A new commenter on the blog ssserted recently that real scholars don’t express their views about current events. Our reader “Democracy” here excerpts a recent article by a genuine scholar, David Blight of Yale University. Professor Blight is an eminent scholar of African American history, who recently edited a volume of Frederick Douglass’s writings for the Library of America. The following excerpt cited was published in the New York Review of Books.
Incidentally, the Washington Post reported that Trump responded to Nikki Haley’s concern about his age by saying that he took a mental test of 35-40 questions where he was shown a picture of a giraffe, a tiger, whale, and he correctly identified the whale. It sounds like a test for little children or non-English speakers.
Democracy wrote to the blog:
David Blight, historian from Yale, recently called Trump woefully “ignorant” about history, and, in essence a liar.
But Trump IS the current Republican Party, and here’s Blight on that:
“Changing demographics and 15 million new voters drawn into the electorate by Obama in 2008 have scared Republicans—now largely the white people’s party—into fearing for their existence. With voter ID laws, reduced polling places and days, voter roll purges, restrictions on mail-in voting, an evisceration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a constant rant about ‘voter fraud’ without evidence, Republicans have soiled our electoral system with undemocratic skullduggery…The Republican Party has become a new kind of Confederacy.”
“This new Confederacy is regional and rural. It knows what it hates: the two coasts, diverse cities, marriage equality, certain kinds of feminism, political correctness, university ‘elites,’ and ‘liberals’ generally. It is racial and undemocratic. It twists American history to its own ends, substituting ‘patriotism’ for scholarship and science. It has weaponized ‘truth’ and rendered it oddly irrelevant. It has brought us almost to a new 1860, an election in which Americans voted for fundamentally different visions of a proslavery or an antislavery future.”
You can see all of this in Trump’s words and actions, and it’s parroted in turn by his minions, and his supporters, and by his lawyers.
Trump has proved himself to be a serial liar, racist, misogynist, and seditious traitor to the Constitution and the republic. The Republican Party is his enabler.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“… real scholars don’t express their views about current events.”
Quite a statement. Let me offer a couple of counter examples.
It would be hard to find a more scholarly individual than Marc Bloch, the French Medievalist who, with Fernand Braudel, published Annals, a journal of interdisciplinary history that revolutionized historical research. Bloch openly opposed the Nazi regime, first joining the French Army. Evacuated at Dunkirk, he refused to stay out of his beloved France, and re-entered the country, working in the French Underground. Because he was older, he escaped notice until he was given up as the Allies pushed their way inland following D-day. He and several other prisoners were executed after being tortured. Just before the machine guns mowed down all but one lucky survivor, he assured the youngest of the group that this was not going to hurt.
Just after Jan 6, Historian John O Paxton, perhaps the foremost authority on Europe during the Twentieth Century, voiced the opinion that Trump had demonstrated that he was, in fact a fascist.
Scholars can have opinions. They just happen to be worth more than the opinion of people down at the barbershop.
Donald Trump is a train wreck, and the GOP is on board. They made a deal with the devil, and the race is on to see who can lie, distort and misrepresent the most while pretending to be likable. It’s been amusing to watch the GOP hopefuls insult each other while gently tiptoeing around the lunatic bull elephant in the room. Their weak platform is mostly a targeted list of hate, mistrust and rejection of groups that Blight lists in his article. Willful ignorance is part of the GOP strategy.
Benito Mussolini spoke of fascism as the marriage of state and corporate power. The U.S. has exhibited its embrace of corporatism for many, many years. Add imperialism and militarism to the mix, too!
In addition to the last paragraph, Trump is also a fascist, a bully, a crybaby, spoiled, and completely unfit to be President.
Sorry, your site doesn’t want to let me leave a comment without signing in through WordPress, which I quit a long time ago Anyway, highly recommend Blight’s Race and Reunion (2001) and Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War (2020) for some deep history and scholarship, going back 150 years, on our current cultural mess. And, as a retired hs humanities teacher I’m more a scholarship fan boy than scholar, but seems to me like scholars should actually try to avoid excessive partisanship simply to avoid the common hazard of histories being stuck, blinkered, biased by the times in which they are written. But, of course, any historian worth their salt ought to be pointing out every chance they are given that the Republican party’s current nativist Christian bigot positions are NOT patriotic, the Confederacy was in rebellion over their assumed right to enslave American citizens, and contrary to the founding democratic principles of the country. That, in fact, when you combine bigot Jim Crow politics with a charismatic dumpster fire like the Orange Grump, urging violence against their political enemies, that is nearly the textbook definition of a fascist, Nazi-like, political party. And what the current GOP has become. Scholars, like anybody else, that know better and can see what’s happening for what it is ought to be calling it out and urging people to choose a better future and not irreversible decline and more stupefying discrimination and segregation and bitter conflict. Thanks, as always, for the important work you do. Best, Jack C Thompson
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Jack,
I don’t understand WordPress or its decisions. I try to ignore them. I agree that scholars should avoid excessive partisanship but also that it’s impossible to ignore what we all saw after the 2020 election. And what we continue to see: a former President trying his best to deny he lost, urging state officials to reverse the vote count; filing 62 court cases against the outcome, then ignoring that he lost 61 times; urging his followers to descend on DC on January 6 in a tweet; urging them to March to the US Capitol “peacefully” yet telling them that they must “fight like hell”; sitting in his office and watching the mayhem, refusing to tell his admirers to leave the Capitol as they became violent and attacked Capitol police; waiting three hours until he finally told them to leave and to always remember this “great day” and how much he loves them.
What scholar of American history can treat this as normal behavior by a President? What scholar can pretend that Trump’s refusal to accept his loss—the first time in history—was normal?
This whole business of questioning your scholarship is beyond the pale, Diane. It’s idiotic as well. Is Timothy Snyder not a scholar because he has repeatedly called for the Supreme Court to uphold Colorado’s decision not to allow the insurrectionist on the ballot? Is he not a scholar because he has repeatedly called Trump a danger to democracy? If Synder isn’t a scholar, then, who TF is? Are folks like Heather Cox Richardson and Lawrence Tribe not scholars? Ridiculous. Such people DEFINE what it means to be a scholar, as do you, Diane.
Diane I spent almost two hours working on a post, and it kept getting kicked off. . . ., even when I reposted and changed the text in a different section. . . not exactly inducive to participation. CBK
Hello Bob (If this shows up three other times, I apologize for the annoyance.)
TWO THINGS that reveal so clearly how one’s philosophical stance influences history—and the more power, the more influence.
First, your linked note about Putin and Dugin’s totalitarianism and its relationship to relativism (a clip from that link is below.
** Do you have the date of the BBC interview for a proper citation?**)
Second, about scholars NOT taking an open political stance: though there are many layers of interpretation, in the philosophical layer, there is taking a stance (like Snyder and Lawrence Tribe et al), and then there are those who treat scholars’ political influence as if the problem were rooted in physics and the natural sciences, rather than in human concerns and history. (A matter of belief? Bah. See below.)
The first destructive upshot of that view is that one’s active political views are not critical on principle (not “scientific,” where “science” is interpreted as reductionist/ positivist).
The second is that Snyder’s/Tribe’s et al views are “biased” rather than well-argued . . . even though they provide a real argument against someone like Putin (who throws people out high-rise windows); but again, even if students aren’t already disgusted, scholars are drained of their political vibrancy and import (to their students!) because they are considered “biased” and are just trampling on a (pseudo-) scientific set of assumptions.
And from there, the third is that once you figure a “scholar” is biased, no one need ask WHY one takes that stance, (“Well, I just believe it” ?????) so that students can do their own thinking on the matter, again, even if they don’t understand it and are not disgusted already from having had good moral examples and training in their background.
In any case, giving solid explanations of one’s moral views about concrete historical events and people (as you describe in your essay) from good reason and moral principle is already broken loose from the get-go in the public square . . . with the hammer of very different philosophical foundations. Relativism AND BELIEF pave the way for that to occur, especially in less thoughtful people. In sociology, however, we’ve done the same, and seemingly from great thinkers. (What a joke THAT is.)
In both cases of “siloed” pseudo-scientific thinking, and ungrounded sociology (we don’t really know and cannot EXPLAIN why it’s not a good idea to throw people out high-rise windows for disagreeing with Putin?), scratch the surface and the fundamental philosophy that bleeds through reeks with an endorsement of principled ignorance and the moral (philosophical) corruption of the speaker, e.g., Putin, Dugin, and now probably half of the United States Congress. Philosophical corruption is just a cover, however, for: a thoughtless bully adolescent who is also a BAD LOSER.
I cut the clip with the thought that this post may actually be posted. Your essay is nicely written, however, and basically is about as
“Putin’s fav fascist, imperialist philosopher, Alexandr Dugin, clarifying what “truth” means in Putinese: “. . . any truth, is relative, so we have our own special Russian truth that you need to accept as something that maybe is not Europe truth. . . AND the total fact, according to the founder of sociology, Emile Durkheim, that total fact is that . . . . The truth is . . . a matter of belief.*
So, let’s all just shrug and walk away . . . what a philosophical failure THAT is. CBK
Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to the dementia screening he took as an IQ test that he passed with flying colors. So, what does a sane person make of that? Well, there are three possibilities:
The man (using the term loosely) is in his seventies but still has no idea what an IQ test is. This is entirely possible because Trump is PROFOUNDLY IGNORANT about almost everything. This is the guy who thought we could send astronauts to the sun, that Denmark would want to sell Greenland to us, that doctors should look into injecting people with disinfectants, that Frederick Douglass is alive and “doing a great job,” that Alabama is on the East Coast, that stealth airplanes are actually invisible, that the tariffs we place on a foreign country’s goods are paid by that country, that he could legally send the military to rough up and arrest protestors, that Article 2 of the Constitution gives him the power to do anything at all that he likes. So, yes, he’s ignorant enough to think that a dementia screening, used to determine extraordinarily basic cognitive functioning (can the person recognize an elephant?), was an IQ test, used to determine level of cognitive functioning generally all the way up to and including genius -level functioning. How ignorant does one have to be to do THAT? Well, extraordinarily so. But Trump IS extraordinarily so.
The man (using the term loosely) is simply lying. He knows it wasn’t an IQ test, but he says that it was when speaking to Trumpanzees because he wants to pretend that he is bright, a “genius,” in fact. This is entirely possible because Trump is A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR. When he finally kicks the bucket, this should be carved on his tombstone:
Here lies Donald Trump,
but that’s nothing new.
The man (using the term loosely) is confused. He SIMULTANTOUSLY knows it wasn’t an IQ test and believes it was an IQ test because he is insane enough to hold utterly contradictory beliefs at one and the same time. And yes, he is, I think (and a lot of psychologists and psychiatrists agree with me), CLINICALLY INSANE. He grossly distorts reality and BELIEVES HIS OWN DISTORTIONS. That’s what distinguishes an insane person, a psychotic, from a run-of-the-mill neurotic–distorting reality and believing the distortion.
If the law ever catches up to him, perhaps he could try the Bathrobe Don insanity defense. Or simply direct his plane to Moscow, where he would be, perhaps, greeted with open arms by his long-time handler Tsar Vladimir the Scary AF. But, ofc, there is no honor among malignant pathological narcissists and criminal psychopaths like Donnie and Vladimir, so despite Donnie’s long service to the kleptocratic Russian state, Vladimir might just not allow his plane to land.
Acting like a scholar doesn’t mean that you don’t have opinions or that you don’t express those opinions. It does mean having a level of intellectual detachment that avoids blind partisanship and tribalism. That lack of detachment is seen many times every week on this blog, where the host and most commenters succumb to extreme confirmation bias, believing the worst about anyone with different opinions and believing the best about politicians they favor. For example, most commenters here express the ridiculous belief that Joe Biden is cognitively up to being President simply because he is Trump’s likeliest opponent next November.
And having the label of scholar confers no immunity to supporting appalling ideas and people. Many prominent academics actively supported the Hitler regime in the 1930s. Even more of the intelligentsia were enraptured with Stalin, then Mao, then Fidel Castro, then Ho Chi Minh, etc. The examples are legion of scholars who are brilliant in their academic field of expertise, but who are also the most credulous of fools on other matters, especially politics. We should respect intellect while realizing its limitations for making wise decisions.
What we are seeing instead in the United States today is millions of people completely rejecting expertise as “fake news” because of the “alternative facts” universe Trump has them living in. Worrying about scholars being wrong about some matters sometimes when MILLIONS are rejecting expertise in general is like worrying about polishing the brightwork when the mast is broken in a squall.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10232427837745687&set=a.1200477179262
We need scholars active in the political arena to counter these alternative facts universes of the would-be (Trump) and actual (Putin) dictators.
As a teacher with decades of experience, I hate it when people who are not teachers or were only teachers for a few years try to tell me anything about how to teach. Looking at you, Bill Gates. Looking at you, Walmart billionaires. I feel compelled to begin this reply to your comment, Mr Woodster, with a statement that I am not a scholar. I do not have a PhD. Far be it from me to define scholarship for university professors. I write as only a student of scholars.
It seems to me as a student that a true scholar researches and writes books with some degree of detachment, but only in the sense that one should allow facts and results rather than opinions drive theses. As for the teaching side of scholarship, the idea that professors should censor their opinions or sanitize instruction to be nonpartisan or even less partisan is anathema. It’s wrong.
I once in college wrote a ten page paper completely disagreeing with my professor’s basic premise. I dissected and disagreed with her life’s work. She gave me an A+. That’s a scholar. As a student, my job is to think critically. I don’t want to be told what to believe. I’m in class to think, not to follow. If scholars only present information that cannot be challenged, it’s not scholarship; it’s indoctrination.
I tire of people who believe that professors are merely lecturers and students merely practicing regurgitation. It’s fascist. If you know a student who complains that his or her professors are too biased, you know a mediocre student.
In this age of “alternative facts,” we desperately need public intellectuals who will bring their expertise to bear on the issues of the day. Consider topics like immigration and healthcare. Economists who actually study this stuff know relevant facts:
Undocumented immigrants pay taxes. They use little in the way of government services. They run businesses that hire citizens. They actually increase employment by citizens by about 1 percent, not a huge increase, but an increase. Large influxes of undocumented immigrants are strongly correlated, historically, with economic improvement. These facts, known by experts, run counter to the standard Repugnican narrative that they’re taking your jobs (I’m looking at you, Trump).
The United States is the only member nation of the OECD that does not have a national healthcare system. Healthcare costs in the US are TWICE the average of the OECD and the HIGHEST in the OECD, and yet our health outcomes in terms of longevity, infant mortality, and disease rates, are AMONG THE LOWEST. These facts, known by experts, run counter to the standard Repugnican narrative that “Socialized” healthcare is of low quality.
If the Democratic Party in the US, and, in particular, the DNC, were not a primarily DINO organization that also feeds at the corporate and oligarchical troughs, then it would be running ads to educate Americans about these issues.
It sickens me that this topic would bring the anti-intellectuals out in such force. Despots love uneducated, uninformed people. They are easier to manipulate. “I love the poorly educated.” –Donald Trump. America has a long and sickening history of this anti-intellectualism.
Bizarrely, actually knowing things is a political liability in the United States. Campaigns hype their candidates as being regular guys you could “sit down and have a beer with.” And so we get morons like George Bush, Jr., and Donald Trump in office doing extraordinary damage out of sheer ignorance.
Oh, one more thing. Regarding the reasons why I (and others here) think Joseph R Biden is the best president this country has had in forty to fifty years, I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to remove your foot from my mouth. Thanks!
Speaking of which, big shoutout to President Biden, today, for forcing rightwing psychopath Netanyahu to accept a two state solution today, and to stop trying to use the hostages as an excuse to rob Palestinians of their homes. Biden did good!
And he did good well.
What a great turn of phrase, LCT! This old grammarian is impressed.
LCT,
Thank you very much for this post. It is astonishing to me that Biden is one of the best (if not the best) presidents this country has had and even many Democrats cannot do anything but amplify the right wing narratives that exaggerate his negatives (“he’s too old”!)
What should matter is performance, not age. It is possible that age can cause a president to perform badly, but that isn’t the case with Biden, as has been proven again and again and again, including this week. So we have even Democrats pushing that “seems old” is important, when they can’t cite when Biden’s age led to him making a bad decision.
Instead, Biden’s age has given him wisdom. Being president isn’t about crowing that you are the best and America is the best. It is being faced with problems that have no “perfect” solutions and working to find one of the best solutions that will ideally lead to even better solutions. It is about having judgement about what is right and wrong, and putting the interests of what is right first, even when unpopular. I don’t have to agree with 100% of Biden’s choices to understand that they were absolutely valid choices given the circumstances. And Biden’s strength is that he doesn’t deny the problems that invariably come with ANY choice – he reacts to those problems and works to minimize them and doesn’t just give up.
Just so depressing that Americans who should know better (which excludes Trump voters) are so down on Biden when we are as a country so lucky to have someone of his temperament and wisdom and lack of ego in a time when this country may very well descend into fascism.
Biden is probably the closest this country will ever get to Jed Bartlett and so many people are quick to throw him over for what? “energy” ? “youth”? “vigor”?
Republicans had no reason to embrace “old” Reagan and they did. Democrats have every reason to embrace “old” Biden and so many just keep reinforcing the narrative that there is something wrong with him.
Agreed. I take back anything I said about his age. He’s the statesman we need right now.
Bob,
I read a post by you that expressed this same sentiment some days ago, and you reminded me of Diane Ravitch (which, fyi, is one of my ways of giving you the highest praise). I admire people who change their mind as they see more evidence. That’s what the best scientists do. That’s what the most brilliant people do because they are secure in their own intellect and they know that changing their mind or admitting they were wrong about something isn’t something shameful. It’s honorable.
Thank you, NYC. That’s quite kind of you.
Biden also canceled about five billion in student debt for a number of public servants including teachers, police officers, nurses and fire fighters.
My Dream Team has Lincoln starting center, Washington and Jefferson playing forward, Eisenhower at shooting guard, and FDR at the point. Truman is the sixth man, with Teddy R following him off the bench. Wilson, JFK, and Johnson get a fair share of playing time. Biden and Madison round out the team.
Yo, Ben, you wrote this nonsense:
“For example, most commenters here express the ridiculous belief that Joe Biden is cognitively up to being President…”
Obviously, dude, you have not been paying attention.
Biden’s accomplishments include:
• “lowering the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug costs and capped insulin costs for seniors to $35 a month…”
• getting legislation passed a “to rebuild roads and bridges, expand power infrastructure, increase passenger rail access, expand broadband access, and improve water infrastructure…”
…getting passed legislation that “invests in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, improves domestic supply chains, boosts economic competition with China, and which has created more than 100,000 new American jobs…”
• historically low unemployment rate of 3.7 percent
• And, as the NY Times and other media just reported,
“The stock market broke through to new heights on Friday, with the S&P 500 index finally hitting a record after weeks of bumping up against its previous peak…On Friday, a closely followed survey of consumers showed a big rise in economic confidence paired with muted expectations for inflation, bolstering hopes for the economy.”
Wake up, bro.
In other news, it looks like there is a real possibility that this idiot Atlanta D.A. has jeopardized the timeline (at a minimum—the worst case is she jeopardized the entire case) of the Trump criminal trial in Georgia by hiring a special prosecutor on the case who she was romantically involved with. Unbelievable.
What on Earth does this have to do with Trump’s (or the other defendants’) guilt or lack thereof?
Nothing, but it could be an impermissible conflict of interest under Georgia’s ethics rules that could result in her entire office being disqualified from the case.
If the allegation that she was sleeping with this guy is true—I’ve withheld judgment on that but it’s starting to look like it is—it’s a potential major disaster.
Aie yie yie.
From a WaPo story yesterday:
“Willis tapped Wade to lead the Trump case in November 2021, at a time when he had little experience prosecuting criminal cases. He previously served as a municipal judge in the Atlanta area, where he mostly dealt with traffic tickets and other misdemeanors. Wade also runs a private practice focused largely on family law, contract disputes and criminal defense.
Willis’s decision to hire Wade is now facing enormous scrutiny. The accusations, if true, could present a conflict of interest or could amount to fraud. If Willis or Wade recuse themselves from the case, it’s unclear if someone else within the district attorney’s office would be permitted to lead it. If one or both are removed, the entire district attorney’s office probably would be disqualified.
When a judge barred Willis’s office from investigating Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R) for his role in Trump’s alternate-elector scheme in 2020 because Willis hosted a fundraiser for Jones’s eventual Democratic opponent, it fell to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find a new prosecutor. So far, no one has been assigned the case — perhaps an indication of what could happen to the Trump case in similar circumstances.”
This is tragic, Flerp.
Funny how no one ever talked about disqualifying John Durham when it was learned that he and William Barr inapproparitately took trips top Europe together! How much was Durham paid again?
Daily Beast, 5/16/23, by Shan Wu
“John Durham Owes the American People an Apology for Wasting Their Money”
“Special counsel John Durham’s final report reveals that four years, a $6.5 million spend, and many dining dates with former Attorney General Barr yielded nothing.”
$6.5 million versus $650,000, but dates with your pal Bill Bar
What did Bill Barr’s “very special friend” do for his $6.5 million?
“What Durham did do was aid and abet the killing of a lot of trees by producing a 300-plus page report that reads like a plagiarized version of the 2019 report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, in which Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that the FBI properly opened the Russia probe—code-named Crossfire Hurricane—and found no evidence of political bias by the FBI.”
He plagiarized and made a lot of money doing it while gettiong to travel to fiun places.
Remember, Bill Barr and John Durham, the guy he hired, made a very special trip to Italy together! On the taxpayers’ dime!
“The trip even brought scrutiny from some Republican members of Congress, with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) joking that the two were just “looking for authentic pasta” as he griped that the special counsel’s work was insufficient in slamming the FBI’s work.”
Is “looking for authentic pasta” the same as ” “hiking the Appalachian Trail” ??
Does it matter whether Durham and Barr were just “very good friends” during that trip or “very good friends with benefits”? I don’t think so, and yet I have never seen anyone asserting that Durham should have had to step down because Barr hired him so that a year or two later they could “look for authentic pasta” together.
Barr hired Durham, spent 6.5 million on him, and made a trip to look for authentic pasta with him. Now maybe Barr should not have let the bromance he had with Durham affect him so much that he spent extra time with him, but he did.
Seems there is a double standard, just as there was when the far worse plagiarism of Neri Oxman was minimized, while a lesser case by Claudine Gay was used to destroy her. For political gain.
I looked through Nikki Haley’s Twitter feed last night and the Trumpers are all over her.
Among many other slurs, they accuse her of having affairs and being unfaithful to her husband. !!!!!! How do Trumpers attack ANYONE for doing what he did all his adult life?
We’ll see what happens, but I have a bad feeling about it.
This is extremely troubling. The case is so important. It would be tragic if it got derailed.
Very arguably the most important case in the history of the United States.
Yeah. Really important.
I had a bad feeling about all the negative press given to Claudine Gay’s “plagiarism” and how her plagiarism was characterized by the media (and certain folks here) as disqualifying and a shocking breach of academic integrity.
I was right to have that bad feeling. Just like I have a bad feeling about Fani because I already see the same folks convicting her of a serious breach that seems to only be a breach when people of certain race or political persuasion does it.
Claudine Gay did not have the benefit of the doubt that Neri Oxman did.
And I can see that Fani Willis will not be given the benefit of the doubt that William Barr and John Durham did when they went on their little outing to Italy together and had all their dinners together. (Which was – ironically – far more improper since Barr had no business influencing the investigation.) Taking a trip together on taxpayer dollars is fine if it is for the purpose of improperly influencing an investigation, but using your own money to take a trip is not allowed if it is just for romance?
So I have a bad feeling because every misstep is criminal or disqualifying for Democrats, and no big deal unless the person confesses if it is Republicans.
And, of course as always, she is claiming that any criticism of her is motivated by racism. I’m sure Diane Ravitch agrees with her.
You are sure, are you? And on what evidence do you base your CERTAINTY on this point? Inquiring minds would love to know.
FLERP!,
Why are you falsely stating Fani HIRED a special prosecutor on the case who she was romantically involved with, when the NYT article specifically stated there is no evidence at all that they were romantically involved when she hired him in November 2021?
(Once again, I took the time to read the article you linked to)
“At worst” (as you put it flerp!), Fani and a special prosecutor she hired worked closely together and after a year of working closely together and problems in his marriage, they realized they had a mutual attraction. They shouldn’t have acted upon it, but (possibly) they did. I suspect that working in the legal profession you have known people who worked on the same case who discovered a mutual attraction and acted upon it. There wouldn’t be any legal tv shows if that never happened! : )
So why is this being presented as “prosecutor hires her unqualified lover for a job” instead of “after working together for a year, two people may or may not have had an affair or maybe just hooked up a couple times.”?
Oh right, because they aren’t Republicans.
Happens ALL THE TIME. One of the most common places where people meet their partners is in the workplace.
Bob,
Exactly. Also, I hope my post about the “bromance” between William Barr and John Durham, the special prosecutor he hired (spending $6.5 million of taxpayer money!
Not only did they dine together, but they traveled to Italy together!
Matt Gaetz even joked that Barr and Durham were just “looking for authentic pasta”.
I said there’s a real possibility that it is true, and there is. Read more closely before you spout off.
Even if the worst does turn out to be true, I can’t help but assume you’ll try to excuse the behavior (you’re already signaling that you’ll do so), which by the way is COMPLETELY INSANE AND IDIOTIC conduct by a prosecutor. Maybe you’ll prove me wrong (I doubt it), but hopefully we won’t have to find out. I have a bad feeling about it, though.
It is pretty crazy behavior.
Yes, flerp! just like you had a “bad feeling” about there being something “odd” about Johns Hopkins University having a freshman class where 20% of the students were Native American.
Don’t tell me to read closely, please. Cite where it says that there is evidence that Fani hired a man she was romantically involved with BEFORE she hired him.
According to you, the reason they could only come up with receipts of travel together that dated 12 and 18 months after she hired him is not for the most likely reason — that they couldn’t find earlier receipts — but because of some other reason that you won’t actually say because when you try to give your theory, it seems ridiculous.
You did this with Claudine Gay, too. You presented her “plagiarism” as if it was a very, very serious issue from the very beginning.
I have no idea why you frequently post links which amplify the right wing narrative, with your own misleading commentary of what the link you posted says. You demonized some young, hapless educators posting misleading links from right wing twitter feeds. You posted false information about Johns Hopkins have 20% Native Americans. You seem to be inclined to always jump to the most negative conclusions except when it is someone like Neri Oxman or Eva Moskowitz, people favored by right wing billionaires, who you seem to frequently give the benefit of the doubt to.
Why not give Fani the same benefit of the doubt you give Eva Moskowitz, before already implying there is no question at all that there are very serious issues here. Fani didn’t illegally release private records to try to destroy a young elementary student — all we know right now is that at worst, Fani had an affair. Think about why you have already convicted Fani of a serious breach of duty, but gave a pass to a woman who intentionally – and improperly and possibly illegally – released private records to publicly demonize a young child for no reason at all except public relations.
Treat Fani the way you do Eva Moskowitz – that’s all I expect from you. Give Fani the same benefit of the doubt you give Eva.
You truly cannot read.
flerp!,
I challenged you to explain or quote what it is I am not reading, and you just keep repeating “you can’t read”.
Here’s your chance to prove to everyone that I can’t read, and instead of elaborating about what it is I am supposed to be reading, you just keep reading “you can’t read”.
It’s very Trumpian to accuse others of what you are guilty of.
You said the 20% of the freshman class at JHU was Native American. I didn’t just repeat “you can’t read” — I explained what the actual number was.
It is astonishing to me that you would misread 2% as 20% and not say to yourself “that seems crazy, did I read that right?” and go back to read it again.
Instead, you saw a completely insane number and amplified it as if it were true. Why?
Treat Fani the way you treat Eva Moskowitz. That really should not be so hard.
Please stop. No one is interested in your fight with Flerp. It’s just freaking annoying.
Bob,
Thanks for giving flerp! an out. Now we will never hear why “I can’t read”. And I was so curious about what it was I couldn’t read.
We all get brainwashed by this double standard. I thought you showed some integrity in recognizing the “too old” attacks on Biden were not based in any real evidence.
Let’s wait for evidence that Fani did what flerp! said in his very first post – “hiring a special prosecutor on the case who she was romantically involved with.” Because there is nothing I have “read” that shows that. And flerp! says there is but won’t tell me where.
Unlike you, flerp! has yet to admit he was wrong.
I’m not saying you’re misreading the article, I’m saying you’re misreading my comments, you rutabaga. Re-read them again, or don’t, I don’t care.
flerp!, I did read your comment.
it looks like there is a real possibility that your comment was intended to intentionally mislead readers in order to demonize Fani by implying there was significant evidence that she hired a special prosecutor on the case who she was already romantically involved with, even though the article made it clear that there was no evidence at all that they had any relationship before he was hired. Unbelievable of you, flerp!
Is that better?
Just think how different this story would be played if it was “Fani may have had a consensual sexual relationship with another lawyer in her office who was getting a divorce and they went on trips together that he paid for.”
Yawn.
FLERP!
You bet I will excuse the behavior. It is none of my business who someone sleeps with. As long as they are consenting adults. Those that scream the loudest about these social issues tend to be morally bankrupt themselves. As we see time and again.
If they have no evidence that they were romantically engaged before his employment, it is a libelous attack.
And if they do but don’t object to Ja-red’s 2.6 billion dollar plus master appointee of all things Government grift. They are crying crocodile tears.
We’ll see how this turns out, but for right now, there is more to the story than simply sex. From CBS News:
“Willis initially approached Roy Barnes, the former governor of Georgia and one of the state’s premier lawyers, to serve as the senior counsel on the case. But he turned her down. She then tried Gabe Banks, a former federal prosecutor and highly respected Atlanta criminal defense lawyer. Banks also wasn’t interested.”
“Neither Barnes nor Banks wanted to plunge into such an all-consuming case at the expense of their lucrative law practices, as laid out in the book. But the two were even more concerned about the inevitable threats that would come with such a politically incendiary case. Barnes declined to discuss his conversations with Willis, but nodded to those concerns in an interview: ‘Hypothetically speaking, do you want a bodyguard following you around for the rest of your life?’ Banks declined comment.”
“… in her remarks last Sunday, Willis made it clear that she had no misgivings about hiring Wade and raised the idea that those who criticized her for it were motivated by race…’I appointed three special counsels, as is my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate,’ Ms. Willis said. ‘They only attacked one.’ ”
Ahem…..
From the emergency motion filed in court by Fanni Willis:
“It is well-established that when both parties in a divorce proceeding assert that a marriage is irretrievably broken, which is a legal conclusion signifying that there is no hope for reconciliation, there is no genuine issue of fact that remains to be decided concerning the divorce. Friedman v. Friedman, 233 Ga. 254, 210 S.E.2d 754 (1974) (per curiam). In Friedman, the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the trial court’s ruling that since the parties admitted in their pleadings that the marriage was irretrievably broken, the fact-finder was not required to decide whether the wife was additionally entitled to divorce based on her allegations of cruel treatment by the husband as there was no genuine issue of fact to be decided by a jury and it was proper to grant the divorce based solely on the pleadings. Id. at 255.”
” On information and belief, Plaintiff and Defendant do not live together, and the Defendant has lived outside the state of Georgia separate and apart from the Plaintiff since 2021. Thus, there is no prospect of reconciliation and genuine issue of material fact in need of resolution. Defendant Joycelyn Wade has not alleged otherwise.”
“On information and belief, as early as 2017, prior to Plaintiff Nathan J. Wade ever meeting Non-Party Deponent Willis, the parties to the above-styled divorce agreed that their marriage was irretrievably broken after the Defendant Joycelyn Wade confessed to an adulterous relationship with the Plaintiff’s longtime friend. The Defendant Joycelyn Wade’s adultery precluded any chance of reconciliation. To protect the interest of both parties, Plaintiff and Defendant agreed to seal the records in their divorce case; however, the parties delayed filing for the benefit of their children – specifically to allow the children to reach the age of majority.”
“Defendant Joycelyn Wade has not objected to Michael Roman’s motion to unseal the proceedings despite having previously sought it and having benefited from its protection for more than two years.”
“the subpoena for the deposition of District Attorney Willis is being sought in an attempt to harass and damage her professional reputation. It is also being sought in an unreasonable manner to annoy, embarrass, and oppress the deponent.”
There’s lots more here:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24367259-fani-willis-emergency-motion-to-quash
Here’s another interesting piece:
https://www.ajc.com/politics/could-willis-allegations-sink-trump-case-legal-experts-weigh-in/O4LRMNRXPFE6PMA4QRODFNA7BY/
Yes, we’ll see how it turns out. What disturbs me is (1) the travel receipts seem to strongly suggest they had a romantic relationship at least since 2022, and (2) of all the things Willis has said about these accusations, one thing she has not said is that they aren’t true.
Of course attacks on Willis are at least in part politically motivated (with the caveat that they are also attacks that any defense attorney would make in this situation). And of course the accusations are coming from a woman (Wade’s wife) with personal and financial motivations to attack Wade. That doesn’t mean they can’t be true. And if they are true, that means Willis has jeopardized, at a very minimum, the timeline of one of the most important trials in U.S. history, when the timeline (trying the case before the election) is of the most critical importance.
If Willis did that — again, we will see how this turns out — she will not be a victim. She would have done it with full knowledge of the potential consequences, and the blame should lie not with Wade’s estranged wife, not “Republicans,” not racism, but with Willis herself.
I hope to God the accusations are not true.
FLERP,
You are a lawyer. Is there a conflict of interest if the district attorney has a romantic involvement with one of the prosecutors?
Diane,
Ethics, like most areas of law, can get complicated and answering ethical questions often requires the expertise of someone who’s specialized in that area. There are rules, but they’re not always clear in the application. At my firm, we have an “ethics guy,” and I call him whenever I have an ethical question. I am not an “ethics guy.” There are also special ethical rules that apply to prosecutors, and because I’m not a criminal lawyer there may be nuances to those rules and their application that I don’t know without researching them.
That said, the “interests” at stake in a conflict of interests situation are generally (1) the interests of the attorney and (2) the interests of the client. Here, the client effectively is the people of Georgia. So one question is whether a romantic involvement with the special prosecutor could cause Willis’ interests to diverge from the interests of the People. But there’s also the issue of justice: prosecutors not only serve the People, but they must serve the interests of justice. (One way of phrasing a prosecutor’s ethical duty is “to protect the innocent and convict the guilty.”) So if Willis herself is someone personally benefiting from the prosecution, then that would be a conflict of interest.
I suspect there are some good arguments why this is not an actual conflict, and also why, even assuming it’s a conflict, it shouldn’t require recusal. But I also know that one of the key ethical rules is to avoid any conduct that would create even an appearance of impropriety. (This is where we pause at how insane it will be if Clarence Thomas doesn’t recuse himself from all January 6-related cases.)
As I said, I’m no ethics guy, but it seems to be that there is a respectable argument that the relationship creates the appearance that public funds have been misused and that the interests of the People cannot be best served when decisions about how to run the case may be influenced by the fact that the DA is dating the special prosecutor. There’s also an argument (which I believe Trump’s lawyers have made) that paying someone money and getting some of that money back in the form of lavish vacations constitutes financially benefitting from the prosecution.
One thing people may not understand is how seriously these rules are taken. (Again we pause to consider Clarence Thomas and shake our heads.) This isn’t like a regular case of two co-workers having a fling, or even two attorneys at a firm working on a civil case having a fling. It is not “no big deal” for a special prosecutor to have an affair with the district attorney who hires him. It creates a massive “appearance of impropriety” problem and every attorney knows this.
One corollary in a non-prosecutorial context: it is a clear breach of ethical rules for an attorney to be romantically involved with a client. Not a close call. Someone might argue, “but what if it doesn’t affect the case” or even “but doesn’t that make their interests even more aligned”? Answer is no, it’s absolutely unacceptable.
I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot of potential analysis. There’s a prosecutor (or ex-prosecutor, I can’t remember) who comments here sometimes. Would be good to get his perspective.
The one thing that’s clear to me is that, if Willis did indeed have a romantic relationship with Ward, it would constitute insanely irresponsible conduct in connection with an extraordinarily important case.
FLERP,
I certainly agree that Willis exercised very very very poor judgment to be romantically involved with a prosecutor in this historically important trial.
But since they are on the same team, I don’t see a conflict of interest that requires recusal.
This is ridiculous. Willliam Barr traveled to Italy and dined with John Durham, and THAT was improper. That was on the taxpayer’s dime — two besties having meals together and traveling together because it certainly could not be because Barr was improperly trying to influence where the investigation went, right? Because THAT would be a huge scandal, right? Certainly an Attorney General traveling and dining with the special prosecutor is a big no no.
But crickets from flerp! No citing of impropriety. No concern about how Durham should step down and how all of Durham’s investigations are now suspect.
The “appearance of impropriety” gets Democrats fired or defeated or charged, but actual impropriety is never enough to criticize a Republican.
You might recall a certain person here similarly harshly condemning Claudine Gay for plagiarism (suggesting harsh response was typical for such outrage) and then pulling their punches when news came out that Neri Oxman’s plagiarism was far more blatant and inexcusable. Needing to see more evidence before condemning her plagiarism with the strong language he condemned Gay.
Diane,
You asked ” Is there a conflict of interest if the district attorney has a romantic involvement with one of the prosecutors?”
That could have been answered by a simple “no”, or it could have been answered with a “I don’t know”.
But instead you got a very long response expressing very serious concern if it was true, because of all the appearance of impropriety issues that might be a problem. None of them involve conflict of interest.
If you read closely, there is an easy to miss line in the middle of that response that was a straightforward answer to your question:
“I suspect there are some good arguments why this is not an actual conflict.”
Diane, your question already presupposed that there was a relationship. You asked if there was a conflict of interest. Someone who was unbiased would answer your question by either saying there are good arguments either way, or that they didn’t have enough information to know.
Not spend multiple paragraphs about why even the appearance of impropriety is wrong, while barely acknowledging that there are likely good arguments that it is not.
This is the opposite of how real impropriety involving Republicans is treated in the news media and amplified. For Republicans, the approach is to write multiple paragraphs about why (given the information known) something that is OBVIOUSLY improper is not a conflict of interest or not a crime, with a single sentence in the middle that there could be a good argument that it is a crime.
The story today is that the prosecutor bought air tickets for Willis and him to travel to Miami and San Francisco.
I am not convinced there is a conflict of interest. They are in the same team.
give it a freaking rest
The prosecutor used his own money to buy those tickets.
The prosecutor was paid exactly the same as the other 3 prosecutors hired by Fani’s office.
The innuendo here is that even paying this Black lawyer the same as the 3 other prosecutors hired constitutes a conflict of interest if a year after hiring him they travel together on a romantic trip that he pays for out of his own funds. It is nonsensical. ALL of us should be shutting down this kind of talk and pointing out the extreme hypocrisy of those who claim there is not enough information to condemn folks like Eva Moskowitz or John Durham, but do seem to constantly push the harshest condemnations of Claudine Gay and Fani Willis.
I support flerp! waving his finger vigorously at Fani for having an affair with a co-worker she hired, just like he waves his finger vigorously at Clarence Thomas and maybe (but maybe not) at John Durham. (Probably flerp! condemned Durham in strong terms and said all his prosecutions were suspect because of his bromance and lavish travel and dining with Barr and I missed it)
There is no doubt in my mind that Fani will be held to this double standard and destroyed, but we should still take every opportunity to call out the folks here who are complicit in amplifying all the right wing narratives that demonize Black women for doing far less than certain privileged folks do, when those very same people who have amplified the right wing narratives suddenly turn around and profess not to know enough to use the same harsh language to condemn people of privilege. When Fani and Claudine Gay’s so-called scandals are amplified as being of grave concern by the very same people who say they just don’t know enough to know whether Eva Moskowitz or Neri Oxman deserve to be harshly condemned and attacked.
Just look at the language used when it comes to Fani, who at worst had an affair with a prosecutor who had already split with his wife. According to flerp!, it’s far worse than that! But despite all the word salad in flerp!’s reply, it seems to all boil down to being held to a standard of “appearance” that, like the Republicans, they only apply selectively.
I think FLERP was simply pointing out the issues. Willis has gotten herself and the case into bad trouble. Unnecessarily. She should have been entirely above suspicion of any ethical lapses. She is not.
“if Willis herself is someone personally benefiting from the prosecution, then that would be a conflict of interest.”
Having an affair with a co-worker is not “personally benefiting” from a prosecution. I know you hate when I respond to flerp!, but this is exactly what Orwell warned about. So often I see posts full of innuendo and misleading information and word salad and facts that aren’t true (oops, I guess 20% of JHU’s freshman class isn’t Native American). And it is never called out. This stuff influences us all, just like the constant “Biden is too old” refrain influences us all to see a “very concerning issue” where none exists.
The narrative here that flerp! is pushing is that IF Fani had an affair — and flerp! so generously acknowledges that it might not be true – but if it is true, than it is a very serious conflict of interest. Even though there is no conflict of interest! But flerp! provides a word salad using all kinds of alarmist, extreme language about how it “could” be and a casual sentence that maybe it isn’t.
If you read flerp!’s comments closely, you will see that he is condemning Fani for simply having an affair. Period. That’s the “accusations” that flerp! characterized as being of grave concern that could “jeopardized the entire case of the Trump criminal trial”
“I hope to God the accusations [that Fani had a consensual affair] are not true.”
“Willis’s decision to hire Wade is now facing enormous scrutiny. The accusations, if true, could present a conflict of interest or could amount to fraud.”
“If the allegation that she was sleeping with this guy is true—I’ve withheld judgment on that but it’s starting to look like it is—it’s a potential major disaster.”
And then flerp!’s personal attack on me for pointing out that he is exaggerating as an extreme scandal a consensual affair and flerp! has spent multiple posts pushing the right wing narrative — that the affair itself, if true, is such a scandalous and inappropriate breach of ethics and a conflict of interest and is a major disaster that will damage the ability to hold Trump accountable, which just happens to be exactly the narrative the right wing is pushing! Just a coincidence? read flerp!’s attack on me:
“Even if the worst does turn out to be true [what flerp! means by the worst is a consensual affair], I can’t help but assume you’ll try to excuse the behavior (you’re already signaling that you’ll do so), which by the way is COMPLETELY INSANE AND IDIOTIC conduct by a prosecutor.”
It’s truly laughable to accuse Fani of “personally benefiting” from having an affair! ” LAVISH” travel must be invoked! Atlanta to Miami??? That’s her personal benefit?
The language in all the posts is Orwellian. And designed to push the right wing narrative that if it is true that Fani hooked up with a co-worker, it is the biggest scandal ever that raises questions about whether Trump can be prosecuted at all.
It’s simply the right wing narrative legitimized because the person is “very concerned” about what Fani did. Hook up with a prosecutor.
Diane, you wrote: “ But since they are on the same team, I don’t see a conflict of interest that requires recusal.”
You might be right, but here are a few points just to articulate the risks here.
It’s true they’re are on the same team. On the other hand, an attorney who has an affair with a client is “on the same team” as the client — presumably they both want what’s best for the client, after all — but that is a classic example of an impermissible ethical breach. People can get disbarred for that. So “same team” doesn’t always end the conflict inquiry. What matters is whether a potential conflict impairs an attorney’s obligation to zealously and completely represent the interests of her client.
Here, Willis has an obligation to zealously represent the People’s interests in prosecuting this case, and she can have no other interest that prevents her from fulfilling that obligation completely. Her obligation includes hiring the most competent attorney possible for the role of special counsel. If she had a romantic relationship with Ward at the time of his hiring (which has not been shown yet) that obligation could be compromised: Willis’s obligation to her client would conflict with her desire to do help her paramour. (This is separate from the additional argument that hiring one’s boyfriend could constitute a misuse of public funds.)
If a romantic relationship didn’t arise until after Ward was already hired, there could still be a conflict. Willis hired Ward to basically run point and coordinate the prosecution team. But Willis ultimately runs this case. If Ward makes decisions that Willis does not think are in the best interest of the case, she needs to be fully free to intervene and course-correct. She may be less inclined to do so if she is romantically attached to Ward. She would be even less inclined to take more drastic action, such as to remove him from the team. Strictly speaking, in a conflicts analysis, it doesn’t matter if a scenario has actually arisen where Willis’s relationship with Ward prevented her from making decisions that were in the best interest of the case. The risk, the conflict, looms as long as the relationship exists. And even the appearance of the conflict is unacceptable because it risks undermining public confidence in the process, which is unacceptable from the prosecutorial perspective. What we’re seeing play out right now is in part a crisis of public confidence.
I don’t know where I come down on all this and there’s much we don’t know factually. All I know is that, if, as appears likely, it turns out that Willis and Ward had or have a romantic relationship, then Willis is a complete idiot for putting this case at risk. No excuse for it, it’s totally unacceptable.
FLERP,
I agree that if she jeopardizes this important case, she’s a fool.
FLERP!,
Please cite a single instance when a prosecution was overturned or questioned because the defendant successfully got a judge to rule that having two prosecutors hooking up at any point during the 3 years before the trial began makes the prosecution invalid.
Come on, folks, are you really buying this faux concern, which amplifies something that flerp! presents as a serious breach?
If flerp!’s scenarios were true, that would HELP Trump! After all, according to flerp!, the very extreme danger of this affair is that Fani would NOT use her own best judgement to prosecute a case against Trump, but would instead be unduly influenced by the judgement of the incompetent, barely qualified attorney she hired because she wanted to hook up with him in the future AND wanted a free trip from Atlanta to Miami.
If flerp!’s scenario was even remotely plausible, Trumpworld would not be complaining! They would be CELEBRATING! The last thing they would want is for Fani to step down because like flerp!, they would “know” that there is a very real chance that Fani’s judgement would be compromised and instead the judgement of this supposedly incompetent attorney she is hooking up with would harm the case against Trump!
Does ANYONE believe the nonsense that the Trump world’s faux outrage about Fani hooking up is because of what flerp! presents as if it was remotely plausible — that Fani would substitute this other incompetent guy’s judgement for her own and HELP Trump!
Please – that reply above is a word salad of Orwellian propaganda.
After reading flerp!’s post above, I now want Fani and her maybe hook-up to stay on.
Remember, if Fani loses the case against Trump, we can all push the narrative that it is because her otherwise good judgement in how to prosecute Trump was unduly influenced by her being swayed by the judgement of the supposedly incompetent lawyer she hired so she could sleep with him and get free trips from Miami to Atlanta. So even if Fani loses, we all can amplify the narrative that Trump IS guilty and would definitely have been found guilty if it wasn’t for Fani’s boyfriend’s improper influence.
And if Fani wins the case — well Trump must be REALLY guilty if a prosecutor who is likely relying on her incompetent boyfriend’s judgement over her own still convinced jurors of Trump’s guilt!
By the way, does ANYONE ever say that a successful male prosecutor would be unduly influenced because the incompetent, inexperienced female attorney he’s hooking up with told him how to run his case?
I doubt it. This SHOULD be a joke, but instead this is considered “serious” commentary. When what it is, is referred to as concern trolling.
What historian Garry Wills once said about America politics in mid-1970 is ever more true today: “Modern American politics is the South’s revenge for losing the Civil War.”
“Republicans: The New Confederacy”
I did a search and came up with an article from 4/29/2020, which happens to be my birthday. Things really started to come to a head then, when people were being told to lockdown.
It’s gotten worse since then.
https://www.ft.com/content/d7aee844-88a0-11ea-a109-483c62d17528
Something you will never seen written or amplified by a Trump supporter:
“In other news, it looks like there is a real possibility that this idiot Attorney General William Barr has jeopardized the timeline (at a minimum—the worst case is Barr jeopardized the entire case) of the John Durham criminal trial in Georgia by hiring a special prosecutor on the case who he dined with and even traveled to Italy with. Unbelievable. ”
You won’t see a Trump supporter posting on a right wing blog linking to Washington Post articles written by Jennifer Rubin and then expressing extreme outrage at conduct by Barr and Durham that was so egregious some career prosecutors in Durham’s office quit in disgust.
You won’t see Trump supporters writing on right wing blogs:
“As I said, I’m no ethics guy, but it seems to be that there is a respectable argument that the relationship creates the appearance that public funds have been misused and that the interests of the People cannot be best served when decisions about how to run the case may be influenced by the fact that the Attorney General is man-dating and traveling with the special prosecutor.
“One thing people may not understand is how seriously these rules are taken…this isn’t like a regular case of two co-workers socializing or traveling together. It is not “no big deal” for a special prosecutor to have a bromance of meals and travel to Italy with the Attorney General who hires him. It creates a massive “appearance of impropriety” problem and every attorney knows this.”
“Someone might argue, “but what if it doesn’t affect the case” or even “but doesn’t that make their interests even more aligned”? Answer is no, it’s absolutely unacceptable. And if the purpose of the bromance IS to influence the case? It’s even more unacceptable!
The one thing that’s clear to me is that, if Barr did indeed have a bromance relationship with Durham, or if Barr just decided to wine and dine and use government funds to travel with Durham to influence the case, it would constitute insanely irresponsible conduct in connection with an extraordinarily important case.”
Oh right, selective outrage. It’s okay if a Republican does far worse. But Fani is a Black woman, so the selective outrage that has ALREADY condemned her actions (“appearance of impropriety”) as so far out of the norms that no one except privileged white people should get the benefit of the doubt before all the facts are known. We all just don’t know whether a powerful charter school CEO improperly releasing private records to smear a young child whose mother criticized her is really such a big deal. But even before facts are known we do know that the “Appearance of impropriety” justifies extreme concern about the trustworthiness of Fani.
Is this double standard intentional? Or just implicit bias?
Here’s more on the Fanni Willis “scandal” from today’s NY Times, and other media, along with some comments from me:
“the bombshell accusations have rocked the criminal case — one of four Trump faces this year as he also seeks a second term in the White House. Trump blasted Willis and Wade over the allegations again on Friday, calling the prosecutors ‘the lovebirds’ and accusing them of targeting him ‘to ENRICH themselves, and to live the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous!’ In posts on his social media platform, Trump called for the prosecutors to ‘face appropriate consequences’ and for charges against him to be dismissed.”
•• It’s rather rich for Trump to be ridiculing ANYONE about trying to enrich himself, and it’s the height of hypocrisy for Trump to be demanding “appropriate consequences” for Fanni Willis when he is doing everything he can to try and evade accountability for himself.
“Roman’s motion argues that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade violated the state bar’s rules of professional conduct, the county code regarding conflicts of interest and, possibly, federal law. It calls for the case against Mr. Roman to be dismissed, and for Mr. Wade, Ms. Willis and Ms. Willis’s entire office to be disqualified from the case.”
•• Whether or not Fanni Willis violated any code of professional conduct remains to be seen, and it seems that a pretty good case can be made that she did not. But, yeah, optics matter. Still, there is a STRONG legal case AGAINST Mr. Roman that is completely UNRELATED to WIllis taking a private trip or two with Mr. Wade.
“On Saturday morning, Norman Eisen, special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment, who has been vocal in supporting the Georgia prosecution, called on Mr. Wade to step down, saying that the recent allegation of an affair ‘had become a distraction.’ ”
•• That’s the WHOLE point of this sordid nonsense, is it not? To cause a distraction from the fact that Trump AND his accomplices tried to steal the electoral votes in Georgia away from Mr. Trump by throwing out the verified, certified election results. Also, if in fact Wade were to resign, wouldn’t THAT be a legitimate end to the issue?
“For years, Mr. Wade was a regular at county Republican breakfast meetings, and he served for a time as a delegate to the county convention, said Jason Shepherd, who chaired the Cobb County Republican Party at the time…In 2016, during one of his unsuccessful attempts to run for Cobb County superior court judge, he was supported by Ashleigh Merchant — the lawyer who filed the motion this month on Mr. Roman’s behalf that seeks to have him removed from the Trump case. The motion questions Mr. Wade’s qualifications. But in a Facebook post in the midst of his judge’s race, she praised him for his extensive résumé…’Nathan has practiced in every area of the law that appears before the Superior Court bench,’ she wrote.”
•• Ahem…
Let’s rehash here. As PBS News Hour reported two short days ago,
“Trump and Roman were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in August along with 17 others. They’re accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to try to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four of those charged have already pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump, Roman and the others who remain have pleaded not guilty…Roman was the director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign and also had worked in the White House…Prosecutors say he helped coordinate an effort to contact state lawmakers on Trump’s behalf to encourage them to ‘unlawfully appoint presidential electors.’…He is also alleged to have been involved in efforts to have Republicans in swing states that Trump lost, including Georgia, meet on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign certificates falsely saying Trump had won their states and that they were the electors for their states. He was in touch with local Republican officials in several states to set up those meetings.”
And yet Roman (and Trump, and a whole cast of other weirdos), think that private “dating” or a few private trips somehow create an act of immense impropriety that should THROW OUT legally obtained indictments for subverting the 2020 presidential election returns in the state of Georgia, thereby disenfranchising every single voter who cast a ballot for Mr. Biden.
This is beyond stupid, is it not?
Michael Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant has asked not only that Fanni Willis and Nathan Wade BE REMOVED from this case but also that ALL CHARGES against Roman BE DROPPED.
Here are some other cases where Ashleigh Merchant demanded that charges be dropped. Take a peek.
2017: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ga-supreme-court/1862249.html
2021: “In addition to Matthews’s admission that he stabbed Young, his cell phone records and his knowledge of information about the crime scene that the police had deliberately withheld from the public supported a finding that he was present when the crime occurred. Evidence found in his home and in the adjacent dumpster, including the set of steak knives that matched the knife blade found on Young’s body, Young’s debit and credit cards, and the cap that one of the men using Young’s debit card was wearing just after the murder, also connected him to the crimes. The evidence was legally sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Matthews was guilty of malice murder and possession of a knife during the commission of a crime.”
“Count 6 of the indictment charged Matthews with knowingly taking without consent a Bank of America Visa debit card, which was “issued to Adrianne Young as cardholder and from whose possession the said card was taken.” A rational trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Matthews was guilty of financial transaction card theft from the evidence presented, including evidence that debit cards and a credit card belonging to Young were found in the dumpster adjacent to Matthews’s residence, that Young’s purse was missing from the crime scene, and that Matthews attempted to use Young’s debit card within an hour of her murder.”
https://casetext.com/case/matthews-v-state-2093
2022: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ga-supreme-court/2162540.html
2023: https://casetext.com/case/kim-v-state-60
Kind of makes one wonder.
Man, I never before heard a trip from Atlanta to Miami characterized as lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Lifestyles of the rich and famous sounds more like this: (from citizensforethics.org)
“When Vice President Pence traveled to Ireland for meetings in Dublin, he stayed more almost two hundred miles away, at the president’s Doonbeg property. His chief of staff said Trump suggested the resort. The detour cost the government nearly $600,000 in travel expenses, and the Secret Service paid the Trump resort more than $15,000 for the stay.”
But I am told by wise legal minds here that the real issue is that Fani’s maybe dalliance with another prosecutor on the case could very well mean that instead of acting to pursue a conviction, she may follow the incompetent advice of the guy she’s having a fling with and act in a way that benefits both Roman and Trump.
I don’t care whether or not Wade steps down, but I guess if Wade steps down, that will stop the concern trolling about how the real conflict of interest scandal is that Fani would be taking marching orders from her “man” Wade and that would benefit Trump and Roman because they will now be more likely to get off scot free if Wade was around to improperly influence Fani to conduct the trial in a stupid way that benefits the defense (because “her man” tells her to do so).
I really can’t believe the media AGAIN got played. Just once I’d like them to treat the real scandals as if they were 1/10th as serious as the faux scandals invented by the right wing media.
Also, thank you for putting to rest the nasty innuendo here mischaracterizing Wade as some barely competent attorney (which of course is an important part of the right wing narrative being pushed here — where the unethical Fani chooses her incompetent lover for a job, knowing that the fact that he is able to draw the same salary that all the other prosecutors receive means that after a year of getting that regular salary he will be able to take her on a luxurious vacation from Atlanta to Miami.
“In 2016, during one of his unsuccessful attempts to run for Cobb County superior court judge, he was supported by Ashleigh Merchant — the lawyer who filed the motion this month on Mr. Roman’s behalf that seeks to have him removed from the Trump case. The motion questions Mr. Wade’s qualifications. But in a Facebook post in the midst of his judge’s race, she praised him for his extensive résumé…’Nathan has practiced in every area of the law that appears before the Superior Court bench,’ she wrote.”
I sure wouldn’t want to teach in Idaho. It’s a crazy state that is dominated by Republicans.
I feel sorry for every teacher in the state. What teacher would want someone in the school carrying a gun that will put all workers and children in danger?
I went to grades 1-12 public schools in Boise. This bill will have tragic consequences.
‘Desperate need to secure our schools’: Idaho bill would let teachers carry concealed guns
Most any adult at an Idaho school could carry a concealed weapon under this proposed bill.
This comes from Channel 2 IDAHO NEWS. The other site was from the Idaho Statesman and I’m not a subscriber. This gives much more information on the bill.
New bill proposes staff be allowed firearms in schools for protection
BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — Representative Edward Hill introduced the draft bill, RS30954, which would allow eligible school staff members to carry firearms on school property. This is a choice that would be up to each teacher, and should they choose, they would require an enhanced concealed carry license.
Representative Hill says this would help schools because hired guards are too expensive, volunteer guards are not reliable, and emergency response time can be detrimental. Saying, “Police response to these are varied, five to seven minutes – sometimes longer. Especially in rural communities where they might not have that option at all. ”
Representative Hill says making school a Second Amendment zone would close time gaps, allowing teachers to protect themselves and students while first responders are on their way. The bill would also have gun-free signs removed from schools to show potential threats that there are armed individuals inside.
The draft was approved unanimously by the committee in under five minutes.
https://idahonews.com/news/local/new-bill-proposes-staff-be-allowed-firearms-in-schools-for-protection