The appeal, to the Georgia supreme court, by the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, of her disqualification from her prosecution of President-elect Trump and more than a dozen others is a last-gasp bid to save a floundering prosecution.

Ms. Willis’s appeal late Wednesday night to the Peach State’s highest tribunal comes after a three-judge panel of the Georgia court of appeals purged her from the racketeering case that alleged a conspiratorial effort, led by the 47th president, to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The panel voted to disqualify by a 2-to-1 vote. 

That ruling reversed the ruling by the trial court judge, Scott McAfee, that allowed Ms. Willis to remain on the case if her handpicked special prosecutor and former boyfriend, Nathan Wade, departed it. Judge McAfee, though, found her behavior exhibited an “odor of mendacity,” was “legally improper,” and conveyed a “significant appearance of impropriety.” 

Judge McAfee, for all that, stopped short of finding that Ms. Willis’s secret romance with Mr. Wade — and the vacations they took together to destinations like Aruba, Napa Valley, and Belize — amounted to a conflict of interest that would require her to step aside. The appellate judges, though, mandated that disqualification — while “rare” in cases like these — was required to “restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”

Now comes Ms. Willis to argue: “No Georgia court has ever disqualified a district attorney for the mere appearance of impropriety without the existence of an actual conflict of interest.” She adds that “no Georgia court has ever reversed a trial court’s order declining to disqualify a prosecutor based solely on an appearance of impropriety.”

Ms. Willis’s arguments were foreshadowed at the court of appeals by the lone dissenter to her disqualification, Judge William Land. Judge Land, who was appointed by the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, writes that he is “particularly troubled by the fact that the majority has taken what has long been a discretionary decision for the trial court to make and converted it to something else entirely.” 

Judge Land explains that “for at least the last 43 years, our appellate courts have held that an appearance of impropriety … provides no basis for the reversal of a trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify.” Ms. Willis agrees, and contends that her disqualification “overreached the Court of Appeals’ authority.” Of the nine judges on Georgia’s highest court, eight were appointed by Republicans and one was elected in a nonpartisan election.

If Ms. Willis does not claw her way back onto the case, the task of finding a replacement will fall to an independent committee, Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia. That body could take months — or years — to find a replacement, who would then have discretion to pursue or drop the case. The Georgia court of appeals, though, did not dismiss the charges she brought, reasoning that such a move would be unwarranted and “extreme.” Trump has moved for the case to be dismissed in light of his imminent inauguration as president. 

Even if Ms. Willis does succeed in retaking the case, it is unclear how the prosecution can proceed against Trump while he is president. The Department of Justice has ruled that there is a “categorical” ban on prosecuting a sitting president, a determination that applies only to federal prosecutors. Special Counsel Jack Smith bowed to that judgment and moved to dismiss both of his cases against Trump.

Ms. Willis, a Democrat elected to her role at majority-minority Fulton County, which comprises much of downtown Atlanta, is not bound by that position, and she has vowed to press on with her prosecution. 

So has the district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, also an elected Democrat, who persuaded Judge Juan Merchan that Trump could be sentenced for his 34 hush-money convictions before he takes office. The president-elect has appealed that decision to the United States Supreme Court.