The arguments begin at 1 Eastern Time.
ADDED: Watch live:
March 1, 2024
"If Ms. Willis is disqualified from the case, her entire office would be, too, and the case would probably be turned over to a district attorney from another jurisdiction."
"The new prosecutor could choose to continue the case as planned, modify the charges or drop them.... There is already some precedent within the Trump case for disqualification. In July 2022, a judge blocked Ms. Willis from developing a case against Burt Jones, a fake Trump elector in Georgia in 2020, because Ms. Willis had hosted a fund-raiser for one of Mr. Jones’s political rivals. A year and a half after the disqualification, no replacement prosecutor has yet been named to continue investigating Mr. Jones, who is now Georgia’s lieutenant governor. Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said in a recent interview that the current situation was different from the one involving Mr. Jones and suggested that it could move more quickly because an indictment has already been handed up...."
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"If you don't take out large amounts of cash every time you buy groceries squirrel it away like you're preparing for winter so you can give it to a gigolo lawyer who happens to work for you, you ain't no ways black!"
- Joe Biden, Roomba in Chief
If NYT is using phrases like There is already some precedent within the Trump case for disqualification and the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said in a recent interview that the current situation was different from the one involving Mr. Jones and suggested that it could move more quickly because an indictment has already been handed up.... you know that is likely what will happen.
Leftie lawfare is highly choreographed with the media. Contingencies are readily available and their necessity will not delay injustice...
No reasonable Georgia district attorney will continue this case. That is if he or she wants to get re-elected.
Dismiss the case with extreme prejudice.
This whole fiasco amazes me. Win or lose, Fani Willis was on course to be set for life. If she won, she took down Trump and even if she lost, there would be tons of people celebrating her taking on big old mean Trump. There was pretty much only one for her to mess this up and that was to hire her boyfriend and use the prosecution as a way to pay for her affair. Amazing how people can self destruct and f*ck up a good thing.
The indictment was tainted by kickbacks. It should be dismissed.
I hope all the Fulton County residents are happy with their taxpayer dollars spent on lavish vacations out of state. I've been told that is what lovers with that kind of means do, so I'm sure the residents are fine with it.
Hoisted by their own Fani.
Well I absolutely am enjoying all the stupid, unconstitutional, evil lawfare plans of the ruthless and soulless democrats coming unglued in spectacular fashion. This one took an unpredictable turn, unlike the others which rested on novel and unlikely to prevail (the hallmarks of Jack Smiths career TBH) theories of unique ways to prosecute one's political rival.
That ZERO elected democrats are standing up for due process is very telling. We all know they have a herd mentality, but to have RFK Jr. be the ONLY national democrat with the balls to say this is foolish and plain wrong, is truly astounding. It reinforces the common perception that anyone who uses the phrase "our democracy" is really saying "totalitarianism" every time. For example, "Trump is a threat to our democracy" actually means in plain English, "Trump threatens our totalitarianism."
And that's why hatred for him burns hotter than the sun. I think in fact that democrat hate is responsible for all the measurable warming around the globe.
She will never be disqualified. The imperative to get Trump is too strong. Just like when the PA Supreme Court found that the election boards violated the constitution, by only curing votes in Democratically heavy districts, but said that invalidating the election was too much, even though the US Constitution says that the case should have gone to the PA House, well, the imperative to beat Trump outweighed the legal niceties.
It should have gone to the Supreme Court under equal protection, per what happened in Bush v Gore, but the SCOTUS was intimidated by the authoritarian who is now in the White House.
The left will keep her.
Insider corruption is KING on the corrupt left.
She just got caught.
I hope all the Fulton County residents are happy with their taxpayer dollars spent on lavish vacations out of state.
This is definitely not limited to a few abusing lawfare types. There's a whole racket where public officials from every state are welcome to convene in major cites and vacation spots for comparing notes on what works to fleece your constituency followed by the reception and cocktails and dinner in the fanciest locales, preferably in a VIP area outlined by velvet ropes. All taxpayer funded. It became a game with us trying to decipher the cryptic signage put up in these venues...
International travel is still usually reserved for governors office-level corruptocrats or employees of the federal government. Of course there there are exceptions...
Low-IQ DA does low-IQ things and there may be consequences.
The consequences (should they come) would be shocking, as our African American brothers and sisters are almost never held responsible for anything politically.
One of the best soaps going...
"That ZERO elected democrats are standing up for due process is very telling. "
This x 1,000.
In my youth the left supported free speech. They supported innocent until proven guilty. They supported court rulings. They fought against the "man" when the government took aim at the little guy.
These and more are long gone.
SCOTUS was intimidated by the fascist who is now in the White House.
FIFY
Facist, in the Mussolini, not the Orwell usage, is a perfectly correct word to use when referring to the current govt.
See Mussolini's "the doctrine of fascism" and tell me how it doesn't fit the executive branch to a T.
John Henry
"No reasonable Georgia district attorney will continue this case."
It will be interesting, no regular county in GA could afford to run the case, except perhaps DeKalb and Cobb, which are suburban but still Democrat. The more important thing is where the Jury comes from. Any jury would be less biased than Fulton, and I assume the Jury would be selected from the County where the trial was, but I could be wrong.
I consider Fani's media work jury tampering. I don't see why DA's get to try the case in public before the jury is selected, that is where Naifong went bad.
i just want to make sure i understand The Rules?
is it: a democrat can do WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT?
or is it: a POC can do WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT?
or is it: a Woman can do WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT?
wait a minute; i think i've finally got it: a female POC democrat can do WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT?
I just want to make sure i'm on the right page
I don't think there's any honorable way that the judge can rule in her favor. The Democrats, though, have taken the position that they need not convince a single Trump voter of Trump's guilt. The mere fact that they voted for Trump makes them ineligible to serve on any jury. If the trial is held in Fulton County or some other heavily Democrat jurisdiction, Trump will be found guilty even after all this.....Some day I would wish that some Black politician or celebrity screws up and that screw up causes them to lose support in the Black community. The best one can hope for is a tacit silence when they smolletify themselves. I don't think Fani will go the way of Smollet though. More likely, like Coleman Young, this will solidify her support. Many of Fani's critics have taken vacations or even had sex so they are, therefore, hypocrites to criticize her for doing so. Fani Willis will stand as the standard bearer for all Black women who want to take a vacation.
Listened for one minute. Lawyer is citing the GA Rules of Professional Conduct.
Fani and Wade need to be disbarred with extreme prejudice.
Reminder to the Althouse community. Former Nebraska AG Paul Douglas was disbarred for much less. And it was for misleading testimony in a civil case that didn't involve the State of Nebraska.
I sometimes wonder if the Trump criminal persecutions were actually meant to get in front of a jury before the election. The civil trials were obvious since they drain Trump of cash in the form of appeal bonds and judgements. I always thought the idea behind the criminal trials was to generate indictments during the primary season, to excite the Trump-o-philes to indulge their thirst for a revenge-fueled nomination, but then the trials would drag on. "Co-conspirators" would be squeezed for damaging plea bargain statements and derogatory testimony from depositions would be leaked but the trials would move forward slowly in endless motions, counter-motions, and scheduling conflicts. "Indicted" would be just as good as "convicted" (see the way Trump has been 'found guilty of rape' vis E Jane Carroll's civil defamation suit).
To me this explains why Willis appears not to have cared much about the appearance of impropriety, or Wade's inexperience organizing a RICO case. There wasn't supposed to be a case against Trump, just an indictment and leaks and allocutions from the small fry caught in the net. And she and her boy toy would get to live large on a pot of cash she otherwise wouldn't have been able to access. Win-Win.
Of course that assumed Biden would be on a comfortable cruise to renomination and re-election, not stumbling up the stairs while mumbling incoherently about Gaza and Hunter. It also assumed that Trump would be in a knock-drag-out nomination fight, not the presumptive nominee before March with all but the most bitterly dead-ender NeverTrumpers at least aligned with him. All of a sudden "indicted for" wasn't cutting into Trump's lead, and the big guns were going to have to come out. Fani got knocked on her ass by the recoil.
(BTW, I don't think Smith is in a hurry due to Super Tuesday but to get a conviction before the GOP convention in hopes that will stop Trump's momentum.)
Is it too late for Fani to explain the reason she gave the case to her boyfriend was that she was high on crack, and therefore it wasn't due to personal interest?
This is not a legal case but a political case. The judge is a political animal. He's not going to rule against Fani and lose his next election.
14. Disciplinary Proceedings. Violation of any of the ethical standards relating to the practice of law, or any conduct of an attorney in his professional capacity which tends to bring reproach upon the courts or the legal profession, constitutes grounds for suspension or disbarment.
15. Disciplinary Proceedings: Public Officers and Employees. The conduct of a government attorney is required to be more circumspect than that of a private lawyer. Improper conduct on the part of a government attorney is more likely to harm the entire system of government in terms of public trust.
State ex rel. Nebraska State Bar Ass'n v. Paul Douglas
We’re talking about something that never had any chance of going to trial before the election to begin with, and now it's later, but to some extent how much later is almost an academic question.
Trump said that 5,000 dead people voted, and that's not true, and that's a crime. And you could prove that January 2, 2021. So having a special grand jury and all this stuff and 19 co-defendants seems like a baffling decision even if you didn't know about the other stuff.
@E BegleyWhat happens to the defendants who've already pleaded guilty in the Georgia RICO case if the case unravels?
The issue devolves less to her affair than to the fact that she went to one of the city's most prominent bleach churches, invited the media, then smeared the defense as racists, claiming she was in direct contact with God, and that they were against God.
She also spoke about the case with the authors writing a book about the case before it was tried.
Josephbleau is right: this is jury tampering, even if you don't look at the perjury. Even if they used cash on those trips, there are clear reporting rules.
Wade's divorce isn't even settled. Or sealed. And he's a divorce attorney.
I worked in several entities and nonprofits that did business in Atlanta's politics and courts. It's a bottomless cesspool of fraud. In that type of environment, you can get pretty careless about hiding it. And frankly, until now, Willis was one of the better elected officials.
The entire DA Staff has been implicated in the general conflict of interest of Willis and Wade by some of the ways that they defended the actions of Willis and Wade. This was point of one of the Defense lawyers. Point being - the whole team should be disqualified and all cases dismissed. Remarkable.
Willis' attorney's closing is realllllllly weak. Stuff like "the witness who testified that she saw Willis and Wade kissing and hugging wasn't asked what kind of kissing and hugging," suggesting that maybe it was a kiss on the cheek (of course, they themselves could have asked but apparently did not). He sounds like he knows he has nothing.
Of course, it is Atlanta, so anything could happen...
Rich:
Don't know. But I can imagine the record could be expunged. Or plea vacated.
For every wrong, there is a remedy.
Willis' lawyer just said that the case law cited by the Trump team actually supported his position that an "appearance of conflict" is not enough, then blithly moves on. The judge stops him and asks him to explain - "show me how" (since he did not then explain how any of the cited cases took his, versus the Trump team's position) and he hesitated for so long that it seems clear that he is in the wrong and knows he is in the wrong. Turns out (at least based on what he came up with is that all of the cases that stated that an appearance was enough actually found a conflict of interest, not just the appearance of one. Oh yeah, and even that applies only to cases involving conflicts of the DA, not the law generally.
Weak.
I'm looking at the WaPo live feed and it's all about when the relationship started. I don't care about the relationship itself, I care about whether Wade got preferential treatment, including being over-paid, and used the money to buy things for Willis.
A few weeks ago, it was all about the money and special treatment. Now it's all about when they started dating?
Trump said that 5,000 dead people voted, and that's not true, and that's a crime.
I would agree, 5000 dead people did not actually vote. Ballots were cast in their name, but not by them.
No proof that this isn't true.
Even if not true, not a crime.
But hey, you got the first part right!
Now he is down to there must be (1) an actual conflict of interst, and (b) that the conflict cannot be cured! So here, if Willis and Wade claim they are no longer dating, everything is okay?
"A few weeks ago, it was all about the money and special treatment. Now it's all about when they started dating?"
No. It's about the former and lying on the stand about the latter.
@ E Bagley: They could always move to withdraw and say the lawyers were somehow ineffective for pleading them out, but that's a pretty tough road to hoe. I mean, ultimately they got amazing deals. They got first offender probation misdemeanor or felony cases that doesn't count against them as a felony. That might not even get them in trouble with GA State Bars. I'm not really sure how that's going to work. And so they're probably satisfied. They probably don't want to spend a million dollars trying this case anyway.
The other thing is, there's a hidden time bomb here people haven't talked about. Some of the people in this case are Georgia legislators and they can't be forced to file motions until the end of session. So even if the judge rules against it here, any new evidence they discover up until April could be a new motion to disqualify, and he can't very well hold it against them they didn't file it sooner. So it's a lot more fun coming.
I'm enjoying Willis lawyer giving rebuttal claiming their was no evidence proving Wade spent the night at Willis home prior to what was stated, that the phone evidence wasn't "peer reviewed" and should be rejected, and that the phone evidence proves Wade wasn't at Willis home.
"No evidence that she didn't receive a financial benefit", but she went on vacations paid for by Wade. There is no evidence that she repaid the gifts nor reported the gifts.
The State has made it very difficult for this judge to rule on Willis behalf.
LMAO, she's innocent because she stayed at the Double Tree!
72pt Heh.
The best argument that.Willis hired the most competent person to try the Trumo RICO case was the State’s lawyer providing rebuttal in closing arguments. That guy was sad.
2 weeks to hope we forget about the close.
I've gotta say, I'm developing a certain guilty fondness for Nathan Wade. He is obviously not taking any of this seriously. $640K! What's not to like?
I won't say it's nice work if you can get it. Maybe once, for $640K. Hopefully with someone else's dick. Nah, I guess not. There's easier ways to make a living, plus you can always just go ahead and die poor.
But Nate has booked a lot of cabins.
"No reasonable Georgia district attorney will continue this case. That is if he or she wants to get re-elected."
Dave, I get the feeling that you practice law. But perhaps not in Atlanta. Do you twerk much? I mean, professionally.
How good a name is “Skandalakis” for someone even tangentially involved in this case?
"Trump said that 5,000 dead people voted, and that's not true, and that's a crime."
How is it a crime? Where is the law that says that somebody can not say something that isn't true? You can say that Trump must have known it to not be true, but that's just something you are saying because you have proven, over and over again here, that you hate Trump.
Was it a crime for Joe Biden to say that he was not involved in his son's business? When Joe used to call into Hunter's meetings with clients all the time; twenty times that we know of? He certainly knew that it was not true.
Imagine me telling the IRS, like Hunter Biden says about the "loan repayment" to his dad from ChiCom funds, "I didn't keep any records, so you can't prove anything, you have to take my 'word as a Biden'," or like Willis says, It was all in cash, and I didn't keep any records, so you can't prove anything. Check. Mate.
If they had anything like this amount of evidence against Trump, he would be in an orange jumpsuit, and I would be happy to turn the key to lock him up, but since it's one of theirs, well, you know, this is a country of men, not of laws, right?
The defense counsel’s argument was that $9,200 is at issue. Spread over 4 or 5 trips, that works out to about $2,000 per trip. Very nice, but not lavish. One of those trips was with the boyfriend’s mother, another was with the boyfriend’s sisters. Here’s your kickback, a week with me and my mother and a New Years Eve with me and my sisters, just doesn’t ring true. And where is the prejudice to the defendants?
If we let defendants get their cases dismissed or convictions vacated based on the alleged appearance of any form of possible corruption in a prosecuting attorney’s office, it’s going to be very hard to keep any criminal in jail.
"A few weeks ago, it was all about the money and special treatment. Now it's all about when they started dating?"
This is because if she started dating AFTER she hired him, its less of a corrupt action. "We fell in love at work."
But if you was dating him before he started, then hiring is like hiring your relation - much more corrupt.
I haven’t even blessed this shit with so much as a side glance but that won’t prevent me from making a relevant comment- any of you assholes trying to spin this sow’s ear or anyone diligently posting on this as news…you get no credit for credibility as a thinking person if you can’t recognize the game being played- for these dooshes, Comey, the nearly dead NY judge, the shopping cart dressing room rape women, the roll around on the bed with the SCOTUS judge woman Ann found credible…they all have a job to do and will be richly rewarded with a fire hose of money and perks if they do what is asked of them and take a few hits.
Sorry not sorry for the guy what got his arm blown off and the guy what got his chest blown out in WI. You made a bad deal…
I stayed at that Doubletree in July of 2020 during Covid while working in a job in Synova. It was like $80.00, but no cookies. Or service. Or food. Or anything. Last year during the season it was anywhere from $350.00- $500.00 plus. I bet ya get cookies now.
Trump grabs them by the Fani.
@ E Bagley: They could always move to withdraw and say the lawyers were somehow ineffective for pleading them out, but that's a pretty tough road to hoe. I mean, ultimately they got amazing deals. They got first offender probation misdemeanor or felony cases that doesn't count against them as a felony. That might not even get them in trouble with GA State Bars. I'm not really sure how that's going to work. And so they're probably satisfied. They probably don't want to spend a million dollars trying this case anyway.
Sure. No big deal. You made the mistake of being politically engaged in challenging the process of an election because you had ample reason to believe that corruption had occurred. But your side "lost." And the State came down on you like a ton of bricks, and brought novel charges against you in a grossly unfriendly jurisdiction sure to convict you of whatever bullshit "crimes" they could concoct.
So you took your lawyers' advice and pled out. You've never even got a traffic ticket, for crissakes, but now you've got probation. And you saved a million dollars.
What are you bitching about? Justice in America.
And you will never, ever consider doing anything like questioning the propriety of a n election again.
Right, Rich?
Very nice, but not lavish.
Indeed, the state made your silly argument. “He stayed at a Double Tree, that’s not lavish”. Except last time you were here, you were claiming no big deal that people with their means went on lavish vacations. Fortunately, the defense also pointed out that the state considers $100 materially sufficient to require reporting and the DA’s failure to report that gift is enough to see her disqualified. That’s it. It doesn’t matter when they started dating, it doesn’t matter if she later paid them back. It matters she took the gift and didn’t report it.
@Left Bank of the Charles sez at 15:45 "If we let defendants get their cases dismissed or convictions vacated based on the alleged appearance of any form of possible corruption in a prosecuting attorney’s office, it’s going to be very hard to keep any criminal in jail."
Please pay attention and try to stay up to speed. Charging, prosecuting, and imprisoning people is so last year. Here you are, cautioning us about the dangers of dismissing charges for 'corruption in the prosecutor's office' as something we should worry about, when violent illegal immigrants are being let go, no charges, no bail, after assaulting police officers? Puh - leeeze. Thanks for playing !
the indictment would have to be overturned and the case restarted with a new grand jury because willis and wade were involved in that, too.
If we let defendants get their cases dismissed or convictions vacated based on the alleged appearance of any form of possible corruption in a prosecuting attorney’s office, it’s going to be very hard to keep any criminal in jail.
Said the man who believes that the solution to all problems is more government.
"It matters she took the gift and didn’t report it."
Really? Even black women? That's racist.
The left are rolling in corrupt anti-Trump greed money. Paid for by tax payers.
Rich: "Trump said that 5,000 dead people voted, and that's not true, and that's a crime."
Bwhahahahahahahahahaha
What a tool. A "crime"?
"You can't say 5000 dead people voted in a crowded theatre!"
"That's hate speech against the non-living!"
Repeat: Chuck, Rich, whoever you are, keep coming with this shite and we'll keep laughing at you, mocking you, but we won't put you in jail because false statements (or even true ones) are NOT a crime.
Rich - are you that stupid?
OR just such a craven NBC hack - that you actually buy your Authoritarianism ?
Rich is an NBC plant. Potted and fake. Like the one Weinstien peed in.
Behold: Leftist brains actually work like NBC-Rich.
You'd make a good KGB agent, Rich.
I like that shit eating grin on Wade's face. He's probably thinking "I made $600k for doing nothing. It's all good."
Take a good look at Left Bank in this thread- that is what being forced to defend the indefensible looks like. It makes you look stupid, dishonest, and pathetic all at the same time. An honest person would just say that Willis and Wade need to be disqualified and that the investigators, whoever they turn out to be, will just have to start over from scratch with a new grand jury somewhere outside of Fulton County, Georgia.
The facts are basically uncontested here- Willis was paying her boyfriend hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public funds to try a case he is fundamentally unqualified for, and personally benefitted from it herself- the trips are the things from which you know she benefitted- you probably don't know all of it. Willis' and Wade's denials are simply unbelievable, nor should any benefit of the doubt be given to them. People like Left Bank try to pretend that this could have started after Wade was appointed, but here is the problem- what possible reason could Willis have had to choose Wade in the first place if she wasn't already sleeping with him?
Willis and Wade should be disqualified and a criminal investigation for misuse of public funds must be started by the state AG's office.
One question the judge asked was a little ominous for W and W…. Something like “What’s the limiting principle?” That is, if the facts require DQ from the RICO cases, do they also require same from other ongoing cases? Willis’s behavior in particular taints everything she is involved with.
Ann Althouse said...
"The arguments begin at 1 Eastern Time."
What is that in CPT? Punctuality is White Supremacy after all.
Yancey Ward said...
"... what possible reason could Willis have had to choose Wade in the first place if she wasn't already sleeping with him?"
I think it's clear: Her current staff was insufficient and she liked what she saw in his briefs.
Since this is Atlanta, Fani shoulda hired Matlock to defend her.
Yancey said.
Willis and Wade should be disqualified and a criminal investigation for misuse of public funds must be started by the state AG's office.
Hey loyalist leftist hacks -
this is who you are defending
A few weeks ago, it was all about the money and special treatment. Now it's all about when they started dating?
It's not all about that, but Wade made it an issue in his court filings. Add perjury to the list of disqualifying behaviors.
...the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia... suggested that it could move more quickly because an indictment has already been handed up...
The indictment came from a "special powers" grand jury due to Wade's appointment. Defense would claim indictments are fruit of the poisoned tree and move to dismiss.
Judge is up for re-election, but the filing deadline is soon. It's possible he will be the only name on the ballot. If Fani wants to run a crony against him, she needs to move fast.
Speech Crime leftists like NBC Rich think that the US has speech crimes.
News flash - we do not. (yet)
NBC radical leftist Rich is merely dreaming of a future where the US operates using leftist speech codes - and imprisoning people for speech crimes and mind crimes.
Craven commie bastard.
Jupiter said...
"No reasonable Georgia district attorney will continue this case. That is if he or she wants to get re-elected."
"Dave, I get the feeling that you practice law. But perhaps not in Atlanta. Do you twerk much? I mean, professionally."
Are you kidding? Have you seen his profile picture? Nobody is going to pay Dave for anything BUT the practice of law.
When it comes to political show trials, what counts most is
"Location, location, location."
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