Womp womp, choo choo!
Team Trump’s desperately thirsty efforts to get Fulton County DA Fani Willis disqualified from the Georgia election interference case and sent to legal Siberia have flopped, and the train of justice is once again chugging along on track.
In a 23-page opinion, Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday that no, there was no actual conflict of interest in DA Willis hiring as a consultant her partner in banging Nathan Wade, but their (now former) relationship does look improper, so either Wade or Willis should step down. Oh, ok, fine, well, that was not a hard decision, he’s out, and bye!
McAfee’s ruling comes after weeks of a puckeringly cringy evidentiary hearing, courtesy of Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, an old-school election fuckateer and Koch Brothers protégé. Roman sent his lawyer Ashleigh Merchant to go down to the Fulton courthouse and sniff around for some kind of gotcha truffle that would prove DUE PROCESS DENIED KANGAROO COURT BIAS. Remember the manufactured outrage in 2008 about Black Panthers feloniously holding open doors for old ladies at the polls? Of course you do, Wonkette was on about that forever. That was Roman.
Remember when!
Team Trump was supposed to be trying to prove that Wade and Willis’s alleged bonery or possible smoochery benefited Willis financially somehow, but they gave up pretty quickly when the evidence was weaksauce. So they pivoted to days of bringing in friends, family, and idle gossips to fish for some gotcha proving Willis lied about when she and Wade first had the sexxxy sexxx sexxx, or at least about when they went to Panera and exchanged a lingering glance, which would mean PERJURY and the whole case is made up to prosecute pure and chaste Donald Trump and his very fine friends. They didn’t prove that either, though they made a valiant effort trying to humiliate Willis for being a lady who had sex.
They even dragged in Willis’s elderly father, who testified that Willis had actually been dating some DJ at the time instead. They found an extremely creepy cell phone expert to track all of Wade and Willis’s movements for 11 months, in hopes that Judge McAfee would gasp in horror that their two phones had been in the vicinity of each other, so therefore PENILE KICKBACKS LIES UNFAIR NO RICO!
Welp, McAfee wasn’t having it.
“Defendants were provided an opportunity to subpoena and introduce whatever relevant and material evidence they could muster.” Translation, they scraped the very bottom of every barrel they could find with a rusty spoon. “The Court finds that the Defendants failed to meet their burden.” Sad trombone. He goes on to say,
However, an odor of mendacity remains… The Court therefore concludes that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the State selects one of two options. The District Attorney may choose to step aside, along with the whole of her office, and refer the prosecution to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council for reassignment. […] Alternatively, SADA Wade can withdraw, allowing the District Attorney, the Defendants, and the public to move forward without his presence or remuneration distracting from and potentially compromising the merits of this case.
Sure, okay.
McAfee was also super pissed that Willis got all of us into this in the first place, which, also fair.
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. 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. Rather, it is the undersigned’s opinion that Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices – even repeatedly.
Yeah, yeah. They are surely the only two lawyer co-workers who ever dated, scandal scandal.
Let us now freshen our Friday afternoon martinis with loser tears. Whined Steve Sadow, lead defense counsel for former President Donald Trump:
While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the it did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis’ extrajudicial MLK “church speech,” where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism. We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place.
Translation: She’s Blackety Black Black. She goes to Black church in Blacktown. White people victim, Black people scary. Black lady no allowed to prosecute! Black lady who has sex, double extra not allowed!!
And Drunk Uncle Rudy G also wants attention:
This whole show-trial should concern every American, including those who won't be voting for President Trump, because while they might be targeting President Trump and Mayor Giuliani today, they'll eventually come for you too—that is the danger of remaining silent in the face of injustice. The encouraging news is that more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that this whole show trial is part of a larger effort to keep President Trump out of the White House and to silence his supporters.
So silenced you won’t shut up!
Willis and Wade have gotten hundreds of death threats. Willis had to move out of her home, and her dad had to clean spray painted n-words off of her house, and by the way the defendants tried to disenfranchise the majority of voters in Georgia. But who’s the real victim here?
It’s probably also worth mentioning that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday signed a law that would create Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission that could remove elected prosecutors that they don’t like, with no oversight. So it could all go away again.
And there’s no start date yet for this trial, and if it even begins before November, it’s certain to take years. But hey, little victories.
PREVIOUSLY!
Now can we get Ginni?
"...while they might be targeting President Trump and Mayor Giuliani today, they'll eventually come for you too..."
They'll come after me for RICO election fraud? I think I'm OK, Rudy.