A longtime Atlanta attorney who has a track record of criticizing Donald Trump on social media is running to unseat the judge presiding over the former president’s criminal election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia.
Robert Patillo, a Democrat and radio host who has been a civil rights defense attorney in Fulton County for 15 years, qualified as a candidate to challenge Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Friday. He told the Washington Examiner that he has planned his run for the judgeship since Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) appointed McAfee last year to fill a vacancy, and Patillo has criticized what he sees as the trial against Trump and his co-defendants “turning into a soap opera.”
Patillo’s announcement this week came as McAfee is preparing to rule on whether to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis, who is accused by Trump and several other co-defendants of having an improper relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. The pretrial proceedings against the defendants have been stalled for weeks as defense attorneys and prosecutors spar over the effort to disqualify the district attorney.
“I don’t think anybody can look at the way that these last two weeks of hearings have gone and say to themselves, ‘That looks like that’s going well. That seems like that’s exactly how that’s supposed to go,’” Patillo said in an interview.
If Patillo were to defeat McAfee in the May 21 nonpartisan election, he could become the presiding judge in the sweeping racketeering case, which accuses Trump and 18 others of conspiring to undo President Joe Biden’s victory. The former president and 14 remaining defendants who have not accepted plea deals have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
If McAfee lost the race, he would remain as a judge until his term expires on Dec. 31.
Notably, Patillo has made a series of social media posts revealing potential biases against the former president.
“#Trump was literally taking a [Pile of Poo emojis] surrounded by nuclear secrets and national security documents…this is a REAL picture of the docs in dude’s BATHROOM!” Patillo posted to Facebook on June 9, 2023, in response to a photo of documents stored at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort home. The retention of those documents is at the heart of one of two federal criminal cases against the former president.
On Feb. 19, Patillo made another Facebook post above an edited photo of Trump’s limited-edition golden sneakers dubbed the “Never Surrender” high-tops, with a caption reading: “AIR Treasons When you’ve GOT to run!”
“Yall these judgements got #Trump so broke he’s selling Chinese bootleg Uptowns…” Patillo wrote.
Patillo defended those comments during his interview with the Washington Examiner, saying his role as a radio host and political commentator has led him to make a variety of candid remarks about current events.
“I’m a radio show host,” he said. “I’m a political commentator. I’ve been interviewed by everybody from Tucker Carlson to the Iranian government. I comment on civil human rights [matters] on a global basis and U.S. policy on a national basis. I’m on Newsmax a few times a week, I’m on Fox News a few times a week … I comment on politics.
“We have to look at the realities of the situation, which is that we live in a nation that, this is kind of a first in American history, where the line between public and private discourse has all been eroded,” Patillo added.
When asked whether he would preside over the case if he unseated McAfee, Patillo said, “You have to be prepared to take on any and every case before you.
“I believe that I’m ready to hit the ground running on Day One for whatever type of trial is in front of me, whether it be the president of the United States or a civil litigation trial,” Patillo said, noting that McAfee could assign the case to a different judge if he lost his reelection bid.
Atlanta-based attorney Phil Holloway said Patillo “absolutely would have to recuse himself” if the trial, which does not yet have a concrete start date, was passed over to Patillo at the end of McAfee’s term.
“He’s expressed personal bias against a defendant in a pending case,” Holloway added. “It’s just that simple.”
Patillo stressed that he does not hold any negative views of McAfee but that he simply believes he would do a better job in McAfee’s position. Patillo said he has voted for candidates across the political spectrum, and he’s described himself as a “conservative Democrat,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Patillo’s main goals, if elected to sit on the court, include cleaning up Fulton County’s notorious case backlog, something that McAfee has also expressed an interest in addressing if given a full term, and creating more vocational and education programs for young offenders when they are released from prison. Civil rights attorney Tiffani Johnson, a staff attorney for another Fulton County judge, also qualified for the race.
Meanwhile, attorney Christian Wise Smith, who ran against Willis four years ago, is challenging her in May’s Democratic primary election. Courtney Kramer, who interned for the White House counsel’s office under Trump for three months in 2018, was the only Republican to qualify for the district attorney’s race by the deadline at noon Friday. The general election is in November.
