ATLANTA (Atlanta News First) — Now that the Supreme Court of Georgia has decided not to consider Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ appeal to continue her historic indictment of President Donald Trump, a search for a special prosecutor to continue the case is underway.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council (PAC) of Georgia said it “will fulfill its duty” under state law to appoint another prosecutor to take over the cases.

“When that decision is made, it will be announced at the appropriate time,” PAC said.

The state Supreme Court declined to consider Willis’ appeal of her removal from the Georgia election interference case against Trump and others that she began in August 2021.

Citing an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case, the Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue to prosecute the case.

In January, Willis asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review that ruling, and the high court on Tuesday declined in a 4-3 decision to take up the case.

In remarks to reporters, President Trump called the court’s refusal to hear the case, “a great decision.

“It was a rigged case to start off with,” Trump said. “The court has ruled she is a disaster. She’s a disaster with ... the boyfriend that she paid a billion dollars for his expertise. Now she should be prosecuted.

“She should be put in jail,” Trump said. “Fani Willis is a criminal.”

The president also posted his reaction on Truth Social:

“In a Big WIN for Justice and Law in Georgia, the Georgia Supreme Court just ruled that District Attorney Fani Willis and her ‘team’ of Weaponized Prosecutors are DISQUALIFIED, once and for all, from the Fake Witch Hunt against me, and many other Great American Patriots, people that were treated so unfairly, and indeed, viciously.”

Willis disagreed and said the fight is not over.

“While I disagree with the decision of the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Georgia Supreme Court’s divided decision not to review it, I respect the legal process and the courts,” Willis said Tuesday morning. “Accordingly, my office will make the case file and evidence available to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council for use in the ongoing litigation. I hope that whoever is assigned to handle the case will have the courage to do what the evidence and the law demand.”

PAC said it was aware of Willis’ decision to not ask the court to reconsider its decision, and that at some point, it will be officially notified of Willis’ disqualification.

For the case to proceed, PAC will have to find another prosecutor to take over the case.

Pete Skandalakis, PAC executive director, said the case will eventually go back to Fulton County Superior Court, after which he will appoint a special prosecutor. That could be someone from the Georgia Attorney General’s or Solicitor General’s office, a private attorney or even himself.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Skandalakis said. “I’m not looking for someone who would just rubberstamp what they already want to do without without looking at the entire case.

“I do believe we have to move expeditiously on it, simply because the public wants to know [and] the litigants want to know.

Even if a new prosecutor wants to continue on the path charted by Willis, it seems unlikely that Trump could be prosecuted now that he’s the sitting president. But there are 14 other defendants who still face charges in the case.

“The Georgia Supreme Court has correctly denied review of the Georgia Court of Appeals decision disqualifying DA Fani Willis and her office as prosecutors in the Fulton County RICO case” said Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead Georgia attorney. “Willis’ misconduct during the investigation and prosecution of President Trump was egregious and she deserved nothing less than disqualification.

“This proper decision should bring an end to the wrongful political, lawfare persecutions of the President,” Sadow said.

“Willis wasted millions of tax dollars harassing patriotic and law abiding Americans, embarrassing herself and our state, and overwhelming our system of justice with the stench of her mendacity,” said Josh McKoon, chairman of the Georgia GOP. ““I trust the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia will move quickly to dismiss her absurd case and finally eradicate the stain she and her cohorts have put on the reputation of our state.”

McKoon also reiterated a call for Willis to “be held accountable for her actions,” and urged “the United States Attorney, the Attorney General of Georgia and the State Bar of Georgia to open investigations into the misconduct that led to her disqualification.”

A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia.

The alleged scheme included Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden. Four people have pleaded guilty.

The Georgia case was one of four criminal cases brought in 2023 against Trump. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned two federal prosecutions after Trump won the November election. In his hush money case in New York, Trump was convicted on 34 counts but received a sentence of no punishment.

Willis had asked the Georgia high court to consider whether the lower appeals court was wrong to disqualify her “based solely upon an appearance of impropriety and absent a finding of an actual conflict of interest or forensic misconduct.”

She also asked the state Supreme Court to weigh whether the Court of Appeals erred “in substituting the trial court’s discretion with its own” in this case.

“No Georgia court has ever disqualified a district attorney for the mere appearance of impropriety without the existence of an actual conflict of interest,” Willis’ filing said. “And no Georgia court has ever reversed a trial court’s order declining to disqualify a prosecutor based solely on an appearance of impropriety.”

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones - then a state senator - was one of the electors who sought to certify Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results in Trump’s favor.

“The Supreme Court just shut Fani Willis down,” Jones, who is now running for governor, said after the court’s decision. “Her political circus is over. She came after myself, President Trump and all of our conservative values, and has now lost — twice. Georgia deserves better than a DA who weaponizes the justice system for her own political gain.

“Today justice is served for Georgia, and justice is served for President Trump,” Jones, who has Trump’s endorsement in his campaign, said.

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Lawyers for Trump had argued in a court filing that the lower appeals court got it right and that Willis’ “disqualification is mandated because it is the only remedy that could purge the taint of impropriety.”

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