(Editor’s Note: I was writing this, the Washington Post has more: Judge in Trump Georgia case orders hearing on Fani Willis misconduct claims.)
Yeah, call me a Nervous Nelli if you will, but Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, who brought criminal charges against Donald Trump, and who has extracted guilty pleas from several Trump associates, looks to have spectacularly fouled her own nest by appointing her likely boyfriend, Nathan J. Wade, as prosecutor for the case. The New York Times provides some distinctly non-reassuring details:
Before he became the special prosecutor leading the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump, Nathan Wade was working as a private defense lawyer and a judge for a municipal court in the Atlanta suburbs.
Now, Mr. Wade is accused of being romantically involved with the district attorney who hired him in 2021, Fani T. Willis. A court filing this week suggested their relationship was the reason she chose Mr. Wade for the high-paying job.
The filing, from a lawyer for one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants, said that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had then used some of his earnings, which so far total more than $650,000, to vacation together in places including Napa Valley and the Caribbean.
Mr. Wade was largely unknown when Ms. Willis selected him to lead one of the highest-profile prosecutions in American history. In the late 1990s, he was employed for about a year by the Cobb County Solicitor’s Office, which prosecutes misdemeanors and traffic citations. He appears to have had little prosecutorial experience beyond that, until now.
Later, as an associate judge in Marietta, an Atlanta suburb of about 60,000 residents, Mr. Wade presided over cases dealing with some misdemeanor crimes, traffic tickets and violations of city ordinances.
Ms. Willis is also struggling to avoid testifying in Mr. Wade’s divorce case and defending herself, sort of, in what the Washington Post called a “fiery” speech, though “evasive, defensive, and self-serving” might be more accurate, because she did not deny the charges but rather presented herself, not too surprisingly, as a victim of racism, while admitting to being “flawed” and “imperfect”. Well, she may have gotten that part right, because the worst case scenario here is that the whole case, which was very strong against Trump, could be dismissed in court as too deeply compromised to proceed, to the indescribable glee of both True-Trumpers and Semi-Trumpers alike. The-True Trumpers will take it as proof that their man can do no wrong, while the Semi-Trumpers can claim that Trump is all the Democrats’ fault. Hate to ruin your day and all, but, well, forewarned is forearmed.
In the meantime, Joe Biden admits that his attacks on Houthis installations in the Middle East haven’t halted their assaults on shipping in the Persian Gulf, but, hey, when did the U.S. abandon a policy in the Middle East just because it wasn’t working? Daniel Larison, as usual, has all the ugly details you might want to know about Biden’s knee jerk policy in the Middle East, along with some you probably don’t. It’s probably a good time to start investing in Sominex.
Alan, I’m too old for this s**t. I’m right with you, been whistlin’ past the graveyard as one delay after another pops up. A good friend just gave me Rachel Maddow’s Prequel. Great read, scary .. we’ve been here before, and it’s going to be a grind to come out of it. Hopefully …