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The news that broke last week in a court filing that Fani Willis had hired her boyfriend to prosecute the Donald Trump RICO case, and financially benefitting from the arrangement, was both salacious and explosive.
While Democrats were desperate to dismiss the allegations in the court filing by Mike Roman, who is a co-defendant in the Trump case, their ability to defend Fani Willis was muted by the fact that Willis herself wasn’t saying anything to defend herself. Not about the allegations, or the optics, or anything.
The filing included loads of details and unsavory bits. Along with the accusation of a relationship, which came with no concrete proof, the filing also said Wade’s firm has been paid more than $600,000 by the county so far and that he and Willis have taken lavish trips together, possibly funded by those taxpayer dollars.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Wade has never tried a felony criminal case in Georgia. And yet he’s been selected by the district attorney he was possibly involved with, for what could be the trial of the century. And Politico reported that Wade met at length with the January 6th committee with details that were not previously known.
This could be an extreme case of he-said, she-said, except Willis has said … nothing. Not a press conference. Not a back-channel denial. Not a staff email, like the one she sent to her office after Trump grossly accused her of being romantically involved with a defendant in a gang trial. That rumor was “derogatory and false,” she said then.
This week, Willis’ office said only that she would respond in court filings. But the silence outside of that has left Republicans pushing to investigate her, and Democrats reeling, worried that the case against Trump, which they believe is rock-solid, will be slowed or undermined.
Willis is also up for reelection in 2024, with filing opening for potential challengers in March.
Well, Fani Willis finally broke her silence on Sunday. In church. Who gave the district attorney the pulpit on a Sunday to preach about how this is all about her being a black woman? And no one is perfect but Jesus, but I’m not going to say if I’m actually in a relationship with the guy my office hired.
Willis did not deny or directly address the most salacious allegations, but she pushed back on claims that she had done anything improper in hiring outside attorney Nathan Wade to lead the case. In a 35-minute speech before the Big Bethel AME Church that was at turns emotional and fiery, Willis suggested race had played role in criticism of her, a Black woman and the first female district attorney in Fulton County, and Wade, a Black man.
Willis criticized those who had seized on the allegations — offered without proof in a court filing by one of Trump’s co-defendants — calling out by name Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has pushed for a criminal investigation into Willis and Wade.
“They are going to be mad when I call them out on this nonsense,” Willis said. “First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s going to play the race card.’ But … isn’t it them playing the race card when they think I need someone in some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years?”
Without naming Wade, Willis strongly defended him, describing him as a lawyer of “impeccable credentials” with decades of experience who helped assemble the prosecution team and bring the case against Trump and more than a dozen of his allies.
Willis did not address the claim that she had a romantic relationship with Wade, an allegation leveled in a filing by Mike Roman, one of Trump’s remaining 14 co-defendants in the criminal case and a high-ranking campaign aide during the 2020 election. She repeatedly referred to herself as a “flawed” and “imperfect” public servant — pointing to how Martin Luther King Jr. was also an imperfect human being called to public service and changing the world. The only perfect person was Jesus, Willis told the congregation.
“Today, what he has brought you is his very flawed, hardheaded and imperfect servant,” she said.
Uh, no one brought up race expect Fani Willis – which seems kind of interesting, hmm? And the reason that Willis got to deliver her very political remarks from the pulpit? This was supposed to be a service in rememberance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on the day before the federal holiday.
Throughout her remarks, Willis seemed to nod at some of the allegations. Roman alleged in his filing that Wade used money he earned as a special prosecutor — his firm has been paid more than $650,000 by the district attorney’s office since he was tapped as an outside prosecutor on the case in November 2021 — to fund lavish vacations with Willis. Motioning to her clothing, Willis pointedly said she had put on her most “lavish” outfit for the occasion — a $29.99 black dress from the discount retailer Ross.
Willis’s remarks Sunday, while not fully addressing the allegations, marked the end of days of silence on an issue that has proved to be both legally and politically fraught in a high-profile case that has already drawn intense public scrutiny and attacks from Trump and his supporters. Green and others have seized on the allegations, urging Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and other state officials to investigate. On Friday, Kemp, a key witness in the case against Trump, called the claims “deeply troubling.”
“Evidence should be presented quickly in order for Judge McAfee to rule and the public to have confidence in this trial moving forward,” Kemp told reporters, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Sunday was the first time Willis had been seen in public since Roman’s motion. Her appearance at Big Bethel AME as part of a special Sunday service honoring King ahead of the holiday that honors him Monday had been previously scheduled, and though her office suggested she intended to honor the invitation as the church’s keynote speaker, it was not clear Willis would talk about the controversy.
So, Fani Willis hijacked a previously scheduled speech in front of a very friendly crowd in order to play the race card and cry “woe is me” without actually answering the allegations.
Willis spoke at length at the toll that the job as district attorney had taken on her personal life — speaking about a swatting incident that had taken place at her home outside Atlanta on Christmas where a caller had reported that someone had been shot. Willis, who said she has not been living at her home because of threats, said at first she had feared that one of her adult children who might have been there had been injured or killed. She eventually learned it was all a hoax.
Willis said she had leaned heavily on her Christian faith as district attorney — especially in recent days. She spoke of speaking to God about the trials she faced and how being Fulton County’s top prosecutor had brought more pressure than she ever expected.
“Seven of the highest-profile cases in the United States going to land right here?” Willis said. “No, please make it stop. God, you forgot to mention that my life and the life of my family would be threatened so regularly, I now think it’s not normal if I don’t have two death threats a week. God, you did not tell me that people would call me the n-word more than they call me Fani.”
First, on the topic of swatting – some examples need to be made. Swatting is completely unacceptable for either side, and the perpetrators need to be slapped with attempted murder charges and whatever else can be piled on, in order for this craziness to STOP.
Second, Fani Willis is laying it on rather thick for someone with the power to order investigations and charge people. If she’s getting death threats, surely her office and law enforcement is taking that seriously… right?
Third, her complaints about her job bringing “more pressure than she ever expected” – um, what did she think was going to happen when she moved forward in this extreme wild goose chase with a grand jury and simply started throwing indictments around like confetti? She wanted the entire circus of getting Donald Trump’s mugshot, and now she’s whining that this job is SOOOOOO HARD and no one understands how hard this has been on her?
Fani Willis calls herself “very flawed, hardheaded, and imperfect” – great. Could you please answer the questions at hand, Ms. District Attorney?
OK. But did she 1) hire a unqualified prosecutor because he was her boyfriend; 2) pay him an exhorbitant amount of taxpayer money; and 3) enjoy vacations with him paid for by the exhorbitant amount of taxpayer money she was paying him? https://t.co/KZmzhXHMDu
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 14, 2024
Even the Washington Post is admitting that Willis’s alleged boyfriend Nathan Wade is light on credentials for a case of this magnitude. The judge in the case, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee, is planning on scheduling a hearing in February regarding the allegations against Willis, but was apparently waiting for her to respond in a court filing. So far, her office hasn’t done that. Instead, she stood in a church pulpit and played the race card, while deftly avoiding the actual questions at hand. If Democrats were looking for reassurance that their big RICO case against Donald Trump was going to be okay, they had better hope that Fani Willis has more than “it’s because I’m black and I hired a black man” as a defense.
Featured image via Simon Ateba on Twitter, cropped
Didn’t need to be Nostradamus to see this coming.
“In a 35-minute speech before the Big Bethel AME Church that was at turns emotional and fiery, Willis “… Seems this speech was given at a political institution, not a religious one.. yank their tax exempt status ASAP!
“Swatting is completely unacceptable for either side, and the perpetrators need to be slapped with attempted murder charges and whatever else can be piled on, in order for this craziness to STOP.”.. This x100! Doesn’t matter their arty of affiliations, this is wrong. period, full stop.
“Second, Fani Willis is laying it on rather thick for someone with the power to order investigations and charge people. If she’s getting death threats, surely her office and law enforcement is taking that seriously… right?”
Does make ya wonder, doesn’t it??? ( no, not really, it’s pretty obvious that she’s a liar)
So, she’s screwing a subordinate, who was hired under very sketchy circumstances, who also not only colluded with the White House, but also was paid for it, she took Caribbean vacations with this married subordinate, on the taxpayer’s dime, and is named as a party in the subordinate’s divorce proceedings. Yeahhhh, it’s absolutely racially based persecution.
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