I’m curious. Regarding the Georgia election case, where – exactly – is the Fanni Willis “conflict” that may have impaired, impinged or otherwise impacted the rights of those accused in that case?
The Associated Press reported this:
“A Fulton County grand jury in August indicted Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty…Trump and eight other defendants had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, arguing that a romantic relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the state Court of Appeals.”
So, again, what EXACTLY is the “conflict” that infringes on the rights of the accused in the Georgia, some of whom have already – in fact pleaded guilty.
CNN reported this:
“In March, after what amounted to a mini-trial where attorneys for Trump and his co-defendants sought to prove their case against Willis and Wade, McAfee found there was not enough evidence to firmly prove Willis financially benefited from the relationship.”
So, the prosecutors were put on trial and the judge found that there wasn’t evidence to say that Willis got some kind of financial favor from Wade. But even if she HAD, where is the “conflict” that harms the right of the accused?
The Washington Post put it like this:
“McAfee ruled that Trump and the others had ‘failed to meet their burden’ of proving Willis’s romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade and allegations that she was financially enriched by trips the two took together were enough of a ‘conflict of interest’ to disqualify her from the case..
To put it differently, the “conflict” in this case was that Willis and Wade slept together and sometimes took trips together– they were “bad” — and thus that should disqualify them from the case. But, What. About. The. Case? What about the facts of the case? What about the specific charges and the charges to which others have pled guilty?
Sydney Powell – yes, her – pled guilty to “conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.” She also agreed to help prosecutors in other cases.
Guess who was involved in the conspiracy and the other cases?
Kenneth Chesebro, charged with seven felony counts, pled guilty to “one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. ” False documents to be used to overturn the election results. Guess on whose behalf Chesebro filed those false documents? Chesebro agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in other cases too.
Trump attorney Jenna Ellis pleased guilty in Georgia “to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.”
So, there’s a pattern here.
But where – exactly – is the “conflict” in the other cases? The cases of the ringleader Trump, and dirty trickster Mike Roman? The cases of Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman? Of Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark and the rest?
Meanwhile, the findings of fact in the Colorado court decision by Sarah Wallace that declared Trump an insurrectionist, which relied heavily on the January 6 Committee Report and included testimony by officers attacked in the January 6 riot, have gone unchallenged by any credible evidence, including that put forth by Trump or his attorneys. As noted in the decision,
“while Trump spent much time contesting potential biases of the Committee members and their staff, he spent almost no time attacking the credibility of the Committee’s findings themselves. The Hearing provided Trump with an opportunity to subject these findings to the adversarial process, and he chose not to do so, despite frequent complaints that the Committee investigation was not subject to such a process. Because Trump was unable to provide the Court with any credible evidence which would discredit the factual findings of the January 6th Report, the Court has difficulty understanding the argument that it should not consider its findings which are admissible under C.R.E. 803(8).”
The Colorado Supreme Court found that because Trump was – in fact – an insurrectionist, he could not be on the Colorado ballot because the United States Constitution explicitly prohibited it under Article 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Seems pretty clear: “no person shall…hold any office, civil or military, under the Constitution who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same…”
The United States Supreme Court ignored the findings of fact in the Colorado trial court and overturned the Colorado Supreme Court decision to take Trump off the ballot. The Court said “We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.”
According former federal appellate judge Michael Lutting and constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe, this was “a grave disservice to both the Constitution and the nation…Our highest court dramatically and dangerously betrayed its obligation to enforce what once was the Constitution’s safety net for America’s democracy.”
Three members of the Supreme Court were – in fact – appointed by a seditionist, an insurrectionist, who took lots of help from Russian intelligence agencies to win* the 2016 election, and tried to violently overturn the 2020 results. One other justice flies seditionist flags over his houses, and another has a wife who is an open seditionist.
It appears to me that the “conflicts” some people, mostly Republicans, are worried about are the absolutely entirely wrong conflicts.
I think Traitor Trump’s success at avoiding justice in every case, so far, outside of New York State may parallel his hostile takeover (another coup) of the Republican Party, aided and abetted by Christian nationalists, the traitor’s MAGA cult who turn out fanatically to vote in Republican primaries, and the billionaires supporting the traitor.
Harold Hamm
Timothy Mellon
Bernie Marcus
Kelcy Warren
Issac Perlumutter
J Joe Ricketts
John Paulson
Steve Synn
Geoffrey Palmer
Linda McMahon
Phil Ruffin
Timothy Dunn and more…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/06/14/these-are-the-billionaires-supporting-trumps-campaign/
The traitor started building his political malarial swamp during his White House years as he started spreading like a terminal cancer throughout the Republican Party.
The last free breath of real conservatives may have been the Senate investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. Those who haven’t already been driven out of the Republican Party fear the traitor, keep their mouths shut, and kowtow when Trump demands it.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election
In our wonderful system in which everyone has one vote and everything is so equitable, ONE GUY yesterday gave 50 million dollars to Traitor Trump’s reelection campaign. ONE GUY.
Supreme Court Just Asses and Presidential Contests for Sale in the United States! Get ’em while they last folks! Own your own set of legislative, judicial, and executive branch bobblehead dolls and wind-up action figures! These are luxury items, so only those with sufficient funds will be considered.
That’s Mellon, heir to the Mellon fortune. He’s a billionaire too.
People need to have some freaking perspective. What Trump is accused of is as serious as it gets. Letting him go Teflon on this one, as he has so many times in the past, is an egregious miscarriage of justice. The American people deserve for this seditionist who tried by multiple illegal and concurrent means to prevent the legal transfer of power and thus to OVERTHROW the newly elected government before it even took power.
Time for Justice, not Just Us. Don’t let Jabba the Trump slither away again because he has the money to pay crooked lawyers to raise spurious objections and invoke delays until freaking Ragnarök.
cx: The American people deserve for this seditionist who tried by multiple illegal and concurrent means to prevent the legal transfer of power and thus to OVERTHROW the newly elected government before it even took power to be tried and sent to prison for the rest of his life.
AGREE … totally. I want that dumpster in ORANGE and behind bars at Rikers.
It truly is a disgrace that an outgoing, defeated President has escaped any accountability for trying to overthrow the government and subvert the Constitution. Like, no big deal. Send in thousands of insurrectionists to pummel Capitol Police, menace members of Congress, threaten to murder the Vice President. And here we are: the Insurrectionist-in-Chief is running for President and the members of his party bow to his every wish, even those whose lives were endangered.
While all the Bubbas and Bubbettes who heeded Trump’s call go to prison. It’s utterly disgraceful.
All Fanni Willis did was to go “Dutch” on lunch and trips with a paramour while members of The Supreme Court accept lavish gifts and trips, and they can hear cases in which there is a distinct conflict of interest. To add insult to injury, a convicted felon can run for President while the typical citizen couldn’t run for dogcatcher with such a record. Our justice system is upside down.
Exactly. The idea that we have “Equal Justice under Law” is a bad joke.
“While all the Bubbas and Bubbettes. . . .”Your analysis of those who voted for the tRump is misguided at best, really just plain wrong. I know many folks whom you consider “Bubbas and Bubbettes” who didn’t vote for the tRump. And actually, almost all that I know who voted for him, those who still support him are almost all college degreed, successful business people.Are there some less educated, less business savvy and successful people that voted for the tRump? No doubt. But your condescending elitist attitude towards those of us in the heart of the country and your ignorance of the rest of the country as shown by your considering that Columbus, OH is “smack dab in the middle of the mid-west” is quite sad, indeed.
Look, someone who would vote for Trump is in my estimation a Bubba or a Bubbette. Not the brightest bulb in Lowes.
Oh, and btw:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-rural-america-so-love-donald-trump-131862
Oh, and as I pointed out to you when you first brough this up, the geographic center of the coterminous United States is Lebanon, Kansas, which is only a little over 800 miles from Columbus, Ohio. And ofc Missouri is between them.
Columbus is on the very eastern end of the Midwest. From Wiki: “The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States.[1] It was officially named the North Central Region by the U.S. Census Bureau until 1984.[2] It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.”
Wow. Can you also explain to me how many continents there are and the names of the capitals of Mexico and France and how a peninsula differs from an island and which goes around which, the Sun or the Earth?
Nah, just google those things.
So, you are purposefully missing my point?
It is no secret that Trump has MASSIVE support among poorly educated rural voters. He’s big in the sticks. Yahoo.
I recall that in 2016, someone did an analysis of counties based on education. The counties with the most educated people voted for Hillary. The counties with the least educated voted for Trump.
A wonderful blogger named Jess Piper lives in rural Missouri. She says that many seats are so Fepublican that no Democrat bothers to run. She’s been on a personal crusade to get Dems to run for office so rural Dems have someone to bite for.
But hey, I live in Flor-uh-duh, one of the least educated places in the country. Our state sent a large contingent of Bubbas and Bubbettes to the Capitol on January 6th.
Obviously, there are educated people in most places, but throw a stick at a rural town in the United States, and the chances are pretty good that you will hit a Trumpanzee.
Can’t agree.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0743016722000481
So, for example, in Indiana, cities like Bloomington and Indianapolis are solidly Democratic and pro-Biden. Small towns like Ellettsville and Martinsville are solidly Repugnican and pro-Trump. In Floirda, cities like Tampa and St. Petersburg and Miami and Democratic/pro-Biden. Small rural towns like Plant City and Inglis, solidly Repugnican/pro-Trump.
It’s the same throughout the country. Trump has commanding leads in the rural South, Midwest, and West, and in rural areas generally. Just look at a map of the red and blue counties for the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Trump has a broad appeal here in Tennessee. I think the main group of trump voters here are the fundamentalists who see democrats as baby killers. No issue galvanized support for republicans like the conviction that a fetus is a defenseless person. Nothing makes less sense than the lack of sympathy for the recently born set against the avowed defense for the zygote.
there is a large contingent of people with trump stickers and god guns and guts stickers around our parts. Democrats are very quiet unless you are my neighbor, Eddie. He is loud and proud for the yellow dog, a stance he got from being in a union.
https://source.wustl.edu/2020/02/the-divide-between-us-urban-rural-political-differences-rooted-in-geography/
From Wikipedia:
The United States is the most prominent example of the urban-rural divide, among other Western democracies,[15][16] with its history dating back to the 19th century, continuing well into the 21st century, and increasing under the presidency of Donald Trump during the 2010s and 2020s,[17][18] with the 2020 United States presidential election.[19] According to a 2024 study, the rise of rural conservatism in the United States can be linked to technological changes in agriculture in the period following World War II, which enabled the rise of capital-intensive agriculture and the growing power of agribusiness. Agribusiness favored conservative economic policies, such as limited government regulation and pro-business tax and spending policies.[20]
There is no conflict, as Judge Mcafee ruled. But the defense is entitled to seek an appeal of that ruling, and the appellate court granted its petition. So there you go.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people seem to have a hard time thinking about this issue. The allegations in an indictment have zero relevance to the analysis of a disqualification motion. It doesn’t matter what the defendant is accused of doing. It doesn’t matter how strong we might think the allegations are. It doesn’t matter whether co-defendants have pled guilty. All that matters is the question of the conflict and the potential prejudice to the defendant. That’s it. These things are in completely separate compartments.
“All that matters is the question of the conflict and the potential prejudice to the defendant.”
True. And yet no one – including the Trump defense attorneys who submitted a sworn legal document they admitted in open court contained lies – has ever made a halfway plausible argument as to why two prosecutors sleeping together prejudices the defendant.
Diane Ravitch, democracy, and even very conservative legal minds like Lutting made that point. That even after the Federalist Society Judge Scott McAfee gave Trump/Republican attorneys the unprecedented opportunity to grill the prosecutors with innuendo-laden questions under oath, no one has been able to explain what the potential prejudice to the defendant is.
All I keep hearing from the pro-Trump folks are that as long as right wing judges say there might be, there is no need to give a reasonable explanation of what exactly that harm is.
Diane Ravitch asked what that harm was. It’s a shame the media never bothers to ask.
This is a case where Republican judges are the ones who are demonstrating a conflict of interest, not the prosecutors.
Fair enough re: the lack of showing of prejudice. The Republican judge denied the disqualification motion, though, and from everything I’ve seen, has handled this case fairly and competently.
The Federalist Society judge Scott McAfee received a hugely problematic legal filing from fellow Republican defense attorneys who wanted to delay the trial because the outstanding lawyering of Wade and Willis had led to multiple guilty pleas from defendants ready to testify against more powerful Republican clients. The Republicans did not want that.
The legal filing alleged the prosecutors had a romantic affair and had credible evidence to support that. And the prosecutors stipulated that was true, they did have a romantic affair that had ended months before any defendant was indicted, and they continued to work together during those months to put together a case against Trump.
The rest of the legal filing was simply nasty innuendo – including a falsehood that the Republican defense attorney whined in open court was based ENTIRELY on a second hand rumor that someone mentioned to them. No sworn affidavits, no credible evidence, just a lot of allegations and none of the allegations coming close to supporting a credible conflict of interest claim that would harm the defense. It was two prosecutors on the same team, and a fair judge would have ruled on whether two prosecutors hooking up harmed the defense (it didn’t) and continued the trial.
Judge McAfee, like his fellow Republican jurist Aileen Cannon, seemed to be most concerned with delaying the trial than in actually presiding as a judge in a trial where a jury might convict a powerful Republican. Both of them welcomed the most spurious Republican legal arguments to justify a delay. Judge McAfee, in my mind, was even worse than Judge Cannon, because of that unprecedented kanagroo court he held. But both were never going to allow a trial to happen. If McAfee was willing to use that legal filing to delay a trial, then he would have embraced some other defense allegations that were also based on second hand rumor instead of the kind of testimony that judges who aren’t extremely bias require.
And while two attorneys having sex might grab the media’s attention, defense attorneys for clients who aren’t powerful Republicans like Trump understand that sex isn’t evidence of a conflict of interest and if they took that to the judge in a rumor-based legal filing, they would expect to be sanctioned, not rewarded.
McAfee could have ruled quickly on the conflict of interest. I have no idea why he gets a pass for his unprecedented kangaroo court reward to shoddy defense lawyers just because the defense attorneys were Republicans like him.
McAfee is responsible for this delay, which would have never happened with an ethical and upright judge like Luttig. Unfortunately, we live in scary times where one side believes that the rules don’t apply to them anymore, and in states where the Republicans own the courts, they are right. McAfee fits right in. No doubt due for a promotion for his good work soon.
Like I say, no one has ever made a credible case for a conflict of interest that harmed the defense. But with judges like Scott McAfee and Aileen Cannon embracing delaying tactics, no credible case is needed – just allegations.
He didn’t take that long to rule. The rest of the case was proceeding in parallel. And even a summary ruling would have been appealed and the appeal would have resulted in a stay.
NYC public school parent,
That’s just a beautiful encapsulation of the Willis-Trump Georgia case.
Thank you, democracy. I’m a longtime admirer of your insightful and informative comments, so that means a lot.
As I asked again and again and again in my comment, WHERE – EXACTLY – IS the “conflict” that somehow impinges the rights of those who are accused?
The point is – and I hope you see it – is that all of this is just smoke, it’s nonsense.
I agree the defense did not show there was a conflict that prejudiced the defendants.
Depends on what “all of this” is.
If you mean that the defense is trying to throw up every conceivable roadblock in order to win this case, and is consistently trying to muddle the issues that the prosecution wants the court to focus on, that’s correct, and it happens in every criminal trial with good counsel.
If you mean that the disqualification motion had the effect of causing casual observers to stop thinking about the merits of the case and instead think the about the integrity of the prosecution, that’s correct.
If you mean that media coverage of the disqualification motion had the effect of causing casual observers to stop thinking about the merits of the case and instead think the about the integrity of the prosecution, that’s also correct.
If you think media should not have covered the details of the disqualification motion and hearing, including the details about Fani Willis’s affair/romance/whatever with Nathan Wade, because it took the focus off the merits of the cases, I think that’s incorrect.
If you mean that the Judge McAfes is somehow in cahoots with the defense and has been trying to undermine the prosecution’s case because he is a “Republican judge,” I think that’s incorrect. So far, I’ve been very impressed with how McAfee has managed this case, including how he handled the hearing on the motion.
If you think the defense is morally at fault for filing the disqualification motion, I think that’s incorrect. To the contrary, defense counsel would have been breaching their ethical obligations if they didn’t bring the motion.
Meant this as a reply to Democracy, not sure where it ended up.
Diane writes: “I’m curious. Regarding the Georgia election case, where – exactly – is the Fanni Willis ‘conflict’ that may have impaired, impinged or otherwise impacted the rights of those accused in that case?”
But you are missing the point, which is this: The conflict is that Willis doesn’t agree with or support Trump, who owns all the “rights” and has the magic marker to prove it. If you understand THAT, then you will understand why Willis should go to jail, and Trump should be let off the hook. NOW do you get it? Sheesh . . . these liberals. CBK