ATLANTA (NEWSnet/AP) — A Georgia appeals court on Wednesday will review a ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue as prosecutor in the state’s case against Donald Trump.

Former president Trump and some other defendants in the case had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the election interference case, saying her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest.

In March, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case. But he allowed Trump and the other defendants to take his decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals.

That intermediate appeals court agreed on Wednesday to take up the case.

Once the appeals court rules, it remains possible for a side to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to consider the case.

This legal sidestep is likely to cause a delay in proceedings, limiting the likelihood that it will reach trial before the November general election. Trump is currently the leading Republican nominee for president.

In his order, McAfee said he planned to continue to address other pretrial motions “regardless of whether the petition is granted ... and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court.”

McAfee wrote in his order in March that the prosecution was “encumbered by an appearance of impropriety.” He said Willis could remain on the case only if Wade left, and the special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.

The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous couple of months in the case as intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February.

Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, on violations of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations in a scheme to illegally try to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden.

Willis and Wade acknowledged the relationship but said they didn’t begin dating until the spring of 2022, after Wade was hired in November 2021, and their romance ended last summer.

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