What happens if Fani Willis is disqualified from the Trump case?

The stakes will be high Thursday as an Atlanta judge tries to determine whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis should be disqualified from leading the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump on election interference charges.

If Judge Scott McAfee determines that Ms. Willis has a conflict of interest because of her romantic relationship with the prosecutor she hired to handle the case and that she deserves disqualification, his decision would, by extension, disqualify her entire office.

The case would then be reassigned to another prosecutor in Georgia, who would have the ability to continue the case exactly as it is, make major changes — such as adding or dropping charges or defendants — or even to drop the matter altogether. The latest decision would end the prosecution of Mr. Trump and his allies for their actions in Georgia after the 2020 election, when the former president sought to overturn his loss in the state.

It would be up to a state entity, the Georgia Board of Attorneys, to find someone else to take on the case. More specifically, the decision would fall to the council's executive director, Pete Skandalakis, an experienced former prosecutor.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Skandalakis said he could ask a prosecutor to voluntarily take on the Trump case. But he could also appoint a prosecutor to do the job – whether they wanted to or not.

Mr. Skandalakis said he could also try to find a lawyer in private practice to replace Ms. Willis. But that's an unlikely scenario, he said, because he could only pay such a lawyer about $70 an hour.

Mr. Skandalakis' options may be limited because few prosecutors' offices in Georgia have the size or budget to try a complex racketeering case against 15 defendants, including a former president of the United States and his former chief of staff.

Choosing a replacement would also be a politically complicated decision that would certainly rankle the nerves of partisans in one party or the other. Two of the larger district attorney offices in the state — with staff and budgets that could handle the Trump case — are those in DeKalb and Cobb counties, which cover densely populated parts of the Atlanta suburbs. These offices are currently led by Democrats.

Mr. Skandalakis, a Republican, could also theoretically choose to appoint himself the new prosecutor.

Mr. Skandalakis is seen as righteous by some prominent Georgia Democrats. But he has also been criticized for moving slowly in the effort to find a prosecutor to consider whether Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones should be charged in connection with the Trump case.

A judge blocked Ms. Willis from developing a case against Mr. Jones, who served as a fake pro-Trump voter, in July 2022 because Ms. Willis had organized a fundraiser for one of Mr. Jones' political rivals. No replacement prosecutor has been appointed.

This week, Mr. Skandalakis declined to say how quickly he could find a replacement for Ms. Willis in the Trump case, if necessary.