Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis barred from investigating Trump fake

A judge Monday effectively barred a Georgia prosecutor from investigating one of 16 Republican “fake electors” for former President Donald Trump, ruling that a recent campaign fundraiser she hosted for that man’s political opponent disqualified her.

In the same order related to state Sen. Burt Jones, Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney also denied a motion by 11 other Trump electors who sought to quash a grand jury subpoena issued at the behest of county District Attorney Fani Willis.

Willis may continue to investigate them — and Trump himself — for possible criminal meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election.

But Monday’s order related to Jones, who is the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor, is an embarrassing loss for the prosecutor. Her investigation is considered the biggest threat to Trump in terms of potential criminal liability.

Willis and her special prosecution team were barred from issuing a subpoena to Jones, from categorizing him as a subject or target of the grand jury probe, and from asking that grand jury to include any recommendation about him in its final report, McBurney said.

Willis’ office will be allowed to ask witnesses about Jones’ involvement in efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results — but may not use such evidence to develop a criminal case against him, if one is warranted, the judge ruled.

That decision will be left up a different prosecutor’s office, as selected by the state’s attorney general, McBurney ordered.

“An investigation of this significance, garnering the public attention it necessarily does and touching so many political nerves in our society, cannot be burdened by legitimate doubts about the District Attorney’s motives,” McBurney wrote in his order.

“The District Attorney does not have to be apolitical, but her investigations do,” the judge added.

Willis and the grand jury in Atlanta are eyeing efforts by Trump, his lawyers and other allies to get Georgia officials to overturn President Joe Biden‘s popular election win in that state.

Because the president won Georgia, a slate of Biden electors for the Electoral College won the right to cast ballots for him in that body, which under the U.S. Constitution determines the winner of the national presidential election.

After the 2020 election, people who claimed to be electors for Trump in seven battleground states that he lost to Biden submitted certificates to the National Archives, setting the stage for a possible legal dispute over which slate of electors would be chosen to cast ballots.

And Trump in early January 2021 pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” him enough votes in the popular election to reverse Biden’s win, which would in turn mean that Trump would be able to argue he was entitled to the state’s Electoral College delegates.

Last week, Willis’ office said in a court filing that…