Jonathan V. Last writes for The Bulwark, which was founded by Republican Never Trumpers. It is one of the most engaging websites I read. This post is newsworthy, since so many Trumpers were citing Dinesh D’Souza’s book about election fraud.
Last writes:
Last August we talked about True the Vote, the group whose “data” on election fraud in Georgia constituted a large part of Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules.
Let me refresh your memory:
True the Vote is a Texas-based group which filed a complaint with the Georgia State Election Board alleging fraud in the 2020 presidential campaign.
The Georgia State Election Board (the SEB) investigated this complaint and found no fraud. So it asked True the Vote to share its evidence. True the Vote declined and instead said—whoopsie!—they’d like to just take the complaint back.
The SEB explained that that’s not how it works with sworn statements and subpoenaed the extensive evidence that True the Vote claimed in its complaint to have.1 The whole thing devolved into litigation that bore a striking resemblance to George Costanza’s attempt to convince his dead fiancée’s parents that he owned a house in the Hamptons.
Anyway, this week the Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the news that True the Vote finally gave up and told the judge in the case that they don’t have any of the so-called evidence, or data, or names, or identities—or any of those other fancy legal whosywhatsits:
True the Vote said in a recent court filing that it doesn’t know the identity of its own anonymous source who told a story of a “ballot trafficking” scheme allegedly organized by a network of unnamed groups paying $10 per ballot delivered.
True the Vote also told the court it doesn’t have documents about illegal ballot collection, the name of its purported informant or confidentiality agreements it previously said existed.
You can read True the Vote’s filing here. It’s wild. But the cajones on these guys! In a non-court-filed public statement, True the Vote went on to say that while they don’t have any of this stuff they said they had, they know that the Georgia Election Board could come up with it if they really wanted:
“The [Georgia Bureau of Investigation] consequently has ready access to the underlying data, and could, we believe, reconstruct it, but it declines to do that,” True the Vote said in a statement. “At this point, it would be redundant and cost-prohibitive for True the Vote to do so on its own. It is in that sense that there is nothing more for True the Vote to provide that it has not already provided to the GBI.”
Translation: The real evidence of voter fraud isn’t in a computer. It’s in our hearts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Some Republicans lied in a legal filing and don’t have the evidence they said they had?
I am glad someone is reporting this. But it isn’t the first time in Georgia a group of Republicans have lied about having evidence.
The Republican lawyers in Georgia lied in the legal filing they made to criminalize two prosecutors having a (temporary) romantic affair that had been over for 7 months. But the Trump supporting judge overseeing the hearing does not believe the lies in the filing should detract from whatever is true that can be used to discredit and dismiss two prosecutors who are doing such a good job getting convictions that the Republicans would do anything to get a Republican judge to cite as a pretense for getting rid of them. After all, how does one ever fight against the charge of an “appearance” of wrongdoing, when Republican judges, prosecutors, and the media that presents all charges against Democrats as “credible” and amplifies “indignation” not at the lying Republicans for hyping human mistakes that are NOT criminal, but at the Democrats who are always presented as “having brought this on themselves” for being imperfect.
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^^correction: I don’t know if the Republican judge is “Trump supporting” so I should not have written that. The Republican judge is a Republican like Hur. He was appointed by Republicans and like Merrick Garland, it’s long past time for us to understand that their first duty is to the Republican party. That’s why Hur wrote the report he did — his main agenda was not to truth, when the simple truth didn’t hurt Biden enough, but how to maximize whatever negative information he could to make Biden look like he did something legally improper when he did not. We will see the same in Georgia.
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“The Republican lawyers in Georgia lied in the legal filing they made to criminalize two prosecutors having a (temporary) romantic affair that had been over for 7 months.”
What legal filing are you talking about, what did they lie about?
FYI a motion to disqualify does not “criminalize” anything.
Glad to see you took back the strange accusation that the judge is “Trump-supporting.”
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Yes, I am not here to mislead. The judge is a Republican just like Hur is a Republican. We don’t know whether Hur is “Trump-supporting” either, but as we all agree, Merrick Garland was naive not to understand that Hur, being a Republican, was willing to spurn ethical behavior to help the Republicans (which means Trump) defeat Biden.
You, on the other hand, have yet to retract your nasty innuendo that Fani Willis is guilty of the crime of “perjury” as a result of the motion to disqualify that you, yourself insist “does not ‘criminalize’ anything.”
The motion to disqualify that included intentionally false statements.
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Merrick Garland was not “naive.” He knew exactly what he was doing.
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What false statements were in the motion to disqualify?
I never said Fani Willis is guilty of perjury. This is an example of you either not reading closely or getting carried away with your own emotional reaction.
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flerp! there you go lying about me again. I didn’t write that you SAID Fani Willis is guilty of perjury. This is an example of you either not reading closely or getting carried away with your own emotional reaction.
“FLERP!
February 17, 2024 at 10:07 am
Continuing my last thought, there’s actually a fair inference that both Wade and Willis perjured themselves yesterday.”
I made a fair inference that flerp! used “nasty innuendo that Fani Willis is guilty of the crime of “perjury”
flerp!, stop letting your emotions get away with you.
Readers can read flerp!’s comment and decide for themselves whether a person to says “there’s actually a fair inference that both Wade and Willis perjured themselves yesterday” is intimating that Willis and Wade perjured themselves yesterday!! lol!
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Yes, I wrote that the inference could be drawn that Willis perjured herself, and then I explained in that same comment what the basis of that inference was: namely, that Bradley corroborated the allegations in the DQ motion, and that the basis of Bradley’s knowledge appears to have been Wade himself. I stand by all that. It doesn’t mean the judge will make that inference, but he could, depending on how the in camera proceeding goes and how he views the credibility of the witnesses (credibility determinations are exclusively the province of the fact-finder, here, the judge).
Back to my question which you don’t seem able to answer: What lies are in the disqualification motion? If you don’t answer this time I’ll assume you don’t know and I’ll leave it at that.
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FLERP, drop it. This is one of those circular debates that go nowhere and waste time.
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Sorry for the typo above. Here is corrected last paragraph:
“Readers can read flerp!’s comment and decide for themselves whether a person who writes: “there’s actually a fair inference that both Wade and Willis perjured themselves yesterday” is intimating that Willis and Wade perjured themselves yesterday!! lol!
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No one gives a damn about your squabbles, NYC. Stop it.
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flerp!, I have no idea why you believe that anything you wrote after you intimated that Fani Willis committed the crime of perjury contradicts what you said.
If anything, you are doing what Hur did when he said that the jury wouldn’t convict the elderly, memory-impaired Biden, thus intimating that there was evidence that Biden had committed a crime but would get off because of a sympathy vote.
You are making the same nasty innuendo about Fani Willis — your innuendo is that a lawyer she doesn’t know has the information about the “true” date when two people’s relationship went from a personal friendship to a “romantic relationship”. But she will probably escape a perjury charge NOT because she didn’t commit perjury but for technical reasons about privilege or a Republican judge deciding who he personally believes is credible.
The problem I always had with your clear innuendo that Fani committed perjury is that you completely ignore all the evidence that SUPPORTS Fani’s testimony.
Fani testified to the timeline when a close personal friendship because a “romantic relationship” and when it STOPPED being a “romantic relationship”and went back to being a personal friendship again.
That timeline is corroborated by the romantic trips they took together! All the romantic trips happened AFTER the start of the relationship and ended BEFORE the end of the relationship.
Surely if the lying Republican lawyers who were allowed free reign to grill Fani for hours had any evidence they had taken vacations together before the time Fani testified their romantic relationship began, they would have offered it up. Maybe they will. But it’s your own bias to accuse Fani of perjury when the evidence those lying defense lawyers produced has not supported that.
You could have written “there hasn’t been any strong evidence that Fani committed perjury.” But you wrote a comment that implied that Fani DID commit perjury. Why are you trying to be cute?
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NYCPSP,
By now, everyone who reads comments understand your view that Willis should be exonerated. I agree. I see no conflict of interest.
Please stop arguing about it with FLERP and Bob Shepherd. It’s boring and repetitive.
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About what I expected.
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FLERP, you nailed it in an earlier post. With most people, you can debate matters of fact by presenting evidence. And based on the evidence, there can be a rational conclusion to the debate. But not in ones like these, where every challenge to an assertion simply leads to distortion of or misunderstanding or ignoring that evidence and to 100 other false assertions springing up.; In the later versions of the Greek myth of Herakles and the Hydra, if you cut off one head, only two grew in its place.
You have given me this advice before, and I was, alas, slow to take it. Don’t bother, however outrageous, false, disingenuous, weird, or insulting the comment, to respond. Count on readers to be able to see for what they are obsession and nonsense and illogic and misreading and commenting ad nauseam about matters the commenter knows nothing about.
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Bob, sometimes you can be a nasty piece of work. You do it to me. You do it to Linda. You do it to Duane.
I wrote a comment and you and flerp! CHOSE to respond and you CHOSE to insult me. Why are you inserting yourself into this? Why did flerp!? I did not mention either of you, but you two disingenuous bullies responded to a post you had no reason to respond to.
Bob, you are the one who looks bad for everyone to see. You and flerp!, calling me the liar because you now want to change the meaning of the words “there’s actually a fair inference that both Wade and Willis perjured themselves yesterday” so that it is absolutely, positively is NOT innuendo that Fani Willis committed perjury yesterday! You attack me because I hold a difference of opinion than the two of you — the only two commenters here (including Diane Ravitch) who always, always have to be right.
I am absolutely allowed to hold the opinion that the words: “there’s actually a FAIR inference that both Wade and Willis perjured themselves yesterday” suggest exactly what they say: that it would certainly be FAIR for anyone watching the Fani testimony to “infer” that Fani perjured herself!
Stop with the gaslighting. What is wrong with you both? You can insult and psychoanalyze me until the cows come home but the more you do, the smaller you both seem.
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NYC-
Bob has no moral high ground from which to write at this blog.
I don’t have enough knowledge to agree with all of your assertions about Bob but, I certainly agree with some of them.
In the exposure of what the Catholic Conferences are doing to lead the school choice campaign, I have no dog in the race, contrary to Bob’s false statements. If evangelical protestants had the documented political apparatus, the political successes and, the media cover,
I would write about it.
The Conferences are fully transparent at their sites. Diane posted about Nebraska and vouchers. The overwhelming number of private schools in the state are religious. There are 110 Catholic schools in Nebraska with 30,632 students. There are only 15 Christian schools with 2,616 students. Of the combined numbers, 92% of students are in Catholic schools. 8% are in Christian schools.
If evangelical protestants had spent almost $1,000,000 to destroy democracy in Ohio in August and only 1 local media outlet covered it, I would report about it at this blog (as long as Diane allowed me to).
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My bad, Diane. I was curious whether she had anything in mind when she accused the lawyers of lying in their filing. Turns out she didn’t. But I shouldn’t have engaged in the first place. I really wish WordPress had a “block” function like Twitter does.
What’s funny, Diane, is that I may also agree that there’s no actual conflict of interest, at least not one that requires dismissal. But there are more shades to the legal issues here than some seem to think. So I sometimes try to sketch those issues out for people. And some people really, really do not like that.
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I will be first to say that I have not read the documents in the GA case. I hope the judge throws out the charges so the trial can move forward
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I intend to post the transcript of a revealing interaction between Ashleigh Merchant and the Republican judge regarding Merchant apparently wanting to impeach the credibility of her own star witness (or the person who speaks for her) because Ashleigh wanted to make sure the public knew that the lies in her January court filings were their lies, not hers.
The Republican judge wasn’t going to let her blame the lie on the star witness against Fani in public!
The post I am working on DIRECTLY relates to the topic of this blog post. The Georgia State Election Board didn’t let Trump lawyers go on a fishing expedition with free reign to cross examine perceived Trump “enemies” based on a legal filing full of false claims.
The Republican Judge in the criminal case of the Trump cronies being prosecuted by Fani Willis should have done the same thing. The facts in no way support a “conflict of interest” removal because a relationship between two prosecutors changing from being close friends to being romantic partners and then changing back to the original relationship of being close friends again has no effect on the defense. By all accounts, the Fani Willis Georgia Elector case has been one of the most professional prosecutions, with quite a few guilty pleas and a careful gathering of evidence. Remember that for the last 7 months, before the Trump lawyers tried this Hail Mary on a very receptive Republican judge, there has been no romantic relationship and Wade is doing the same credible job he was doing when there was a romantic relationship! The rest of the innuendo – that Fani is so desperate for a “free” vacation that she’d deviously plan an intricate plot to cover up her desire to get “free” vacations by first asking other attorneys (knowing they’d turn her down?) and then finally ask Wade so she could pay him and get the “free” vacation just defies logic. Why the F’ does the a legal filing full of false innuendo but whose truth (that Fani and Wade did become a romantic couple for a time and had ALREADY STOPPED being a romantic couple 7 months earlier) warrant a hearing that gives 5 or 6 different Republican lawyers the chance to grill a prosecutor under oath about her personal life? There is NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST that affects the defense. None.
The judge already told us why he is doing this.
“Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee made the remarks at a hearing where he denied Willis’ bid to toss out a subpoena for her testimony at the hearing Thursday, at least for now.
“Disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,”
APPEARANCE of conflict of interest isn’t about the truth. It is about whether a kangaroo court and the folks who immediately post right wing propaganda implying that it’s a fair assumption that Fani Willis committed perjury will cause Fani to APPEAR guilty to the public.
Guess what? She does! A judge allowing Republican lawyers to make all kinds of innuendo with leading questions that are trying to OBSCURE the truth instead of enlighten us makes people say Fani APPEARS to have done something improper that hurts the defense, so maybe she did.
That’s all this Republican Judge needs to remove Fani and he definitely wants to remove her. The free reign he is giving to all the Trump defense lawyers to make innuendoes and ask questions with false premises (How long have you been beating your wife?) makes it clear.
Appearance of guilt. That’s the Judge’s stated standard that he will follow. The judge should have reviewed the January legal filing, reviewed Fani’s reply where she testifies under oath about the relationship timeline, and seen that the the court filing in no way warranted a conflict of interest removal.
What was the point of having a bunch of different Republican defense attorneys suggesting Fani was lying, suggesting over and over that the answers she was giving were suspect, even though they weren’t? If the judge believed Fani was a liar, he should have removed her for being a liar about her affair. But the judge knew such a political move would be blatantly partisan.
So he held a kangaroo court instead to get what he needed to rule on APPEARANCES.
flerp! says:
“I may also agree that there’s no actual conflict of interest, at least not one that requires dismissal. But there are more shades to the legal issues here than some seem to think. So I sometimes try to sketch those issues out for people”
I am sure the George Election Board could have held a show trial using all the innuendo in the court filing and got alot of people to believe in the “appearance” of wrongdoing.
But this “appearance” standard is something that Republicans are never held to. No one had a show trial where John Durham and William Barr were grilled by multiple anti-Trump attorneys with lots of innuendo, so a Democrat judge could sadly shake their head and say “sorry Mr. Durham, you may be innocent, but the trip to Italy and lavish meals you shared with Mr. Barr has the APPEARANCE of wrongdoing.”
No one is suggesting that Hunter Biden’s lawyers should get to grill special prosecutor David Weiss under oath to demonstrate that he APPEARS to have a conflict of interest.
It’s fine to “sketch out the issues” while ALSO amplifying that THIS IS NOT NORMAL. THIS IS NOT OKAY. Those “appearance” are not something Republican prosecutors have to worry about.
It seems to be the height of hypocrisy for anyone to criticize Merrick Garland for Hur while themselves being guilty of trusting Republican judges and Republican independent prosecutors and taking them at their word. Unfortunately, we have become a country where only one side follows the rules and – ironically – the rule following side is also held to a ridiculously high standard,too!
The judge in the Fani Willis SHOULD have done what the Georgia Election Board did and forced the hand of those who swore they had evidence. Not let lawyers with no integrity go on a public fishing trip to provide grounds for removal based on APPEARANCE.
This is serious, and we act like it’s Fani’s fault. If it wasn’t a romantic relationship — one that IS NOT A CONFLICT OF INTEREST– it would be something else that IS NOT A CONFLICT.
Dems believe Durham and Weiss have conflict of interests, but taking a lavish trip and having meals with someone you aren’t supposed to only “appears” to be a conflict of interest when you are a Democrat. Fani’s sex life is publicly scrutinized in a show trial in order to justify her removal on an “appearance violation” while Weiss’ unethical actions are brushed off and thus there is no “appearance” problem for something that no one ever hears about!
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Diane, unfortunately the Republican judge already told us that he can and will disqualify Fani Willis even if there’s no credible evidence of a conflict of interest.
“Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee made the remarks at a hearing where he denied Willis’ bid to toss out a subpoena for her testimony at the hearing Thursday, at least for now.
“Disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict OR the APPEARANCE of one”
The Republican judge wants to disqualify Fani Willis. But the Republican attorneys’ legal filing (the one that included lies) had no credible evidence of an actual conflict of interest.
The Republican judge should have done what the Georgia State Election Board did when they received a Republican legal filing from True the Vote that had no credible evidence to support their allegations. The Georgia SEB told the Republican lawyers to provide evidence for their claims.
In glaring contrast, the Republican judge in the Fani Willis matter held a public hearing to allow the Republican attorneys making allegations without credible evidence to support them to conduct a public show hearing and grill Fani Willis and other witnesses with loaded questions – presumably to gather the evidence that “proved” the unsupported allegations they made in the legal filing. Unprecedented.
To understand how problematic the Fani Willis show hearing was, imagine if the Georgia State Election Board responded to True the Vote’s evidence-free legal filing by holding public hearings where Republican attorneys from True the Vote could ask loaded questions of Georgia election officials (“did you decide to steal the election before that conversation or after?”)
The public hearings weren’t held to uncover new evidence so the judge could determine whether Fani Willis’ relationship with Wade was a conflict of interest that harmed the defense. The judge already knew that two prosecutors hooking up doesn’t harm the defense and the defense lawyers never had to produce any credible evidence it did.
The public hearings were held so that when the Republican judge disqualifies Fani Willis based on his judgement there is an APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest, he will have the manufactured consent of us all.
It’s absolutely true that someone watching the Republican lawyers haranguing Fani could say it “appeared” Fani committed perjury, despite there being no actual evidence that supports their perception. That’s really all the Republican judge needs. He told us he would disqualify Fani Willis if she “appeared” to have a conflict of interest, and what better way than to have a public hearing and give Republican lawyers the chance to make Fani “appear” to be conflicted to the public.
That’s why I posted this here. What this Republican judge did is in direct contrast to what the Georgia SEB did when they received a legal document with allegations but no credible evidence to support them.
The Georgia SEB told the Republican attorneys making those allegations to show them the evidence (and your post is about their failure to do so because they didn’t have any).
But the Republican judge in Fani Willis’ matter let the Republican lawyers conduct a fishing expedition in a show hearing. The only logical reason for that is that the judge wants to disqualify Fani Willis on “appearances” because he can’t do so based on ACTUAL conflict of interest.
And the Republican judge already knew there was no evidence for ACTUAL conflict of interest before the hearings.
Very dangerous times. Democrats prosecuting Republicans for real crimes don’t even have to be guilty of having a conflict of interest, they just have to “appear” to be guilty to give Republican judges grounds to remove them.
And Republicans do this right out in the open and there is very little outrage. When Willis is disqualified on “appearance”, there will be a lot of normalizing by our side that it’s her fault, that she did “appear” guilty, blah blah blah. The hearing manufactured our consent.
Fani Willis will be disqualified. Why would anyone believe Republican judge Scott McAfee is any different than Republican prosecutor Robert Hur? It’s easy to be like Merrick Garland and assume they would act honorably, but we should know better by now.
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One cannot assume that Merrick Garland assumed that Hur would act honorably. In fact, the overwhelming evidence is, I think, that Galand knew full well what he was doing when he appointed Hur, as he knew what he was doing when he dragged his feet about appointing a Special Prosecutor to look into Trump’s crimes.
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I am happy to stipulate (for purposes of this discussion) that Merrick Garland chose a Republican prosecutor because he knows even Republican prosecutors with long careers at the DOJ will do what they can to help Republicans and hurt Democrats.
Same with Republican judges. Hope none of us are naive enough to believe that Republican judge Scott McAfee is any different than Robert Hur. Hur didn’t lie and say Biden was guilty of anything, and McAfee isn’t going to lie and say Fani Willis is guilty of anything.
But when there’s no credible evidence that a Democrat committed a crime, both men understand full well how helpful it is to the Republican cause if it “appears” the Democrat did something wrong.
Why simply exonerate a Democrat (the way Pence was exonerated) if you can help make it appear that the Democrat did something wrong?
Fani Willis will be disqualified on “appearance” of conflict of interest, not actual conflict of interest. The Republican judge already told us “appearance” is sufficient grounds for disqualification.
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It is about time the GOP learned about consequences to lies. People can lie on right wing fake news shows and get away with it, but lying while deposed is never a good idea.
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Ohio GOP Sen. JD Vance created the Hallow prayer app which is currently being advertised on tv. Earlier this month, JD said he still questions results of the 2020 election. He may need the app to hold out hope of Trump’s reinstatement or, he may need it to cope with the ridicule being heaped on him about a post on his twitter feed (X) that had viewers questioning a search history of dolphin and woman and a video of an aquatic creature molesting a woman with a statement about her liking it.
– weirdo, sexist politicians recently steeped in right wing religion (a fish going against the current)- JD appeared saner before his conversion
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Vance is on the short list for Trump’s VP, along with Kristi Noem and Elise Stefanik and Tim Scott.
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That’s got to be the worst job in the world.
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OK. Today’s interesting current events question: Who owns Trump Tower?
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As of 2021, the building’s official owner is GMAC Commercial Mortgage, according to the New York City Department of City Planning.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki
Trump Tower – Wikipedia
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Ah, that’s what I get for playing this game with such smart people! ROFL!
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He has a brand new 100 million-dollar mortgage from Axos Bank in California. And, of course, the condo owners own their own properties–pieces of the tower. Such matters become important if the Trump criminal organization exhausts its appeals and actually has to start paying out its fines.
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He will owe nearly $500 million. That’s a lot of sneakers.
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that mortgage was coming due, and Trump just refinanced it with Axos, a California bank owned by a Trump presidential donor.
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Some bank?
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There’s an old saying, “Follow the Money” a catchphrase popularized by the 1976 docudrama film All the President’s Men…. — Wikipedia (source)
This time they have to follow a different trail that leads to the source of 2020’s election fraud. Follow the Lies back to their source and they will find Donald Trump. Along the way, they will discover all of Traitor Trump’s attempted election fraud like his infamous phone call to Georgia asking that they find votes that didn’t exist so Trump would win that state, that trail will also include his failed violent coup attempt on January 6, 2021.
I wonder if anyone has written a book about Traitor Trump’s election fraud yet. If so, it should be called Follow the Lies.
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Exactly, L,loyd. Trump tried by several means to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States. He ran several simultaneous scams to do this: encouraging a mob to show up at the Capitol to try to prevent the certification. Here are five of them:
Encouraging Senators and Congresspeople to stop, baselessly, the certification.
Submitting ballots by fake electors. Pressing frivolous, baseless challenges to the election results in court in hopes that partisan judges would, without evidence, invalidate election results.
Putting forward baseless claims that the elections machines were rigged to generate a groundswell of public opinion in favor of some sort of redo. Defaming the companies who made these machines.
Putting forward baseless claims that fake ballots had been counted, some involving defaming particular election workers and subjecting them to potential grievous harm.
Pressuring state election supervisors to invalidate votes.
Any one of these would be sufficient to convict Trump and send him to jail. As you said, Lloyd, THEY ALL LEAD BACK TO HIM.
Trump has not yet been charged with all of these. For example, there is a strong civil case to be made for the knowingly frivolous lawsuits., one that could result in hefty fines against Trump, Guiliani, Powell, et al.
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This is perhaps the best take on this situation I have seen. Thanks for posting it for those of us who follow your blog.
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A fake elector (praised repeatedly by trump) who was also Wisconsin’s Republican Party chair was interviewed on 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill said Andrew Hitt should ask for his money back from the law school that conferred his degree – Marquette.
Hitt’s bio states he is on the Madison Chapter steering committee for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and he was a senior member of a law firm’s government and regulatory area.
“lock her up” was a trump rallying cry. America’s rallying cry should be “lock up Wisconsin’s fake electors”
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“But the cajones on these guys!”
COJONES, folks, not cajones.
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“True the Vote said in a recent court filing that it doesn’t know the identity of its own anonymous source who told a story of a “ballot trafficking” scheme allegedly organized by a network of unnamed groups paying $10 per ballot delivered.”
“True the Vote also told the court it doesn’t have documents about illegal ballot collection, the name of its purported informant or confidentiality agreements it previously said existed.”
True the Vote made allegations with no evidence to back them up.
So did the Republican defense attorneys in the Fani Willis matter. They submitted a legal filing that included sensationalized allegations not supported by any credible evidence. These unsupported allegations included lies so blatant that Ashleigh Merchant, the Republican defense attorney who signed the legal filing acknowledged one of the lies herself!
This is a transcript of what happened in open court during the Fani Willis hearings, immediately after “star witness” Robin Yeartie* testified under oath and directly contradicted one of the lies that Republican defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant had included in the legal filing that the Republican judge used as his excuse to hold these hearings.
(The Republican judge had just finished telling Robin Yeartie, Ashleigh Merchant’s “star witness” against Fani that she could log out of her zoom call):
21:13
Republican defense lawyer Ashleigh Merchant: “Judge, I’d ask… just can Mr Partridge stay on for just one moment?”
Judge: “For what reason?”
Merchant: “the state made some allegations that I misrepresented some things to the court. And I just like the opportunity to clear that up that Mr Partridge is the one that told me that they lived together for a month. They’ve called me everything but a liar today. And so I just think that it’s appropriate for everyone to know where that information came from.”
Judge: “Alright Ms. Merchant, I think you’ve made your position clear. That’s uh, I don’t think we want to get sidetracked on that.”
To understand the flimsy basis that this Republican judge was using to preside over a show trial where he gave Republican defense attorneys extreme latitude to grill Fani Willis and other witnesses, you only had to watch that exchange. Of course the Republican judge wanted to move on from any discussion that shows that these unethical Republican defense attorneys submitted a legal filing that included false, sensationalistic claims whose only source was “someone told me someone else said it was true.” And instead of doing what the Georgia State Election Board did and requiring Republicans to produce credible evidence for their allegations, the Republican judge in the Fani Willis trial let Republican defense attorneys conduct a show hearing where they could ask loaded questions that were designed to convince the public that Fani “appeared” to be committing perjury, despite no evidence to support that. It should never have happened. It was a PR stunt to manufacture our consent that there is legitimacy in the Republican judge disqualifying Fani for the “appearance” of conflict of interest.
**to understand how problematic the hearing was: If you watched the examination of the “star witness” Robin Yeartie, the supposedly “truthful” testimony would lead you to believe they have been very close friends since they met in college 30 years ago. The defense attorneys threw in all kinds of innuendo in their questions — they were best friends for 30 years and co-workers, Yeartie invited Fani to move in with her, Fani confided in Yeartie about her personal relationships. This hearing was supposedly for the Republican judge’s benefit – he supposedly needs the hearing to make his decision as to whether to disqualify Fani. So I wondered how it is useful for the judge to have Republican defense attorneys asking vague leading questions that included a false characterization of the relationship? To be fair to Robin Yeartie, she did sometimes correct the false premise included in the Republican attorney’s question, but not always, so the hearing allowed Republican defense attorneys to present a false reality to the real intended audience — and the real intended audience is not the Republican judge but the public.
Here is a test to see what information about this case is reaching the intended audience– the public:
Many people have no idea that it is an undisputed fact that the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade ended by the summer of 2023 – at least six months before the Republican defense attorneys’ lame attempt to use it to disqualify them.
Many people do not know that Fani and Wade’s PROFESSIONAL relationship was unaffected by the change in their “romantic” status because their professional relationship was independent of their temporary romantic relationship. Both before, during and after their temporary “romance”, Fani and Wade had a PROFESSIONAL partnership that was widely admired for its success in achieving convictions on the Republican defendants who committed crimes to keep Trump in office.
Fani and Willis conducted a professional prosecution that was by all measures quite good. That prosecution was professionally conducted when they were a romantic couple and the prosecution was professionally conducted when they stopped being a romantic couple 7 months ago and returned to being personal friends. Nothing about the prosecution has changed in the 7 months since Wade and Willis ended their romance.
So what is the point of the defense filing a legal document in January – a legal document making exaggerated charges about how a romantic relationship that ended 6 or 7 months earlier is a conflict of interest that requires the removal of a prosecutor?
What is the point of a Republican judge giving Republican prosecutors a chance to “show the public” how conflicted (dare I say “perjurious”) Fani Willis is?
When Fani Willis is disqualified for the “appearance” of having a conflict of interest, you will know what the point is.
I would be delighted to be proven wrong because the Republican judge makes the ethical decision. But I am not as gullible as Merrick Garland. When a Republican attorney or judge shows you who they are, believe them. The Republican judge showed us who he is as soon as he decided to let the Republican defense attorneys conduct a show-hearing to find some evidence to support the exaggerated and sometimes flatly dishonest allegations in their legal filing.
The judge should have done what the Georgia State Election Board did.
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NYCPSP,
Thank you for stating your views without making it a personal dispute.
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Thanks for this, but I still disagree strongly about the idea that the defense attorneys were doing something tantamount to “lying” in their motion. I understand not liking the attempt to DQ Willis but I just don’t see what the lie in the filing is. Attorneys can file a motion and make arguments and seek relief based on good faith belief that an allegation is true.
Here, the defense alleged a romantic relationship existed between Willis and Wade prior to his hiring and that Willis stood to benefit from his hiring (in the form of money earned by Wade and spent on her. One certainly can think the theory is uncompelling—are we really to believe that Willis would not have indicted Trump if not for a few fancy vacations?—but the factual allegations were not baseless. There was a romantic relationship between them, there was forensic evidence of the credit card spending, and there was at least one and potentially two witnesses (if Bradley ever testifies) to back up the allegations.
Whether one believes the allegations is one thing. That involves weighing the credibility of the witnesses, the strength of their testimony, the other evidence, etc. Whether the attorneys were engaged in willful deception is totally another thing. They weren’t.
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Thanks, flerp! So much to unpack in your comment so just wanted to mention a couple things.
The subject of Diane’s post relates to True the Vote. I don’t think there’s any point in debating whether True the Vote had a “good faith” belief that their false allegation about the ballot trafficking scheme was true because someone told them that someone else said it was true and they believed it. I don’t think there’s any point in debating whether True the Vote was engaging in “willful deception”.
It just seems like a re-hash of the debate about whether Trump is “lying” or “engaging in willful deception” when he spews false information that a normal person should know requires more credible evidence than “someone said it” before alleging it publicly, and especially in a legal document. There’s no reason for us to discuss what a “good faith” belief means, as it seems like that always comes up when the discussion is whether it’s permissible to call a president who so frequently alleges things that aren’t true to undermine the integrity of a political rival or a critic or a prosecutor a “liar”.
No doubt we all bring our own biases to this. For example, if a Democratic judge held a televised public hearing so that Fani Willis could ask grill Republican defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant about the serious allegation that she knowingly included false information in a legal filing to “get” the prosecutor, and Merchant’s defense was that someone told her that someone else told them, so she had a “good faith belief” it was true and she did not WILLFULLY deceive, I could say that there was actually a fair inference that Merchant perjured herself. Many people watching would agree.
And if the Democratic judge held the hearing so he could disqualify an extremely competent and successful Republican defense attorney for the “appearance” of doing something wrong, that Democratic judge would have all the evidence he needed. You are correct that it’s impossible to prove that Ashleigh Merchant engaged in willful deception. Merchant may very well be telling the truth that she wasn’t engaging in willful deception but what matters in terms of her disqualification is that the hearing itself creates the APPEARANCE she was.
Judges would have that kind of hearing when they want to disqualify someone on appearance of malfeasance because they don’t have any credible evidence of actual malfeasance. The hearing itself creates the “appearance” of wrongdoing.
That’s why judges don’t do that (except for this Republican judge). Judges behave like the Georgia State Election Board, which makes sense given your explanation that it’s acceptable practice for an attorney to allege something false in a legal filing because someone told the attorney that someone else said it was true, and the attorney says they believed it.
The facts are that Willis and Wade already stipulated to the only allegation in the Republican defense legal filing that is supported by credible evidence. They had a temporary romantic affair. More importantly, the judge has the forensic evidence (the credit card charges) that supports the Willis/Wade timeline and discredits the defense timeline. Willis and Wade were close personal friends. They became a romantic couple – with all that entails – and thus began vacationing together as romantic couples do. Then they stopped being a romantic couple and went back to being personal friends as they had been before, and they no longer vacationed together as romantic couples do.
It’s not nearly as much of a stretch to believe that account is true (based on the forensic evidence of when Wade and Willis traveled together and when they stopped) than it is a stretch to believe that Ashleigh Merchant included false information in a legal filing whose intent was to discredit the opposing prosecutor because she had a good faith belief it was accurate because someone else told her someone else said so.
At any rate, the Republican judge in the Fani Willis matter wasn’t interested in asking the Republican defense attorneys for evidence to back up their most salacious allegations, which is what the Georgia State Election Board did when they received a legal filing with allegations that lacked any evidence to support them. Instead, the Republican judge in the Fani Willis matter held a public hearing so the Republican defense attorneys who made these salacious allegations could grill the Democratic prosecutor! Unprecedented.
As legal experts pointed out, even if the false allegations in the defense’s legal filing were true, nothing in the defense filing showed an ACTUAL conflict of interest. The professional partnership of Willis and Wade has been so successful (both before, during, and after their romantic relationship) that they have guilty pleas from prominent Republican lawyers poised to testify against very influential Republicans who have made no bones about wanting them removed. At least as early as last September, when it appeared that the “big gun” defendants were in trouble because Wade and Willis were doing such a good job, Ashleigh Merchant was making inappropriate overtures to Wade’s law partner to get dirt on Willis and Wade. In normal situations, if a judge hears that a defense attorney has been cultivating a friendship to get a lawyer to break attorney-client privilege to get dirt on the opposing prosecutors’ sex life – or that a defense attorney has been conspiring with the divorce attorney representing the prosecutor’s spouse — the judge would be livid and sanction the defense attorney. So it’s “sus” that the Republican judge would instead choose to let a Republican defense attorney who should have zero credibility grill a successful Democratic prosecutor about her personal life to create the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest when there’s no evidence of an ACTUAL conflict of interest.
The Republican judge knows that the most influential Republicans in the country want this Democratic prosecutor removed. And instead of responding to a legal filing full of “falsehoods” (in deference to you I won’t call them “lies”) the way the Georgia State Election Board did, the Republican judge announces he will disqualify the Democratic prosecutor if it APPEARS she has a conflict of interest and he’ll be holding a public hearing so Americans can watch the Republican defense attorneys grill the Democratic prosecutor with questions that insinuate she did something wrong.
I suppose the Republican judge could claim that it was just an accidental happenstance that his gratuitous public hearing helped to create exactly the “appearance” of a conflict of interest he needed to disqualify Fani. I would say that there is a fair inference that the judge was lying.
At any rate, a Republican judge presiding over a trial with powerful Republican defendants needs to be above reproach. Even the APPEARANCE that the Republican judge is helping influential Republican defendants who want a successful Democratic prosecutor removed is hugely problematic. If this Republican judge wanted to disqualify this prosecutor on “appearance”, he should have been extremely careful not to create the very situation that made the prosecutor “appear” to have a conflict of interest. This Republican judge is acting in a highly suspect manner to to create the “appearance” of conflict of interest instead of doing what the Georgia State Board of Elections did and asking the Republican defense attorneys to submit CREDIBLE evidence for their allegations of conflict of interest.
If anything, it is this Republican judge who appears to have a conflict of interest. He should recuse himself. There is a lot more evidence of conflict of interest in the judge’s ACTIONS than can be found in any of Fani’s actions with regard to how this prosecution is being handled.
I get that the Republicans are terrified because Fani Willis now has Republicans who pleaded guilty who are willing to testify against more powerful Republicans. I get that it helps those defendants discredit Fani if a Republican judge holds a public hearing to discredit her integrity because of her sex life. But if anyone appears to have a very serious conflict of interest here, it is the Republican judge. What he is doing isn’t normal and it would be recognized as not normal if these were Democrat defendants asking a Democrat judge to remove a successful Republican prosecutor because at one point during the many years long trial, he and another prosecutor conducted a consensual romantic affair that was long over.
All the rest is noise.
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