Fulton County district attorney is leading a sprawling case against the former president and his allies

Fulton County district attorney is leading a sprawling case against the former president and his allies

The Georgia prosecutor leading a sprawling election interference case against Donald Trump has testified in court about allegations of misconduct levelled against her by the former president and his co-defendants – questions that could potentially disqualify them from the case.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began her testimony in an Atlanta courtroom on Thursday after defence attorneys questioned lead prosecutor Nathan Wade about the timeline of their relationship and the expenses they shared.

The attorneys had already admitted to their relationship but firmly rejected the “meritless” and “salacious” allegations as “bad-faith” attempts to see her kicked off a case that Mr Trump has baselessly labelled a conspiracy against him, according to court filings.

Thursday’s hearing is scrutinising allegations that the former couple financially benefited from Ms Willis hiring Mr Wade to prosecute the former president’s case, which charges Mr Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants as part of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the state’s election results in 2020.

“I’ve been very anxious to have this conversation with you today,” Ms Willis told defence attorney Ashleigh Merchant. “It’s ridiculous that you lied on Monday and yet here we are. … I’m actually surprised that the hearing continued. But since it did, here I am.”

  • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
    3·
    9 months ago

    The potential problem for Willis is that she was previously disqualified from investigating the Georgia lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, over a lower legal standard of “appearance of impropriety”, after she publicly endorsed Jones’s political rival in Jones’s re-election race.

    There is a prior case where she was disqualified due to the “appearance of impropriety”. And we’re having the same discussion, only in a more important case. Perception matters in a jury trial, and Willis did not take the care to avoid the appearance or suggestion of impropriety- again.

    We’re all pissed about judges giving lenient treatment to Trump so far, but that’s how you build and KEEP a defensible case. “Reasonable doubt” has gotten a lot of guilty people off free, no matter how shaky the evidence creating that doubt is:

    Roman’s filing, in essence, accused Willis of engaging in a quasi-kickback scheme… [and] alleged the relationship had started before he was hired. The filing itself, however, provided no concrete evidence that showed alleged self-dealing. At the time, Merchant said her information was based on confidential sources and information in Wade’s divorce case. Yet when the divorce records were unsealed, there was similarly no concrete evidence.