.

Last year, Georgia legislators passed a law establishing an oversight commission that can be used to remove prosecutors from office. One Republican lawmaker in Georgia pointed to the commission as a way to investigate Willis. The commission’s work stalled when the state Supreme Court intervened, but a second law passed this month will allow the commission to take action on complaints filed against district attorneys like Willis without approval from the state’s highest court.

In recent weeks, a Georgia state Senate committee also began hearings to investigate the alleged wrongdoings by Willis, though they do not have the power to discipline her.

Despite being cleared to continue her work, how the accusations against Willis will affect her career and public opinion on the case against Trump remains to be seen. 

“I think this decision could be a canary in a mine for where our democracy stands,” Brown said. “If discrediting Fani Willis leads people to think that this was a witch hunt and that this was an untrustworthy process, then it further showcases that there is little trust or belief in our institutions.”