Originally published at: Georgia Appeals Court Disqualifies Fani Willis From Trump RICO Case - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is, for now, off the Trump election interference RICO case after the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that a conflict of interest disqualified her. Willis’ office could still appeal the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court. Per the order, the court denied a related attempt to dismiss…
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I think I understand why they would attempt this but not sure why it would have legal bearing on the case; was there any attempt to link the affair to actual prosecutorial misconduct?
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The standard is appearance of impropriety. And it sure appears improper to steer office money towards the secret boyfriend contractor whose job is to prosecute the defendants.
Not to mention that RICO was always a ridiculous overreach that was never going to get past SCOGA even if the jury voted to convict. Georgia has a very solid statute prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, but it is only a misdemeanor.
So in the end, Fani Willis fucked everything up through shitty prosecutorial judgment.
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It depends on what you mean by “actual prosecutorial misconduct.” I recall no assertions of intentional destruction of evidence, coercion of witnesses etc. The problem was that she created a conflict of interest by having a personal relationship with a contract employee in a subordinate role, so GA tax dollars were, in effect, flowing to someone whom she had a personal interest in keeping on the payroll, and criminal defendants in GA - indeed, everywhere in the US - have a cognizable interest in conflict-free prosecution.
The conflict here struck me as arguably de minimis, but I don’t wear a robe.
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I have not read the opinion yet, but it has always seemed to me that there’s a material difference between the D.A. getting busy with an ordinary employee of the department versus the D.A. getting busy with a contractor who is specifically getting paid to prosecute these particular defendants. The former is inchoate. The latter looks pretty skeevy.
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The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
Sun Tzu
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Very quick, wasn’t it? I thought most experts were predicting a year at least.
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It’s been roughly 350 days since Mike Roman moved to disqualify. And interlocutory criminal appeals tend to get priority because of speedy trial concerns.
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Notably, Fani Willis fucked up the appeal too. She failed to appeal whether it was a conflict of interest (or an appearance thereof) in the first place. She only appealed the ad hoc remedy of making the boyfriend resign.
I know she just got re-elected, but she’s terrible at her job and needs to get primaried out of it.
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I wonder if there is a prosecutor in Georgia who is willing to take up the case and more importantly knows wtf they are doing.
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Is 350 days “speedy” in a case like this? I don’t know as I’m not a lawyer or familiar with such things.
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Fani is clearly a disaster as a public servant. She sounds like a pretty great girlfriend though!
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Agree that the contractual relationship makes it look a bit dodgy (whereas an in-house “vertical relationship,” while likely to end badly, cause morale issues etc, seems less likely to upend a prosecution). As memory serves, activities amorous had ended by the time Roman’s team made their motion - so possibly the trial judge could have denied the motion in an order expressing grave displeasure with her behavior.
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My vague recollection is that it will get reassigned by some mechanism to another county’s D.A., most of whom are going to be MAGA. So don’t expect any great outcomes here.
It’s relatively quick, all things considered. And I do not mean to suggest that the Sixth Amendment’s speedy trial requirement was an issue here, just that courts usually try to get criminal cases to trial sooner rather than later.
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Another disaster for Willis. She and her office are totally incompetent.
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And over sexed
I’m not sure why but the movie “Gladiator” is rolling around in my head
“Are you not entertained?” Maximus shouts to the arena crowd.
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Great girlfriend?
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She literally fucked this up.
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I cannot wait for the angry, raging comments but grow up and face facts. Willis fucked up. If you want to engage in stupid white guilt comments like I’m repressing her sexuality for being a black woman, don’t. You demean us all. If nothing else, Willis showed incredibly poor judgement, since she should have known she’d be under a microscope. She fucked this up as perfectly as Garland fucked up by being a pathetic coward. This is how democracy dies - when its defenders behave like fucking idiots.
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