February 2, 2024
"While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek."
Said Fani Willis in a new court filing, quoted in "Prosecutor in Trump Georgia Case Admits Relationship With Colleague/But the prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, said there wasn’t a relationship with Nathan Wade before she hired him and argued that it should not disqualify her" (NYT).
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"...none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek."
I guess that's for the court to decide.
Coordinated by the day until the end. Not to worry. It is written.
How does this change anything? They will say that she had a crush on him and offered an inflated bill rate to entice him to take a job he was not qualified to execute (i.e., RICO suits). Then after he took the job, "Fani pounced" and suggested they travel together alone and whatnot.
Suggestive and moderately railroading female dating efforts were routine in my high school and colleges. Will her boyfriend next file a lawsuit against her, alleging sexual harassment?
This doesn't change anything. Willis admits that she is unfit to public service. It's time to indict her on multiple counts of unethical behavior and defrauding the public.
Imagine a novel that would portray Mr. Wade (sympathetically) in a first person after the fact memoir of current events, written by a latter day AI resurrection of Tom Wolfe. I'd read that book. How about the movie that would make?
M-m-m. That's entertainment. Look at what the future's going to look like.
She's gonna go down swinging, apparently.
Willis is hoisted by her own Fani. Karmic irony.
there wasn’t a relationship with Nathan Wade before she hired him
That a better argument for her? See Enigma above.
My biggest problem is Nathan Wade's visit to the Biden White House the day prior to the case, the RICO case, being brought against Trump. A trip Wade expensed against the taxpayers paying to bring the case to trial. If Trump was running a racket inside the White House to interfere with Georgia elections, as Willis claims; then what is Wade, Willis, and Biden doing?
An aside, the latest Mann trial podcast just dropped, "Mann & Curry".
Wade is a special counsel, but my understanding is he was brought on (superficially) for manpower reasons, not as an independent counsel because the district attorney was conflicted out due to political motives. And generally, politicised prosecutions of opponents don't seem to trigger this independence concern. E.g., when the Obama DOJ opened investigations of the Trump campaign, they didn't need to set up a special counsel. Same when the Trump FBI seized the Biden laptop (and then sat on it). It's really only on the other side, where the man in charge has an incentive to make the prosecution go away (or reach a generous settlement), e.g. Trump's DOJ investigating his campaign, or Biden's DOJ and IRS investigating his dissipated son.
As far as I can tell, Willis isn't walled off from the investigation at all, so her having an adulterous relationship with her lead prosecutor doesn't give her any improper or undue influence over the direction of the case. And she certainly didn't initiate the case to facilitate the affair. She did it to Get Trump just like her voters want. So honestly, I don't think this matters, other than making Willis look like a corrupt homewrecker -- satisfying for the targets of her prosecution, but not grounds for her disqualification. But I don't know the relevant laws and practices in Georgia.
Beyond parody, beyond satire and ultimately beyond any rational reality. Stick a fork in her. She's done.
The releationship per se might not lead to the termination of the case-as distastful as it appears. That being said, the real danger for Ms. Willis is:
18 U.S. Code § 666 - Theft or bribery concerning programs..
What she has done is hire an arguably un-or under-qualified prosecutor, made an end run of standard official vetting procedures, and ended up with a paramour who conveyed monetary benefits to her-along with the romantic perks of her relationship. Potentially, this is a federal crime.
If the charge is brought, her case will be jettisoned; but the mere possibility might bring the same result.
Ipso facto, if she hired him for high money despite his lack of experience, then she was having a relationship with him. Question is, did they agree that once she hired him for high money, he would file for divorce, which he did the very next day. Did he extort her?
The truly interesting character in all this is Mike Roman. How he discovered Wade's divorce case and the ramifications for his own case would make a great show.
Man, I can smell that one from here.
There is evidence that prosecuting Trump, et al, enriched the boyfriend and through him Willis. No experienced prosecutor in her office was paid $650k for a year's work, nor was she.
Like all Democrats, she will ride this grift to the end even if it jeopardizes her case. She doesn't want it reassigned to an honest prosecutor.
Who was it that said Deny, Deny, Deny? Clinton?
"Garnered media attention..."
Because Willis never sought to "garner" media attention.
So forget the salacious details and simply deal with the facts of the case: Willis hired as a lawyer a demonstrably unqualified person, and received benefits from this deal personally. That is a slam dunk malfeasance in office warranting immediate dismissal from her job in any state agency. the salacious stuff just makes the deep belly laughter more satisfying.
" but my understanding is he was brought on (superficially) for manpower reasons,"
Yeah, that's my understanding, too.
The improper relationship(s), funneling money, illicit affairs, etc.. simply show she has NO ethics... and since they went to the WH to talk to Biden before Trump's indictments, it becomes a scandal of epic proportions.
She is done. Her boyfriend is done. The case(s) against Trump are done. All done in BAD FAITH.
You are now seeing a slow motion collapse.
I mean, as long as they didn't start fucking until after she hired him, it's obviously all kosher, right?
I don't think Viola Davis will be making a major motion picture out of the Fani Willis story. It's an interesting story, but it will have to wait for a later generation to tell it....If the prosecution had proceeded without blemish, you can bet Fani would have been up there with Joan of Arc. In terms of reputation, she has lost bigly. There's no way she comes out of this looking good, but, of course, with the right jury she could still convict Trump of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
So having sex with people you supervise is just fine and dandy.
Heartless Aztec said...
Beyond parody, beyond satire and ultimately beyond any rational reality. Stick her in an Iron Maiden and roll her down a long hill.
fify
"Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election" is a new book written by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
One revelation in the book is that Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade, accused of an "improper, clandestine relationship" with Willis, was not her first choice, according to Klaidman. Willis initially approached Roy Barnes, a former governor of Georgia, and Gabe Banks, a former federal prosecutor, and highly respected criminal defense lawyer, both of whom declined involvement due to the politically incendiary nature of the case and the time it would require of them.
CNN News reported last night that there were also concerns from these lawyers about threats from extremists on the Trump side and the need to hire personal security guards for family and support personnel.
Willis eventually turned to Wade, a friend and mentor, believing he had the toughness to handle the case. However, a source told the book's authors that Wade was not intended to be the lead courtroom lawyer but was hired to organize the investigation, run the grand jury, and hammer out immunity deals.
Trump’s campaign paid Atlanta attorney Steven Sadow $1.5 million in just the second half of 2023. Trump hired Sadow to represent him in the Georgia election subversion case, more than double the amount paid in total to Nathan Wade, and Sadow provided no substantial defenses for the ex-president to the charges brought through grand juries. It was Trump's personal spy, Mike Roman who filed a faulty lawsuit containing incorrect claims on Trump's behalf against Willis and Wade.
@Balfegor
IANAL so this is mostly an interested observer's SWAG ... setting aside the conflict of interest reasons for assigning a case to a special prosecutor, any special prosecutor has a financial conflict of interest when making investigation and prosecution decisions. IIRC there were rumblings about this during the Ken Starr investigation of Billy Jeff. Willis or any other attorney in her office gets paid no more, and no less, if they bring hundreds of cases to trial or none (though either of those circumstances might raise political questions). Wade only gets paid if his investigation and prosecution of Trump continue. The cure for this conflict of interest would be cruelly neutral oversight by the official who hired him. If Willis is getting personal benefits (heh) from an association with Wade then her ability to conduct effective oversight of the case is compromised. You are correct that it doesn't matter when the relationship started. The important thing is that it is continuing during the time when she's supposed to be making sure that Wade's prosecution doesn't turn into a pointless exercise in generating billable hours.
" Ah, ah did not have sexual relations with that woman....miss Lewinsky !
Sure, sure, the unequivocal truth. .........../sarc.
The effin’ she gets for the effin’ she got.
I still say SNL should put a wig and a skirt on Tracy Morgan and let the man do what he does best.
Wade is such a superb divorce attorney that he forgot to seal his own divorce records.
Trump is a private citizen who chose a very expensive attorney who is worth every dollar. Not our business. And I seriously doubt he has done "nothing." I'm not in the habit of praising the defense bar, but his skill in this type of prosecution speaks for itself. I imagine you're ignorant of it.
Willis is a public servant, and we shouldn't be paying for her dalliances.
Former Governor Roy Barnes would have done massive harm to Willis' optics because he is the former Democratic Governor of Georgia and because of his own personal feud with the all-powerful teacher unions, who also despise Willis. If she asked him, that showed a serious lack of judgement on her part.
The only terrorists in Atlanta are the international cadre of pro-Gaza, Israel-eliminationist, eco-terrorist, cop-eliminationist Stop Cop City cabal, who have committed acts of arson in several states, set off bombs, blew up buildings and equipment, rioted repeatedly, and shot at police. They're in your ledger, not ours.
We could play tit for tat, Gadfly, but why bother?
Re: Christopher B:
The cure for this conflict of interest would be cruelly neutral oversight by the official who hired him. If Willis is getting personal benefits (heh) from an association with Wade then her ability to conduct effective oversight of the case is compromised.
I think the cure is just that Wade should be fired. But bigger picture, that does nothing for the defendants other than maybe delay proceedings a bit more, because Trump isn't Wade's white whale -- Willis is Captain Ahab here. As long as she's directing the case, it won't go away. And this fact pattern doesn't seem like it would justify removing her from the case.
Balfegor said...
I think the cure is just that Wade should be fired
Close
Teh sure is that Wade should be fired, and Wilis should be fired and prosecuted for abuse of power. Because bring and overpaying your paramour is corruption and an abuse of power
And that's a big win for the defendants, because only a corrupt weasel would have ever brought the case
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