The Georgia judge has spoken. Fani Willis may stay on to prosecute Donald Trump and his cronies.
Top News Today :
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis may stay and continue to prosecute the RICO cases against Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and 17 other defendants in Georgia. However, the caveat is that her lead prosecutor and one-time boyfriend, Nathan Wade, must withdraw from the case.
According to The New York Times, Judge McAfee called the intimate relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade a “tremendous lapse in judgment.” Nevertheless, despite pleas from the Trump defense attorneys to remove her from the case, the judge ultimately decided that her romantic acts fell short of an actual conflict of interest and that it did not jeopardize any of the cases going forward.
“Without sufficient evidence that the District Attorney acquired a personal stake in the prosecution, or that her financial arrangements had any impact on the case, the Defendants’ claims of an actual conflict must be denied,” McAfee ruled. “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 added that disqualifying Ms. Willis and her office from the case was not necessary when “a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available.” He clarified that “Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices –- even repeatedly.”
Judge McAfee ended by offering an ultimatum: either Nathan Wade must resign, or Ms. Willis and her entire office must go.
On Friday evening, Nathan Wade tendered his resignation and Ms. Willis accepted it.
“Seeking justice for the people of Georgia and the United States, and being part of the effort to ensure that the rule of law and democracy are preserved, has been the honor of a lifetime,” Mr. Wade wrote. He added that he was “proud of the work our team has accomplished in investigating, indicting, and litigating this case.”
Was the decision that Fani Willis may stay the right choice by Judge McAfee, or was his decision more of a compromise? Did the judge calculate that he needed to punish Ms. Willis in some way just to appease conservatives? Did McAfee consider how Black voters in Fulton County would respond to his re-election hopes if he had removed a Black woman from the Donald Trump case? Did this all end as expected?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
OK WASSUP! discusses the Top News Today:
Judge: Fani Willis may stay on the Donald Trump case.
USA Today: While Willis can still prosecute the case following the ruling, she may well face challenges to her law license at the State Bar of Georgia — even if experts don’t expect those challenges to succeed based on existing evidence. She could also have to deal with other state regulators. Even before the decision, a conservative group asked the State Bar to open disciplinary proceedings against both Willis and Wade. “She survived today, she survived this opinion, but this is not going away,” Andrew George, a trial lawyer and adjunct professor at the Georgetown Law Center, told USA TODAY within hours of the ruling. “The scrutiny is going to only build and build because her presentation and Mr. Wade’s presentation during this process were not convincing,” George said. McAfee himself alluded to the possibility of further repercussions in his Friday decision, which criticized Willis’ “tremendous lapse in judgment” and… Read more »