Below is a slightly expanded version of my column on Fox.com on the hearing in Georgia over allegations of improper conduct by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. In her combative testimony, Willis looked strikingly like the man she is prosecuting.
Here is the column:
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” Those words from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis captured the bombastic testimony of the prosecutor accused of violating a host of ethical and local rules in the hiring of Nathan Wade, a former lover. The sudden appearance of Willis in the courtroom seemed like a Perry Mason remake as she stormed to the stand with a look of sheer lethality. She proceeded to denounce the media, prosecutors, and a former girlfriend for different levels of betrayal.
However, in the end, Willis looked strikingly like the man she is prosecuting: Donald Trump. Like Trump, she defied calls of the court to confine her answers and respond to the questions. She attacked her critics, including the media, in diatribes that virtually ignored the questions. Unlike Trump, however, she got away with it.
Willis was allowed to extemporize at length on the “collusion” of the lawyers plotting against her and how “these people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020.”
Judge Scott McAfee, who had been doing a fine job controlling the courtroom, seemed to surrender control to Willis as she rambled on about women dating, the value of hoarding cash, and negotiating with foreign cab drivers.
She is also accused of out-of-court statements that undermined the case. Sound familiar?
In Trump’s case, judges repeatedly hit him with contempt sanctions, struck his testimony, and barred his discussion of certain defenses. He was fined for his out-of-court statements.
With Willis, McAfee politely nudged her to confine her answers and cautioned her that the court might have to intervene. He never did. Willis seemed to control the tenor and testimony until a clearly exhausted McAfee called it a day.
Over at CNN, Jeff Toobin praised her performance:
“I think she was a good witness. I mean, I think if for the purposes that she was on the stand for actually, I thought demolished the case against her. You know, some people will simply not believe that some people don’t have that much cash around, but some people do. And other than that, I think she’s a good witness.”
Outside the court, some on the left celebrated her confrontational, combative style. Where Trump was unhinged, Willis was unbowed. Where Trump’s rage was threatening, Willis’s rage was righteous.
That is not the only time that Trump came to mind after Wade and Willis took the stand.
In the Georgia prosecution, Willis is relying a great deal on a recorded conversation of Trump with Georgia election officials as they discussed what Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger described as a settlement discussion of Trump’s election fraud claims. Trump wanted a recount and the officials insisted that it was not likely to produce enough votes to make a difference. Trump insisted that “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
Critics insist that Trump was clearly pushing the officials to simply invent the votes when he pushed them to “find” the votes. Trump maintains that he was saying that that was not many votes to find statewide to potentially change the outcome.
In the end, critics dismiss any other meaning of “find” as playing semantics.
Yet, both Wade and Willis had their own struggles over key words in the hearing on Thursday.
Wade was confronted by seemingly false sworn statements made to interrogatories related to his divorce case. For example, he was asked about his denial of “a sexual relationship during the time or his marriage and separation” as of May 30, 2023. That would seem clear. It is also now confirmed that he had a sexual relationship with Willis in 2022 at a minimum.
Wade, however, insisted that he read the question as being confined to sexual relations “in the course of my marriage.” The fact that the question clearly asked about any sexual relationship up to May 30, 2023 did not matter to the lead prosecutor in the Georgia election case.
Willis then offered her own semantic spins. She was asked about local rules barring paying or employing family or intimate friends. Willis declared that she viewed Wade not as an employee but a contractor or “agent.”
Willis added another semantic twist when confronted by another rule barring the receipt of the aggregate of more than $100 from an employee or contractor. Willis just said that, while she may have accepted more than $100 from Wade, it balanced out in the end because she bought things for him. Both, however, insisted that they dealt largely in cash with no receipts or records.
Those interpretations of key words are considered by Wade and Willis to be fair game. However, an alternative meaning of what was meant by the word “find” is clearly not only unreasonable but a basis for prosecution.
None of this is likely to end the Georgia case. Even if Wade and Willis were disqualified, it is likely that the court would allow the case to move forward under their subordinates. Moreover, Willis may have succeeded in giving McAfee enough to express condemnation with her conduct but to reject her disqualification.
If so, the court would ignore that fact that both Wade and Willis are accused of making false statements to courts not just in their testimony this week but prior filings. They would be allowed to prosecute defendants in the Georgia case charged with making such false statements in court filings.
In the end, Willis knew her audience. She knew that the judge would likely allow her to control her own testimony. She knew that many in the public would view her combative testimony as justified, even inspiring. The fact is that she is not Trump and, for many, that is enough.
Fanny, I don’t Belize you! 🙂
Floyd: now THAT was a good one. Comment of the Day!
There is a reason why Ms. Willis was defiant and squirming in her chair. It’s because she knows somewhere deep in the bowels of the IRS a conservative tax auditor is perusing her tax documents to find where she declared all the cash she received as income. The worm squirms because she knows that no such disclosure of the cash she received will be uncovered. The presence of hell in her life has just begun and her squirming will get even more intense. My recommendation to Ms Willis is to purchase a king size tube of preparation H in order to make her future pain more bearable. Perhaps she will be so kind as to share some of it with Mr. Wade in private at an undisclosed location in the Caribbean. More chronicles to come in the future so stay tuned.
My antenna went up when listening to the Wade and Fani cash scheme and lack of records. Everyone on this site who pays Federal Income Taxes should file a IRS Form 211 after listening to these two.
One thing that surprised me was that I was NOT surprised when she didn’t know what continent Belize [where she vacationed] was in.
I guess my actual expectations for her were much lower than I expected.
Willis, Bragg, Bass, Breed, Adams, James, Henyard…it seems the black community isn’t sending us its best. That is also true of Democrats in general.
Something about throwing stones and glass houses come to mind. Simply put, how do Smith, Bragg, Willis, and others practicing “GET TRUMP!” lawfare, not see their own personal and professionsal shinola really does stink and they will be further called out on those facts in ‘coming attractions’? The popcorn’s a-poppin’ now.
Ms. Willis’ testimony has ONE MAJOR FLAW that no one has mentioned. Forget when the romance started. Forget the lack of documentation of cash payments. Forget the financially shared dinners. Forget the air fares. Focus on the HOTEL ROOMS.
She is required to file annual reports about gifts of over $100 from prohibited sources. When you share the cost of a dinner, you received no benefit. When you pay for your own airfare, you receive no benefit. But when you share the cost of hotel room, on the other hand, you get a 50% benefit, because hotel rooms are not sold on a per person basis. So, if she shared a $300 per night hotel in Aruba or Napa she got a benefit of $150 per night. Even if she had a $150 hotel room in Belize, the benefit is $75 per night and there were several nights that add up to much more than the $100 she is required to disclose. If she had gone with a friend, it would still be a benefit, but not from a prohibited source. On the other hand, being with Mr. Wade, even if there had been no romance involved, and it was just two colleagues sharing a room, it is a benefit from a prohibited source.
Indeed. That’s part of the professional shinola to which I’m referring.
Willis may go full Trump with meaningless rhetoric, but her deeds are unethical and illegal, and her words are far from the truth.
Professor Turley, Your comparison was unfair and beneath you. It was not a fair comparison. Would you use such a comparison of a juvenile delinquent and say he went full Al Capone?
Yes, Willis will likely get away with what has been exposed today, and I predict she will do the same with other things that should be prosecuted. Her actions are those of a person who has committed far worse deeds than the ones being exposed today.
Trump did well for the nation despite his sometimes misplayed rhetoric. He is white and wishes to demolish the deep state. Willis is part of that deep state, obtaining her position through those who want to enslave Americans. My guess is she should never have been put in that position that she is unqualified for because she is ethically challenged and likely a crook. Did her color come into play? Identity politics certainly was on display.
I forgive your mistake because this must pain you deeply since the rule of law is sleeping, and Willis seems to know the tricks of the law better than its implementation.
All valid points. But remember, Professor is a self-proclaimed Never-Trump(r). You can’t blame him for wanting to keep up appearances.
I am astonished at the incompetence, arrogance, lack of professionalism, and obvious deception in the testimony of both Wade and Willis. They have convinced me that this entire prosecution of Trump is a scam, and entirely constructed of whole cloth. I am ashamed of our country that we let this farce to go as far as it has.
“However, in the end, Willis looked strikingly like the man she is prosecuting: Donald Trump. Like Trump, she defied calls of the court to confine her answers and respond to the questions. She attacked her critics, including the media, in diatribes that virtually ignored the questions. Unlike Trump, however, she got away with it.”
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The difference, of course, is that she’s an officer of the court and a prosecutor charged with doing justice (not getting political convictions) whose integrity and demeanor have to comport with the standards of the court. The Judge was a wimp; Fani got all ghetto; and the system suffered for it. Let’s hope the voters send her out on her fanny. Oh and as for getting away with it? Naw she’s exposed for all the world to see. Trump 1- Fani 0
Not sure why I’m getting anonymized but it’s me.
mespo727272: True. -And trust me, I (and maybe you?) have been part of, or sat through, many a trial, and I was appalled at how the judge gave Willis the stage…to go on and on and on with all sorts of extraneous testimony, making sure she could create a sympathetic perception of herself….
Just once, Just once, we needed a “kamala harris” prosecutor to say, “Just answer the question, yes or no.”
Way too many times, Lin.
Lin, Mespo,
Watching that, if I were the judge I would of held her in contempt and tossed her in jail, al la My Cousin Vinny.
But no. This is another “Get Trump” sham trial.
UF:
Having dealt with witnesses like that in that kind of Judge-only hearing, I’ll relate a wonderful response by a just as wonderful jurist who said to a just as out-of-line witness after yet another long, irrelevant harangue, “Mr. Witness, if you think you’re convincing me with all this sound and fury, I want you to know it just isn’t working.” The hearing took a decidely different turn after that.
Mespo,
Ever consider writing a book about all the crazy you have seen in court? Could be a fascinating read.
Make it a collaboration with Lin, Floyd, MostlyHonest, and all the others and could even be a good true crime like TV show.
Take the Kyle Rittenhouse trial as an example.
UF:
I ought to. I’d need a chapter on legendary Richmond federal Judge Bob Merhige. What a lawyer!
Georgia is on trial. What a clown show!
Georgia, is this the best you can do?
Read em and weep. After first taking a Pepto, I read the MSNBC article about the hot pants Fani Willis and her lover boy prosecutor. She appointed him to use his point in more than one way. Even MSNBC is now saying that Willis has helped Mr. Donald Trump delay the trial until after the election. I be laughing my ars off with many har hars watching this clown show. With your Pepto at the ready let me suggest that you read what even MSNBC has to say. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/fani-willis-hearing-nathan-wade-rcna139001
There’s not enough pepto in the world to ease that quease.
I made this comment yesterday, but it is more apropos here, on this thread:
“Somebody needs to get a copy of Fani’s tax returns. She said that she had private clients, and NO CHECKING ACCOUNT??? So, are her client’s (some of them anyway) paying her in cash, and she is deep-sixing the retainer in the pillow under her head? How about the expenses related to those clients? How is she paying filing fees, subpoena fees, and medical records? Is she keeping a Bristol-shape trust account, or maybe does she have instead, a “tryst” account??? How is she filing a Sch. C for her taxes. Is she keeping receipts? Or, if she is SubS, or LLC, there must be an entity checking account. Also, it is “cash hoard”, not “cash horde.”
Oh, and another trick, is when a client gives a check for the retainer, to go and cash the check at the client’s bank, and keep the cash. Or, if the check was for $5,000, cash it (to make sure that it is good before proceeding on the case) but just deposit $4,000 into the acct, putting the rest into the “pretty cash” account. Sounds to me like Fanny has been doing that sort of stuff, maybe. And you know, if she has some poor black clients, then they often do not have checking accounts, so they have to settle up in cash.
Plus, not keeping records is. by itself, a badge, or indicia of fraud. I am betting there are other badges waiting to be found.
Willis must have been tied down by her compatriots trying to salveage the dumpster fire she lit yesterday. She will not testify anymore on this matter,(but that’s what she said yesterday, too)
In the judge just sticks to the facts, he has to remove Willis.
paid her boyfriend almost $800,000 for a job he had zero experience.
Accepted lavish vacations , a portion of that money she was paying him.
Those two facts are more than enough.
Iowan: “If the judge just sticks to the facts, he has to remove Willis.”
+++
The judge likely is concerned what impact a removal will have on the community, on the case, and on him–maybe in inverse order of priority.
Meanwhile, I like Floyd’s questions about how she ran her law practice without a checking account and the type of documentation that isn’t entirely credible when using cash. Somewhere she needed a trust account for clients’ funds. But then she is a Democrat WOC so maybe different rules.
If Willis is removed from the case for misconduct I wonder on what grounds she might appeal?
WOC rules.
There’s a Latin expression, translated as: “I believe it because it is absurd.”
That’s Willis’ defense.
She claims she repaid her lover/prosecutor. She openly admits that she has no receipts, records, evidence. So hers is a: I have no defense “defense.”
Absurd? Of course. But that’s why you should believe it.
One key difference between Trump and Fanny is that the latter liberally used identify politics. When questioned about her supposed reliance on mountains of cash in her home, she said her father told her that a woman should keep cash around. When asked about problems in her relationship with Wade, she said she was not going to emasculate a black man. She was sending signals to the media to line up behind her, and to the judge to “watch out”.
The last line in this column by Mr. Turley says it all!
Turley,
C’mon, mate… unlike Trump, she’s an officer of the court.
So she is given a courtesy that isn’t afforded to Trump.
Beyond that. Her own testimony is damning, but it could be enough to keep her from being disbarred.
-G
The incompetency of the attorney’s questioning those witnesses yesterday was stunning. Convoluted, compound questions with misplaced modifiers are a gift to witnesses trying to deceive. EMBARRASSING!!!
Ken:
“Convoluted, compound questions with misplaced modifiers are a gift to witnesses trying to deceive. EMBARRASSING!!!”
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You’re right Ken – it wasn’t pretty. Effective but amateurish. Too bad Irving Younger is gone. Now that guy could crossexam. Professor Younger used to say that when a good crossexaminer is in courtroom they should ring the courthouse bell to get everyone to come and see. I still read his 10 Commandments of Crossexamination. By his standard, every lawyer in the courtroom was a heretic.
Willis Judge is WEAK and up for reelection. He lost control of the court room with Willis. He has to regain control today. It is obvious this entire case, based on yesterday and documentation is Corrupt and Smells. The case should be moved to another county, but I question if the Judge has the guts and the smarts to do it. Perhaps someone is whispering in his ear about being appointed to a federal opening? We shall see how this unfolds. don’t count on the State to jump in and take control Gov. Kemp is not a fan of Trump, part of the Uniparty?
Hey Jon explain the RUSSIAN HOAX Conspiracy? Equating Trump with Willis exposes your TDS
Turley appears to HAVE TDS!!!
Trump is prosecuted for CRIMES he DIDN’T DO…Willis, Bidens and various DEMOCRATS aren’t JAILED for CRIMES THEY DO DO!
That wasn’t Trump’s voice on tape with the Governor of Georgia?
What specific crime is Trump charged with that he did not do? The facts are undisputed.
If the “facts” were undisputed, no trials would be underway years and decades after the “facts”.