Today, the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her team in the prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump. The final collapse of the House of Willis came after months of her spending enormous amounts of time and money to try to stay at the lead of the high-profile case. Lawfare holds little value unless you are the lead warrior.
For over a year, some have criticized Willis for her refusal to recuse herself. When her hiring of her former lover was first disclosed, Willis could have done the right thing for her office, the case, and the public. She could have recused herself and may have preserved her office’s ability to continue with the case.
She was then given a further opportunity to do the right thing by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee who disqualified her former lover, Nathan Wade, and found an “appearance of impropriety.”
He, however, left it up to Willis to recuse herself after criticizing her conduct. Some of us noted that the finding did not jive with the order. If there was an “appearance of impropriety,” it would obviously continue with Willis remaining at the lead in the case.
However, Willis let the case go dormant and committed her office to the fight to preserve her role. Now, the appellate court has forced her off the case and ordered a new office to take over any prosecution. The court ruled that
“[a]fter carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office. The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”
The court admitted that Willis had forced the hand of the court by her refusal to do the right thing in the lower court. It recognized that “an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”
Accordingly, it reversed McAffee and found that if “the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case, ‘the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed.'”
The opinion made clear that these cases cannot become the vanity projects of prosecutors. They are expected to do the right thing, even when the right thing does not come easily personally or politically.
The center of the case now shifts to another prosecutor who will have to decide whether it wants to continue the case and what (and who) to prosecute.
As I have previously written, the Georgia case has viable crimes against others for offenses such as unlawful entry into restricted areas. The case against Trump was deeply flawed. It read like a legal version of six degrees from Kevin Bacon. As my friend and fellow analyst Andy McCarthy noted, this is the first racketeering case that any of us have seen where the strongest connection between the parties was being named in the charging documents.
A new prosecutor should drop the Trump charges and end this ridiculous lawfare enterprise. If not, the case will likely collapse by its own weight due to the attenuated racketeering theory or other legal problems, including the use of evidence barred under the recent presidential immunity decision.
In the end, Willis was reelected by the voters of Atlanta who clearly accepted or supported the weaponization of the criminal justice system to target political opponents. The millions spent in the case were just treated as a cost of doing the business of lawfare.
Hopefully, a new prosecution office will restore a modicum of integrity to the Georgia legal system. It is now time to end this circus as the ringmaster leaves the center ring.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
It took an appeals court to order the obvious. Prosecutors are so spoiled they no longer even realize it when they have utterly abused their position.
I’m gonna be the poop in the punchbowl and just say it: “Fani got a spanking.”
* spanked? For absolute waste of 1 million dollars on gigolo Wade ambulance chaser? At least it wasn’t her money wasted, huh?
This is not surprising. If anyone’s has been following the YSL RICO trial in fulton county honestly the impropriety and misconduct here pales in comparison. I first started watching that trial when the lead attorney for the main defendant was held and jailed on summary direct criminal contempt for refusing to reveal how he learned that the judge and prosecutor’s secretly met in chambers to coerce an uncooperative witness into testifying. Fani’s second in command, senior chief ADA Adriane Love repeatedly lied to the court and jury so many times the judge formally rebuked her in front of the jury for putting improper and misleading evidence in front of the jury. In an unconscionable and inhumane act. they got a material witness warrant for a witness who “didn’t want to testify,” but the circumstances of his arrest tell another story. He was arrested at the hospital as he was filling out discharge paperwork. Why was he there? he was getting a complete blood transfusion for sickle cell anemia, the third such in the last 2 months. his family said they had been in contact with the state saying he was willing to testify but not healthy enough to do so and asked for a couple days to recover before testifying. for context, this is a two year long trial and the state had 100 more witnesses in their case in chief so there was time to delay calling him.
Thank you for pointing out that the corruption in Fulton County goes beyond the Trump case.
Its about time. But when is someone going to address that New York nonsense and give him back his half BILLION dollars they strong-armed out of him?
I mean they take a misdemeanor that is no longer on the books and resurrect it, then declare it a felony specifically so they can go after a former US President they didn’t like, and they end up taking half a BILLION dollars from him.
When is someone going to go after those people and get his money back?
These people need to be charged and go to prison. Once the powers that be no longer pretend they have to not openly break the law it’s time for incarceration for them.
What’s her name Cheney is openly caught so she can share a group cell with one band of 20 from the biden admin deep state, after the couple years of solitary confinement while they wait for full charges to be brought.
Professor Turley writes, “In the end, Willis was reelected by the voters of Atlanta who clearly accepted or supported the weaponization of the criminal justice system to target political opponents.”
I can speak with some authority about Atlanta because I have lived there at various times, including very recently. Whatever southern charm Atlanta possessed was lost decades ago. Today, it has transmogrified into just another globalist, urban hellhole.
The Walmart down the street from me closed this year, despite having a strong customer base for decades. Walmart said it closed for economic reasons (in one of the best neighborhoods of Atlanta, BTW). “Economic reasons” is probably weasel-wording. I strongly suspect the real reason was shoplifting by the glamorous locals. The installation of locked, glass cabinets deterred customer service more than it did shoplifting. Twenty years ago, shoplifting was never a problem.
Don’t be surprised if Atlanta does the exact-wrong thing about this stupid trial.
re: Diogenes
When Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club, got into the retail business most stores weren’t self-serve. Customers had to go to a counter and have the clerk retrieve the items for them.
Walmart revolutionized self-serve shopping. Maybe time to be conservative and go back to the clerk model?
Well, I tried to engage clerks to unlock the cabinets on several occasions. At best, I had to wait a long time; at worst, the clerks just ignored me. It suggests that Walmart wanted to staff at self-service levels for a full-service experience. Closing the store settled the contradiction.
Atlanta does not have a choice at this point. Not only was Willis removed – but Fulton county was removed.
If this case is to move forward it requires another DA in another county to take it – there is little chance of that.
Interesting. That’s good news, John. Thanks
Ah yes , the kultur of the “dindonuffins”. The decline in Americas “minorities” is directly attributable to the “war on poverty” and thus directly to Demorat party meddling.
If we are citing the U.S. Constitution against Willis, why are we cherry-picking and ignoring Section 3 of the 14th Amendment – which disqualifies Trump?
To a non-lawyer it appears the laws only apply to the little people, not the rich and powerful. Unequal justice under law!
Hypocrisy in full display! If we are going to complain about cherry-picking, then YOU must consider Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, which gives Congress the sole authority to enforce 14th Amendment insurrection considerations against national office holders…if Congress doesn’t disqualify President Trump, then he isn’t disqualified. Equal justice under the law!
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 5:
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
ATS can’t read – or like most leftists think that words mean whatever he wants – not what those who wrote them intended.
So stupid!
The Supreme Court resolved this. Congressional legislation is required to permit a state to apply Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. There is a law against insurrection, but Trump has not been charged let alone convicted under it. There is no other Congressional legislation currently in existence to apply Section 3.
We are not ignoring A14S3 – that issue was already decided 9-0 by the supreme court reading the 14th amendment as written.
Rep. Raskin is free to object to Trump’s eligability on Jan 6, 2025 and if he can get a majority of senators and representatives to agree with him, he can disqualify Trump on A14S3 grounds. There is even less likelyhood of that happening than there was of Trump getting Congress to refuse to verify the fraudulent 2020 election.
But I will be ecstatic to see Raskin challenge Trump’s eligability as that would be the greatest act of political and legal hypocracy ever seen.
There was no insurrection on J6 – had there been one Trump would be president.
Trump was never either officially chareged or convicted of insurrection. This whole insurrection thing is nothing more than a narrative not base in any facts.
Anony-mouse…there was no insurrection. There were goobers wandering around taking pics. There may have even been a few with a hard-on for some violence and cosplaying. But THAT was not an insurrection. Were we to conduct one it would be clear.
Please let all the Lawfair shenanigans be over with by January 20, 2025.
We have been without a President for 4 years and there is a backlog of work to do.
Let’s just get on with it.
The former Administration has done all it could to seal the past. We know what they did, they stole trillions in spending and created enough damage to last Generations. Most of all they have robbed Us of our Time. That darkness will always be there.
The sooner we forget about them, the Happier, Healthier, and Positive, Our lives will be.
Dear Mr. Turley, I thought it was strange when the judge kicked Mr. Wade off the case but kept Ms. Willis on as they were both wrong in their actions regarding the case against Mr. Trump and the others. The Judge tried to “split the baby” and it did not work. Both should have been dismissed after the affair had been found out. Because of their lust and selfishness Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade will go down in history as big time scam artists. As they should.
If the Judge kicked out Fanni and her office (he should have) he would have risked losing his next election by his brain dead drug and alcohol addled black RAY-cis voters; he wasn’t about to do that. Yeah, he’s a corrupt Pee of Es.
This is one performance those notorious soul slingers, ‘Al Sharpton and The Haters’ opted out of. Discretion being the better part of valor, even for them.
I have read several comments concerning whether McAfee abused his discretion re: Miss Fani, and I was going to say that he did indeed abuse it, because the acts committed by Miss Fani were so great and significant. I was going to say that the appearance of impropriety exists on a continuum, on a spectrum, and that while some improprieties may be overlooked, or forgiven, others might not be. They might be so great as to cast doubt on the whole case. Particularly so in a criminal case, as opposed to a civil case. But, I decided that it would behoove me to read the durn decision first, lest I put my foot in my mouth. After all, I ain’t been in a courtroom for quite a while.
Lo and behold! The Appeals Court said the same thing! To wit,
Citing Blumstein,
“See Blumenfeld v. Borenstein, 247 Ga. 406,
409 (276 SE2d 607) (1981).
At one end of the scale where disqualification is always justified and
indeed mandated, even when balanced against a client’s right to an
attorney of choice, is the appearance of impropriety coupled with a
conflict of interest or jeopardy to a client’s confidences. In these
instances, it is clear that the disqualification is necessary for the
protection of the client. Somewhere in the middle of the continuum is
the appearance of impropriety based on conduct on the part of the
attorney. As discussed above, this generally has been found insufficient
to outweigh the client’s interest in counsel of choice. This is probably so
because absent danger to the client, the nebulous interest of the public
at large in the propriety of the Bar is not weighty enough to justify
disqualification. Finally, at the opposite end of the continuum is the
appearance of impropriety based not on conduct but on status alone.
This is an insufficient ground for disqualification.
But in deviating from the standard, as set forth eloquently by the dissent also, the Majority found:
Here, we must address the remedy in the context of a significant appearance of
impropriety caused by the conduct of a public prosecutor.
In our criminal justice system, the district attorney represents the people
of the state in prosecuting individuals who have been charged with
violating our state’s criminal laws. The responsibility of a public
prosecutor differs from that of the usual advocate; [her] duty is to seek
justice, not merely to convict. This special duty exists because the
prosecutor represents the sovereign and should exercise restraint in the
discretionary exercise of governmental powers. Therefore, the district
attorney is more than an advocate for one party and has additional
professional responsibilities as a public prosecutor to make decisions in
the public’s interest. In the district attorney’s role as an administrator of
justice, he or she has broad discretion in making decisions prior to trial
about who to prosecute, what charges to bring, and which sentence to
seek.
(Citation and punctuation omitted.) State v. Wooten, 273 Ga. 529, 531 (2)(543 SE2d
721) (2001).
These considerations take this case out of the continuum of cases
involving an appearance of impropriety in connection with the conduct of private
counsel and a client’s interest in counsel of choice balanced against a more nebulous
public interest.
Nowhere in the continuum of impropriety has an appellate court held that the trial judge abused his discretion in failing to disqualify. The continuum language is therefore irrelevant. The appearance of impropriety, however severe, absent actual impropriety, is an insufficient basis
Like all liars and lies, you omitted the fact that the appellate court stated that the appearance COMBINED with actual conflicting interest gives the law requires the court (no value judgement potential to refuse-guaranteed overturn on future appeal) TO BAR FANNI AND HER OFFICE: Fanny chitted where she ate, specifically she appointed her kept sex slave to the special prosecution then ordered that SO/sex slave to service her sexually, feed her, buy her vacations, rinse, repeat several times, etc., etc.
I’m sure you deny all the latter but everyone that isn’t a lying DNC shill like you knows reality from fiction when they see it, smell it, touch it, hear it, etc.
Oh, did you miss the fact that Fanny verbalized a personal vendetta against Trump you blathering, lying DNC idiot?
I found an interesting document online, and it has a lot of information on potential Georgia voter fraud in 2020. Does anybody here have any information of the source of this??? It seems well-written, and well-documented, but I have learned to be cautious:
file:///*****************.pdf
Correct link is:
https://www.leelanau.gov/downloads/pc_01092024_b_wiesner.pdf
there is more nefarious activities re: Liz Cheney and her witness tampering Cassidy Hutchinson
Chairman Loudermilk Responds to Former Member Liz Cheney’s Baseless Claims, Debunks Claims with Receipts
WASHINGTON – Today, Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) released the following statement.
“Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson are trying to say that my investigation has disregarded the truth of January 6, pointing to their Select Committee’s ‘tremendous weight of evidence’,” said Chairman Loudermilk. “We evaluated that exact weight based on their records and found it slimmer than claimed.
“Cheney claims the Select Committee’s report was based on the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, whose testimony was made public. However, Cheney and Thompson did not make ALL transcripts public. They hid transcripts of first-hand witnesses who directly refuted their ‘star witness’ Cassidy Hutchinson’s sensational story, which Cheney had personally procured.
“Americans can see the facts for themselves. That is why I have always released first-hand accounts and evidence, including today, where I am releasing the transcripts from the interview of USSS employees who directly refute Hutchinson’s story. Cheney and Thompson’s Select Committee conducted these interviews and had this information but chose not to release it publicly.
“Former Chairman Thompson might not be aware of these transcripts, which refute the narrative put forward by his committee, so I understand his confusion. I encourage him to read these transcripts taken by his select committee.
“I also invite Chairman Thompson to explain why the Vice Chair of his committee, Liz Cheney, was having secret conversations with the committee’s “star witness”, behind his back.”
https://cha.house.gov/press-releases?id=D6041DAC-1CEE-4CFB-AD26-BC4E5E3B6F63
#ProsecuteLizCheney
Judge McAfee should have ruled this way, if he had not been swayed by anti-Trump politics. Everyone heard the evidence put forward by Trump’s lawyer (Steve Sadow), and with a better quality judge it would have been a slam-dunk. The appeals court shouldn’t have had to reverse Judge McAfee. It was just so obvious.
I think McAfee was doing Trump a favor, by keeping the Kastrated Fani Willis on the case. With Fani, there nothing going to happen that would not be over-shadowed by her own crimes.
When it rains it pours. Democrats are losing in every which way possible. A Bill Clinton nominated Federal Judge has been found by an Obama appointed Federal Judge to have violated judicial ethics.
Investigation concludes it was an ethics violation to question the ethics of a Supreme Court justice
U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor published an essay in the New York Times arguing that the display of flags associated with President-elect Donald Trump’s MAGA movement at Justice Samuel Alito’s Virginia and New Jersey homes was a breach of public trust. The piece was unusual because judges don’t typically offer personal criticisms of a colleague in public.
According to the jurist assigned to review the matter, Chief Judge Albert Diaz of the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., it was Ponsor who damaged the judiciary. In a previously unreported order filed last week, Diaz found that by commenting on controversial issues and criticizing Alito, Ponsor violated the code of conduct that applies to all federal judges other than Supreme Court justices.
Among other transgressions, Ponsor, a 1994 Clinton appointee who sits in Springfield, Mass., was found to violate rules against actions that “detract from the dignity” of a judge’s office and harm “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
Diaz, a 2010 Obama appointee, found that given its context, Ponsor’s article could be read “as a commentary on partisan issues and as a call for Justice Alito’s recusal.” Diaz closed the complaint because Ponsor acknowledged violating the rules, apologized for his actions and said he would seek ethics advice before doing any further outside writing.
“With the benefit of an objective perspective, I realize now that my criticism of the ethical judgment of a Supreme Court Justice might have had the effect of undermining the public’s confidence in the integrity of the judicial system,” Ponsor said in a letter appended to Diaz’s order.
Ponsor, who also wrote a 2023 opinion column titled “A Federal Judge Asks: Does the Supreme Court Realize How Bad It Smells?”, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/judge-broke-rules-by-criticizing-justice-alito-during-flag-flap-784405fb
Yepir!
Another cardigan thread about to be pulled…
https://www.carolinajournal.com/exposed-investigation-indicates-actblue-potentially-laundered-fraudulent-political-donations/
https://cha.house.gov/2024/9/chairman-steil-announces-referrals-to-attorneys-general-in-actblue-investigation
Is any authority going to bust Act Blue for their BLATANT fraud in massive made up donations from the regular folks that some pac fund or other illegal funnel is supplying ?
James O’Keefe has thoroughly exposed this as well as other investigators that posted evidence.
I guess our new rule of law is open crimes in widespread public knowledge by demoncrats is aokay.
ActBlue was up to no good all the way back to 2008.
@Shakdi
Amazed me too because as we all know BLM was very likely not a legal non-profit and the IRS and the entire Fed just looked the other way. As if race alone is an acceptable legal qualifier, and for what exactly? Any and all criminal activity?
* It’s just a tangled mess of crime…does anyone think Willis ‘ feifdom is the only one? They’re everywhere. Donors and look the other way. Money laundered everywhere.. It’s a reason to begin the dismantle as Trump and Musk intend.
Fulton County– a sewer which is nothing like the upright and conscientious judges and good faith DAs we used to see on Matlock!
“Appearance of impropriety” pretty much covers Merchan, as well as Willis. I’m looking forward to someone doing a deep dive into Merchan’s finances, his relationship and communications with his daughter, who raised lots of funding on the back of the inquisition of Mr. Trump.
I hope every possible charge of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance is brought against the whole pack of them.
This constitutional transfer of power process has all the feel of a successful civil war against a tyrannical regime. America First will be our reconstruction period. I would love to see a docuseries on this war covering 2015-2025. Get the real story out to the American people and have them clamor Lock them up!
Not over yet Olly as the recent kerfuffle over the CR shows.
No doubt about that Mespo.
@mespo – “He shared a post from conservative media personality Benny Johnson, who highlighted a provision in the CR that he said would let Congress block subpoenas for House data, such as emails, that he said could prevent an investigation into the now-defunct House committee that investigated the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Margot:
It’s the Uniparty circling the drain or sinking in the tar pit – not sure which metaphor I like better.
@mespo – will it ever stop for the sake of the nation and the people?
Nope.
It will only stop when the little green men flying in drones use photon torpedoes to zap all of the Deep State
Margot:
“@mespo – will it ever stop for the sake of the nation and the people?”
**************************
No, and it can’t stop precisely because of the nation and the people. Unfortunately, we’re all soldiers in a big war that most people don’t know was declared a long time ago and that’s too bad because its all there to see for anyone who’s looking. That war is already decided but we have to go through the battles and prove our fidelity every so often. Right now we’re in one of those fights and the opposition can’t concede because to lose is to lose their existence and be damned. So the fight goes on and we fight on until the moral arc completes is trajectory. It’ll be worth the effort.
A good start is Dinesh D’Souza’s POLICE STATE and VINDICATING TRUMP. I just saw both. Excellent.
he acknowledged that his work is not real. Yeah, that’s a great source.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/politics/dinesh-dsouza-2000-mules-apology-trump.html
“Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?”
~Fanny Brice, American comédienne (1891-1951)
Where are you? Why, my dear Fani, you’re disqualified!
Do all fools end up being — and landing on — their Fani?
I can see Carol Burnett, dressed as Fani, with a Fulton County Court House curtain rod over her shoulders, tumbling down the majestic Georgian staircase, with appellate justices waiting for her at the landing….
“Gone with the Willis”
(I dedicate this to Floyd, who loves to post movie clips along with his humor!)
Thx! I loved that sketch!
Lin and Floyd, all of us of a certain age love that skit.