Donald Trump and Fani Willis both lose in Georgia case. And the circus rolls on.

Have you ever watched an argument and thought: Everyone here should be on the losing end?

That's the takeaway from Fulton County, Georgia, where former President Donald Trump and eight of his codefendants on Friday failed to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the racketeering case that charges them with trying to overturn the 2020 election in that state.

As wins go, this left Willis looking like a loser.

Everyone knows Trump's one true tactic is to turn everything into a circus. And Willis allowed her personal life – dating for a time the man she hired to prosecute the case – to become a sideshow that endangered it all.

This ruling will not end the sideshow. Trump has every reason to keep that rolling, to weaponize Willis' behavior to stall, stall, stall the case as long as possible. And he has accomplices ready to help with that, willing to use the ruling to drag Wills down at every turn.

What did the Georgia judge rule on the Fani Willis case?

Fulton County Superior Court Scott McAfee rejected the request to boot Willis from the case in a 23-page order that offered two options. She can step aside and let a state committee pick a new prosecutor. Or the prosecutor she hired and then dated, Nathan Wade, can step down from the job as Willis moves forward with the case.

Wade withdrew from his post after Friday's ruling, leaving Willis in charge of a case in the national spotlight. That denies Trump and his gang their real objective for now – to delay the case until after November's election as he is seeking the White House for the third time.

But Trump can ask McAfee to allow for an immediate review of his ruling by the Georgia Court of Appeals. Trump's campaign responded to Friday's ruling by saying, "We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case."

And there are more legal landmines being laid in Willis' path every day in Georgia. McAfee's terse and tough ruling may help them go boom.

Let the election begin. Biden must win back 2020 voters. Trump only cares about MAGA.

Willis showed a 'lapse in judgement' that will haunt her and the case against Trump

The crux of the challenge was that Willis, while dating Wade, went on lavish vacations that he paid for. Hiring him, the Trump camp argued, was a way of putting his salary in her pocket.

McAfee said Trump's defense attorneys didn't put up "sufficient evidence" to prove that. And he said their two key witnesses – a former friend of Willis' and Ward's former law partner – "left an odor of mendacity" as he tried to determine if they were telling the truth about Wade's relationship with Willis.

Still, McAfee said Wade and Willis left a "significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team." And he took serious issue Willis' emotional outbursts during her testimony, when she claimed that she paid in cash for expenses on those trips and reimbursements to Wade.

"This finding is by no means an indication that the Court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the District Attorney's testimony during the evidentiary hearing," McAfee wrote.

Expect to see the words "tremendous lapse in judgement" bandied about by Trump and his gang. How could they resist?

He also took issue with her "unorthodox" public comments about the case and the challenge, especially her Jan. 14 appearance at an Atlanta church, which he said "cast racial aspersions" at the defendants (who are mostly white) while noting that Wade is Black.

Trump weaponizes Willis relationship: Fani Willis should have seen Trump's predictable attack on her office romance coming

That's legalese for "playing the race card" in jurisprudence.

McAfee called that "legally improper" and suggested "the time may well have arrived for an order preventing the State from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity."

Trump supporters in Georgia are already working to hurt Willis

While McAfee mulls gagging Willis, Trump's Republican supporters in the Georgia government are actively working to further muddy the waters in the case.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday signed into law legislation to allow a new Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission to start operations that he said will hold "rogue and incompetent prosecutors" accountable.

The Republican speaker of the Georgia House, Jon Burns, claimed the law was not specifically aimed at Willis.

Sure, Mr. Speaker. Just a coincidence. Right.

Kemp, a Republican, also said this week he will support Trump as the party's nominee for president. That's an extraordinary show of loyalty since Trump recruited a primary challenger for Kemp in 2022 and lambasted him as a "a turncoat, a coward, and a complete and total disaster" for refusing to overturn his state's 2020 election.

Here lies another Republican, steamrolled by Trump's fury and then peeled off the pavement and propped up to offer now very thin support to avoid repeating the process.

I voted for Trump – twice. Liz Cheney's book and DOJ's Jan. 6 indictment changed my mind

Georgia's Senate in January launched a special committee to investigate Willis, allegedly for how she spent state tax dollars in the Trump case. The defense attorney for the Trump co-defendant who started the effort to have Willis removed from the case testified for more than three hours before that committee earlier this month.

Willis shrugged off that committee as "a political quest."

Hey, when you use a grand jury to indict a former president who is again seeking the White House, politics becomes an inevitable ingredient in everything that comes next.

The truth is that Willis should have known better while going after Trump

Willis should have known that when she hired Wade, a friend who was her third choice for the job. She should have kept that in mind when she crossed the line from boss to romantic partner. Trump and his crew could not have smeared her with this sideshow if she hadn't crossed that line.

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Testifying on Feb. 15, Willis was clearly outraged at having her behavior used against her. That's a terrible look for a prosecutor who spends every day questioning the behavior of defendants.

"You think I’m on trial," Willis told a defense attorney. "I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial."

Willis is being judged by the court of public opinion, which she obviously can recognize and utilize, considering her efforts to play the race card in the case at that Atlanta church.

She was preaching to a congregation that supports her, just as Trump is playing to a Republican audience in Georgia that will do anything they can to help him defeat her.

Willis mostly won on Friday. But the ruling will now be weaponized against her as she tries to bring her case to court. And every win or loss going forward with have that taint of tawdry sideshow attached.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fani Willis won the case against her. But she also helped Trump