Mia has been covering the ethical quandaries of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was busted for a slew of questionable transactions between her office and that of Mr. Nathan Wade, her top counsel in the case against former President Donald Trump. County funds were directed to Wade’s law firm, which was also used to finance lavish trips for the couple whose relationship became a nightmare for the prosecution. It led to a hearing over this relationship, including creating a special committee in the state legislature to conduct its own investigation. After weeks of testimony, Judge Scott McAfee gave Willis two options: remove herself from the case or force Wade to resign due to the circumstances created by their undisclosed relationship. Wade has since resigned.
Before McAfee’s ruling, podcaster Joe Rogan said the whole Willis story reeked of things you’d hear from banana republics:
Joe Rogan Rips Fani Willis, Letitia James, and the Political Prosecutions of Donald Trump: "It Seems Like What Happens in Banana Republics"
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 15, 2024
"It's crazy how many times they've indicted him because it seems like what happens in banana republics, but just somehow or another, it's… pic.twitter.com/IvcpDtBstI
"It's crazy how many times they've indicted him because it seems like what happens in banana republics, but just somehow or another, it's okay? The exact same thing? Did you see when that guy from Shark Tank? Kevin O'Leary was discussing this whole thing, saying, you're gonna ruin real estate development in New York.
People won't want to do real estate deals there because this is how they do it. When they say my building is worth $400 billion, you're supposed to say no, it's worth $300 million. Here's a loan on $300 million. To say that that's fraud when he paid the loans back. Yeah, this is crazy. That is the epitome of, what are you doing? What are you chasing? What did you not chase down? And you're chasing this down?
Is it possible that you're doing this because this guy's running for president? Because it kind of seems like it to the world. It looks like you're trying to prosecute your political opponents. 360-something million dollars. That's insane. It's a lot of money. Where does it go? Because there are no victims, right? That's a problem. Elon tweeted that. It's just kind of bonkers.
And then you got the Georgia one with that Fani lady. That lady is in trouble. She's in trouble. She's in real trouble. The whole story is amazing. To see her on the stand getting sassy and see that her explanation was cash. She keeps a lot of cash around the house. Like, where do you get this cash? Why do you have so much cash to pay for all these vacations? You paid him back? What? It's like a little kid's explanation. Oh, I paid them back in cash.
The other thing she tried was, I am not about to emasculate a black man. What does that mean? That is not an answer to a question. But that's a way to throw up that race card and get out of this question. We're just talking about what you did with the money. What happened here?"
Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington University Law School, said that one cannot ignore the stench of political bias in the ongoing lawfare against Trump (via The Hill):
Channeling Tennessee Williams in his play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Judge Scott McAfee wrote that, after their testimony, there remained “an odor of mendacity.”
That odor was particularly strong after the hearings indicated that Wade may have committed perjury in his earlier divorce case, and that both Willis and Wade were credibly accused of lying on the stand about when their relationship began.
They are prosecuting defendants in the Trump case accused of the same underlying conduct, including 19 individual counts of false statements, false filings or perjury.
Yet, that distinct odor noted by Judge McAfee goes beyond the sorted affairs of Willis and Wade.
For many citizens, mendacity, or dishonesty, is wafting from various courtrooms around the country. The odor is becoming intolerable for many Americans as selective prosecution is being raised in a wide array of cases.
[…]
In New York, the legislature changed the statute of limitations to allow Trump to be sued while New York Attorney General Letitia James effectively ran on a pledge of selectively prosecuting him. She never specified any particular crime, just promising to bag Trump.
And the explicit bias is the reason why the GOP base doesn’t care about Trump’s legal baggage.
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