Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/16809760 (251944ZJUL22) Notable: Judge Robert McBurney on Monday barred Willis from building a case against Burt Jones
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A judge in Fulton County, Ga., has granted a motion by a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from targeting him in her criminal probe into former President Donald Trump and allies' efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Judge Robert McBurney on Monday barred Willis from building a case against Burt Jones, a state senator running for lieutenant governor of Georgia, after the district attorney hosted a fundraiser backing Democratic candidate Charlie Bailey in his runoff race against another Democratic challenger who ultimately lost, Kwanza Hall.
McBurney said it was “harmful” to the integrity of the investigation that Willis had taken part in the fundraiser.
“Any decision the district attorney makes about Senator Jones in connection with the grand jury investigation is necessarily infected by it,” the judge wrote, adding that any effort to focus specifically on Jones in the investigation, even if justified, would prompt “entirely reasonable concerns of politically motivated persecution.”
Willis' interest in Jones stems from the efforts of some state Republicans after the 2020 election to create an alternate slate of 16 presidential electors even after an official vote count showed Trump had lost by thousands of votes. Jones is one of the “fake electors” named as a target in the investigation.
The judge noted that an additional decision by Willis to donate privately to Bailey’s campaign was not disqualifying in itself, as Jones' counsel had argued, but said the move had “added to the weight of the conflict created by the more extensive, direct, public and job-related campaign work the district attorney performed on behalf of candidate Bailey.”