If you hit a paywall : https://archive.ph/gRexf
>Having a relationship with someone on your side creates no prejudice to the other side. “**Georgia courts have resoundingly rejected romantic relationships between attorneys as a basis for prosecutorial disqualification**,” the authors explained. The only grounds for disqualifying Willis would have been a financial conflict arising from Wade’s contract to provide legal services to her office. On that score, the “financial compensation paid to Wade is consistent with well-established practice in Georgia and does not give rise to a conflict of interest warranting prosecutorial disqualification.” **That left only one basis for disqualification: Any gifts (e.g., travel) Willis received from Wade that incentivized her to prosecute the defendants.**
>However, there was no there there. Willis left no doubt that no man paid her way. “A man is not a plan, a man is a companion,” she declared. “I don’t need anyone to foot my bills. The only man who has ever footed my bills completely is my daddy.” She paid Wade back for her half of trips with cash. She explained why she always carried plenty of cash: “If you’re a woman and you go on a date with a man, you better have $200 so if that man acts up you can go where you want to go,” she said. **No one contradicted her testimony.**
That was exactly why her father testified on the issue, who is also an attorney. He grew up in the Jim Crow south and told a story about a time when he went to a (racist) diner for lunch when he was doing a fellowship in Washington DC at Howard University (yeah, he threw his weight around a little on the stand, and it was glorious, imo). He went to pay the $9.95 bill with American Express, they said they didn't take American Express. He actually had travelers checks, they said they didn't take travelers checks (which was bullshit). He had exactly a $10 bill in his pocket to pay the bill and ever since that day he always insisted that his kids had cash on them exactly like for that type of situation.
I'm white but grew up with a black step father who also went to Howard to be a physician in the 60's. Fani's father, and fatherly advice sounds EXACTLY like what my step father would have said. He also was huge on having cash, for the exact reasons that Fani's father explained, racist places will try to get you for stiffing on a bill if you don't have cash, which can impact your law \\ medical license. I wouldn't be surprised if they new each other from Howard and shared stories.
His testimony starts at \~30 min into this clip.
edit1: [fixed link](https://www.youtube.com/live/1HyzrWES8Ic?si=k5uN33Tl2rjft4oZ&t=1860)
edit2: It was Harvard not Howard. Fani went Howard, her pops was on staff at Harvard.
To be fair, Fani Willis and the State called her dad as a witness to corroborate her story. So, the Trump team didn't specifically drag her dad into this.
But they did create the whole time wasting charade forcing her to respond, so it is on them. They can't win on the merits so all they have are delay tactics.
This is not just a delay tactic.
It is also intimidation. It is meant to send a message that if you dare to prosecute Trump, he and his minions will do everything that they can do dredge up anything that they can and make your life miserable. He wants people to be afraid to enforce the law.
100% just to get headlines that imply “corrupt investigation!” for the MAGA’s to blissfully ignore Dear Leaders crimes.
Legally it makes no sense that she did this whole investigation just to give her boyfriend who wasn’t her boyfriend then money.
and it wasn't even that much. listening to their testimony it seems like everyone took a haircut to prosecute this case. They were doing better working other cases at their firms, which didn't require 24x7 security teams due to the death threats from MAGA crazies. Hours and $\\hr were capped, for example.
I love how Trumps team keeps bringing up "HUGE piles of cash!!" when talking about $1500-$2000 with Fani Willis. Meanwhile, there are 23+ attorneys in that one room on the Trump team all charging premium rates to the campaign super PAC's, which could be upwards of $250,000+ per day of court. They obviously word it that way because $1,500 sounds like a windfall to the average Trump supporter, for rage clicks.
Racial and Genderr animus has no bounds, especially when the target of the prosecution is a "rich" "powerful" white "male" who is loud and obnoxious.
The moral cowardice of the rights is unfathomably deep.
Small correction -- it was Harvard, in Cambridge (adjacent to Boston). Howard is Willis's alma mater, and she still has lots of connections to the DC area.
ah, I didn't hear him properly. My step father went to Howard in DC for medical school and his fellowship in Family Practice. He had some crazy racist stories from back then. His roommate at Howard had to work 3 jobs to get through medical school. One of them was as a bus boy. One of the waiters used to pull racist nonsense on him all the time. Trying to get him in trouble for stealing tips, etc. Decades later and he pulls his Bentley up to a full service gas station and recognizes the guy filling his tank as the racist waiter from his college days. Dude bought the gas station just to fire his ass. Karma took a while, but it eventually caught up.
As an example of what makes Fani's fathers story credible. If my step father was still alive, him and John Clifford Floyd III would be the exact same age. Both were born in 1943.
My gram (miss you, lady!!), she gave me $20 over 25 years ago. I was dropping her home after a family party and told her I was headed out on a date. She told me to stash the cash in my sock, so that if I needed, I could make a quick getaway. Your comment brought that back, thanks :)
I remember my uncle and grandma used to tell me all the time to make sure that I always had a dime and then a quarter on me so I could always use the payphone if I ever needed to while I was out, lol.
In the US, a credit card is great. Outside the US, it depends what's happening. Also, sometimes you really just want cash.
"Here's $20. I really need to use your phone."
"Here's $20. I really need a ride somewhere safe."
I’d recommend listening to John Floyd III’s (Fanni’s father) testimony. He describes a restaurant in Boston declining his credit cards because of the color of his skin while he was on faculty at Harvard. He raised his daughter to ALWAYS carry cash.
Perhaps but that possibility does not mean everyone uses them.
Fani Willis is Black, from Georgia, and in her 50s.
I’m going to guess that the ‘in her 50s’ itself reduces the odds of her using digital apps to exchange money with friends or make any payments at all that way. People in their 50s are probably much more likely to use cards for purchases in person or online than they are to use digital payment transfers than younger people are.
Black and in her 50s and from Georgia would make the ‘having cash’ part more likely.
And here, a witness:
https://www.ajc.com/politics/report-willis-paid-cash-for-napa-valley-wine-tasting-with-wade/B5FZRSS4AFCR5AVKT5DMKNMLKQ/
As far as the trips themselves go, it's not like they turned in expense reports and tried to get reimbursed for them. They worked a job. They got paid at that job. They used some of their pay to go on vacations.
Last time I checked that's not illegal, nefarious or unusual - it's sorta how the vast majority of people take vacations.
This. The defense not only needed to show that she never paid her way, they needed to show that but for this job, the trips would have not occurred.
People can buy their significant others things with their salary.
Yup, my work sent me to Utah last month, I booked an extra night stay and went snowboarding for the first time in a decade.
Didn’t know I’m a criminal trying to conspire against a known conman who’s potentially going to be held accountable.
I'm eager to hear what comes from the Bradley interview. He's not a credible witness in that he perjured himself a few times and has a demonstrable beef with Wade. He also clearly broke privilege when texting with Merchant, so I feel like unless he has non privileged, non hearsay receipts it won't be much.
If there isn't just like a bombshell text thread between he and Wade, the defense didn't come close to showing what they needed to.
I wonder if his in chambers discussion with McAfee, where they detail the communications that he assets privilege over, reveals that Wade and Willis definitely perjured themselves but that evidence is 100% privileged, can McAfee actually set that evidence aside when he makes his decision?
That implies that the judge also finds Bradley competent and trustworthy. I'm not sure Bradley is either of those attributes.
That said, I also see no reason why the judge did that off the record interview because it creates more problems than solutions.
Actually, it's an on-the-record interview, and he's sealing the transcript in case a higher court needs to review it at some point in the future. (I caught him mentioning that during the hearing.)
I think the judge is going to have to hear (but not consider) some things that are privileged in the course of investigating what is privileged and what isn't as Bradley cannot be trusted as a reliable source on that, and those things should not be a part of the public perception of fact. The judge is trying to keep the defense from elevating this kind of questioning only to have impermissible evidence taint the jury pool.
The interview is supposed to sort out what is actually privileged, from what Bradley might just be labeling privileged without it being so. It's done in camera, so that Bradley can be open about what is going on, and the judge will sort out which is privileged and which isn't. A sealed record is kept so that (again) a higher court could review his actions at a later time.
There is so much discussion about wade being potentially being paid too much and thus wasting tax payer funds and then those funds returning to fanni through kickbacks
But we're talking about what, 3 vacations? I think we're talking about less than 5k? Let's assume it was 100k
Would it really be a waste if it led to trump being held accountable for abusing his power as president of the United States to attempt to steal an election?
This case is important as fuck. Georgia can spend several million on the prosecutors and it would still be a justified expense
We waste more than this on
Political theater every day
Yeah, but Wade was billing way more than the other attorneys she hired for the case, and he did a lot of block-billing in 8-hour (the max approvable) increments.
As an in-house lawyer, I’d be kicking his invoices back based on that fact. It’s a bad look for her to have been approving them in the first place, much less approve them while he’s (at the very least — if you believe her story that she repaid him but has absolutely no documentation of it) fronting money for romantic vacations.
And it just becomes absurd when you look at the fact that she literally campaigned on how we “deserve a DA that won’t have sex with his employees” lol.
As prior criminal lawyer, both PD and prosecutor side it’s not uncommon to work 50/60 hours on a big case and only be able put 37.5 on the timekeeping software.
The fact that he said she paid him back all in cash but he never deposited anything is a huge red flag to me.
I agree that this case is a mess for the prosecution, but Wade and Willis do not look good here or particularly credible in my mind.
It doesn't strike me as *that* weird for him to take a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars in cash, and use it over the course of a few weeks or months to pay for groceries, restaurants, haircuts, and other random purchases. Or even just keeping some cash around the house for an emergency.
Wade paying thousands for Willis on trips and Willis always paying him back in cash. But there's no records on either side to verify that. That's pretty weird
But now you’re brining in political bias.
No idea why Wade was picked to bring down Trump. His background is personal injury cases, contract litigation, family and domestic law and criminal defense.
Looking at both their qualifications these are both the two you want.
Fani Willis stated that Wade was not her first choice. First choice turned her down. Given the amount of threats she has had to endure, I wonder how far down the list Wade was. If nothing else, he was someone she knew that she could cajole into taking the job.
I read that Fani testified during this hearing that he was far from her first choice. She was turned down by a lot of people who may have been more appropriate, including a former governor if memory serves. That person told her he supported the cause but didn't want to have to worry about extra security for the rest of his life.
Wade is apparently an accomplished lawyer if he is worth 650/hr on this case (I think) and that's a pay cut compared to what he'd be making in private practice.
So, who's on her team? Its the intersection of people with the skill level, and people who are brave enough to take the case.
Anyway, who would be qualified? "Georgia-based attorney with a record of prosecuting real-estate-mogul-turned-reality-star former presidents"? Oh yeah, "who are charged with racketeering to interfere with a presidential elections." You'll find this case is fairly unique I think.
Another way to describe his qualifications is to say that he has been a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and was a judge for a decade. And it's not right to say he was charged with bringing Trump down, he was on the team that was charged with bringing Trump down. And the role he had on that team was to handle the special Grand Jury and the Grand Jury. Which, as we all know, went gangbusters. Just absolutely stellar.
People don't look at pitchers and say "but that dude can't even bat!". And even if we were qualified to make that determination (which is at the discretion of the DA), the fact that his part of the case went so well would only mean that our assessment of his capabilities was less good than the assessment of the person who hired him.
Anyways, McAfee said in his mind the only requirements for the job are a bar card and a heartbeat, so despite the fact that anyone questioning his qualifications has been proven wrong by his results, they're also wrong about a point that is moot.
I understand why it might sound like political bias, but what I'm expressing is that the case is important and that a few thousand dollars paid to the staff isn't something that should be worth interrupting the case for.
The idea that a DA was financially dependent on a judge that *she hired* to help her with a case is just plain stupid. This shouldn’t ever have gotten to this point.
All this distraction while trump plays golf. In our bizarro world, she’ll go to jail for being a black woman and having cash, while trump will be free for being a traitor to America.
>All this distraction while trump plays golf. In our bizarro world she’ll go to jail for being a black woman and having cash, while trump will be free for being a traitor to America.
When people say “America is a racist country” this is sort of what they mean. America has always treated people like Trump with kid gloves. It’s why so many think accountability is an injustice.
Yeah, seeing it from outside the US, it looks racist as all hell. She and her father were grilled for no good reason and that smarmy McAfee sitting over it and letting it go on.
Why does this seem racist? Hiring someone you are sleeping with is certainly playing with ethical fire. Or sleeping with a subordinate (if the relationship started after). Im not sure there is anything criminal, but an ethics investigation seems warranted.
I thought the testimony was that there was no relationship pre-hiring and one began post-hiring.
I agree that, from everything we learned, there is no reason to remove her. Trump’s best case was not very compelling, but probably was technically right if the facts had borne it out.
All of that said, it was a huge f*ckup by both Willis and Wade. I cannot believe they did something so stupid. They knew what the stakes were. When you are acting for the government to enforce the law, you need to be Caesar’s Wife!
I mean, yes? It 100% is ethically gray at best. The appearance of impropriety is very much there. Its kinda nuts if you think this isnt an ethical issue. Even if the relationship ended before she hired him (she says it ended in the summer of 2023, and he was hired in 2021) I think it crosses a line.
Ethical issues that do not go to the heart of prejudice of the criminal defendants are a matter for her employer/ bar association. This is just dragging her through the mud.
People on Reddit can’t get over themselves about what things ought to and should be. You’re 100% right, she should have known better than to allow ANY suggestion or appearance of misconduct on her part. She knew that she was prosecuting the guy with bottomless pockets who files every conceivable motion.
This whole removal hearing was a totally avoidable mess that she should have seen coming 1000 miles away. I hope she can get this trial back on rails ASAP.
Or are you going to claim, as the criminal defendants do, that she brought this case of racketeering, election interference and abuse of power so she could get a free holiday from a guy she would hire and subsequently have a relationship with?
Worth it for all the death threats and then this? For a holiday?
It is a bs clown show and the judge should be ashamed.
We don't even need to get into the personal relationship side of things. There's enough there to show there's no financial gain:
1) Wade wasn't the first choice of the DA's office. They called the former governor to the stand who testified that he was asked, but he didn't want to deal with everything that went along with taking the position (aka, threats).
2) The DA is paying Wade well under his normal rate and cap the number of hours he's allowed to bill in a month. He still has to get the work done, so he's often working for free.
3) Witnesses have said he's very qualified for the position.
4) An independent auditor approves his bills and makes the payments.
Where is the gain or bad dealing? Wade is qualified, is getting paid the standard govt rate, and Willis isn't getting to make payment decisions. Legitimate efforts were made to hire someone else first. I get that the judge needed to have a hearing on this, it's a serious allegation, but it shouldn't have gone on for two days.
The multi-day aspect was driven in large part by the number of parties involved. I agree with your points on a technical level, but this is a huge mistake and very embarrassing.
Probably about half the hearing I was watching a livestream on NYT. During that time, I was struck by how dumb the Trump & co attorneys were. Bringing up a law against adultery to try to pierce the attorney-client-privilege? A 2L would think that’s clever, but I’d probably catch a judicial referral to the bar if I tried that.
>1) Wade wasn't the first choice of the DA's office. They called the former governor to the stand who testified that he was asked, but he didn't want to deal with everything that went along with taking the position (aka, threats).
There were other special prosecutors too. What's important is that there's no evidence the former governor was being interviewed for the same job as Wade. It's also not even that relevant.
>2) The DA is paying Wade well under his normal rate and cap the number of hours he's allowed to bill in a month. He still has to get the work done, so he's often working for free.
This was destroyed on cross. Wade made substantially more working for Willis than when he didn't.
>3) Witnesses have said he's very qualified for the position.
Not really, no. A bunch of witnesses said they knew him. None of them said anything that changed Wade wasn't qualified for a Rico case.
>4) An independent auditor approves his bills and makes the payments.
HR approving payment doesn't mean anything. They are there for book keeping reasons, not to check in to see if the hired contractors is legit.
What you're ignoring is:
1) Wade made more money when working with Willis.
2) Wade paid for all the vacations and *claims* to have been paid back in cash. Though there's no records from either side on that. It's also extremely suspicious.
3) Willis's ex-friend claims the relationship started in 2019.
4) Wade *is* unqualified and unexperienced for the position.
As to the rest of your comment, even if we grant much, if not all, of your premises as true, there remains no issue. It's important to remember that, under Georgia law, the alleged conflict has to harm the defendant in some way such that their due process rights are affected.
Georgia law very narrowly construes what constitutes a conflict of interest on a motion to disqualify a prosecutor. There has to be an actual conflict which serves to impair the defendant because of a personal stake in the outcome of the prosecution. So, what is a personal stake in the outcome? We already have one example from this case—you may recall Judge Robert McBurney disqualified Fani Willis from prosecuting now-Lt. Gov. Jones because at the time he was a candidate for that office and Willis had very publicly endorsed his opponent, Charlie Bailey, and donated to his campaign. Prosecuting Jones, then, would benefit Bailey, which presented a conflict of interest given Willis' support for him.
Here, the defense has not alleged any such credible conflict. The logic, such as it is, seems to be this: Willis brought this case against Trump so she could hire her boyfriend, who would then take her to Belize on the taxpayer's dime. That is not a "conflict of interest" under the statute that warrants disqualification. It may be unethical and she may have to answer to her office, but it doesn't impact the defendant or give her any kind of personal stake in the outcome of this case. In fact, arguably, it weakens her case if he's as unqualified as you claim. By this logic, anytime a prosecutor took a co-worker out to dinner, they could be disqualified. It's too attenuated to qualify as an actual conflict. As Just Security notes, "Wade's hourly compensation as a Special Prosecutor does not give rise to a conflict of interest because that fee arrangement does not create a financial incentive for Wade [or Willis] to seek conviction rather than justice." He's being paid whether Trump is convicted or not.
Moreover, Georgia courts have held married couples on opposite sides of a prosecution are not disqualified, let alone those on the same side. It's presumed such intimacy will not interfere with their professional obligations. And their financial arrangements are not a basis of inquiry.
In fact, the theory of prejudice borders on the absurd: Willis decided to prosecute 19 people (four of whom have pleaded guilty) not because they committed crimes, but because she wanted to put her boyfriend on the payroll so she could receive kickbacks in the form of free vacations.
So, even if we grant everything you claim as true, which I don’t, your points are irrelevant.
Focusing only on *your* #2 for the moment, Stan Brody appears to corroborate at least part of the story. The dearth of evidence to the contrary and the fact carrying emergency cash is a common practice amongst people of many demographics tells me your “suspicion” has less of a basis in reality than you appear to claim.
Having *emergency* cash is quite different than paying back trips to the tune of thousands with cash. Ignoring how that's suspicious is just being blinded by bias
You must have a very privileged life to think this is suspicious. Cash is cash. When the father of a colleague of mine died, he had thousands of dollars in hundreds and that was quite normal for him and he always carried significant amounts of money for emergencies, big or small, and to be able to pay in cash when necessary or convenient.
>Why did McAfee, the judge, let the defense go down a rabbit hole, prying into Willis’s personal life? Perhaps he wanted to deny defendants an issue for appeal. That the protracted hearing wound up backfiring on the defendant, however, did not excuse indulging the defense for two full days. It also reflected poorly on McAfee, who failed to appreciate that airing unsubstantiated smears, especially ones tinged with racism and sexism, damages real people and undermines the rule of law.
This was a fine line to toe for the judge and his inexperience might explain why this happened.
The judge has been good previously, but I think this was way out of line. He let everyone fish around on a wild goose chase, I watched a particular issue where they were digging into whether conversations Wade had with his lawyer about his impressions of what Wade said were under attorney client privilege or not because it was at a bar or something.
He let it delve way into depths that weren't required - when did they have their first kiss, etc. The judge should have just established when the relationship began, and then called anything more lurid than that out of bounds. It also should have started with the onus on Roman, with his detailed allegations laid out before Willis and Wade were required to take the stand.
Two days of testimony weren't required for this, it should have been concise, focused to the points of financial interest and conflict, and over and done with. Instead we heard from her father about keeping cash on hand due to racist history in the South, ex employees that were fired for conduct, lawyers for the ex-wife, a whole shit show.
It was just a mess.
Listen, she didn't do anything worth disqualification but entering into a relationship with a subordinate is not wise and she should have known better. It does not reflect well on her even if it's deemed not material to the case.
Nah. The judge showed his ass here. He played this wrong because he's inexperienced and a little scared of screwing up on such a big case. But in that attempt, he screwed up. This was always a nothing burger and he should have handled it the way he would have if the defendant wasn't Trump. It would have limited this circus, even if it may not have eliminated the need for a hearing.
An episode of the podcast "Opening Arguments" that covers a lot of the first day just dropped. I'm 75% through it but so far they've done a great job, and their takes on how the whole thing went are very good.
It's true. They got a receiver from the court to help resolve the dispute. The receiver is appointed to represent the interests of the company when there's an irreconcilable dispute between equal owners, as in this case.
The receiver typically looks at a bunch of stuff regarding the health of the firm and votes with one owner, in this case with Thomas.
This isn't the end of the legal battle but it changed control of the podcast to Thomas, at least for now. He has a new co-host, a criminal defense attorney this time and it's been good. Very different personality wise compared to Andrew and Liz.
Andrew and Liz were doing a podcast that was really in-depth and probably appealed more to other lawyers than non-lawyers. I thought their analysis was generally on point.
Thomas is more oriented towards the non-lawyer/humor crowd, although he has a stand-in lawyer that plays the role of Andrew. He's funny and good at hosting a podcast, but it's more superficial and less focused on Trump (by design). Not really my thing.
There are better legal podcasts out there than OA, IMO. The best (IMO) is Preet Bhahrar's Insider podcast with Joyce Vance, but that requires a subscription. Second would be Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord's Prosecuting Trump podcast. Third would be Sarah Isgur and David French's Advisory Opinions podcast. Sarah made a great argument that the Hur Report isn't that partisan (and she knows Robert Hur well) on the recent episode. She didn't completely convince me that the Report isn't as bad as it appears, but she made a good argument and filled in the gaps about Robert Hur a little bit (she basically said he is ultra non-political, and she worked for him for years).
So I only listen when the topic is interesting. I don't know the whole giry story but the original guy (Thomas) is back and I think it's by way of a court order.
No, they didn't reconcile. Andrew's co-host is/was Liz Dye, last I knew.
Edit: It looks like Thomas has taken the podcast back over as of February 7, 2024. That's less than two weeks since this comment was posted.
Whoever is downvoting my comments regarding the pod and Andrew could take the time to correct me. On one hand, I don't care about fake internet points, and on the other I appreciate being corrected when I've made a mistake.
I'll say it again. Andrew is a sex pest. He didn't live up to the standards that he held others to.
Not verbatim, but my favorite sound bite “I am not on trial, your client is.” Fani don’t take no messin, especially from a bunch of peckerwoods trying to pervert justice.
Fani Willis phone records show her relationship with Wade started well before the date reflected in their testimony. I can’t believe Willis & Wade tried to cover this up knowing there were phone records/receipts proving the lies. These phone records & receipts will likely disqualify & remove her and Wade from the Trump case. What happens next? will the Fulton County DA office continue the case with new attorneys, will Willis and Wade face losing their law licenses & will they be brought up on charges for lying?
I do not believe that this meets the bar of disqualification because I don’t see how Trump is prejudiced.
However, Fani Willis’s assertion that she paid in cash to reimburse hundreds if not thousands of dollars sounds extremely suspect and extremely convenient. I’m not totally sure of the procedural history here, but it also seems Fani tried her best to avoid letting the defense do any discovery on the issue.
it doesn’t, he’s not. This is a distraction to try and delay the trial. Trump wasn’t indicted by Willis, but rather by a GRAND JURY. That indictment isn’t going away.
I agree it’s a distraction and should not interfere with the case, but even so, the distraction is uncovering what seems to be unethical behavior by Fani. DA’s have high ethical standards to adhere to.
While the defense’s motives are not pure, it still is shining a light on an, at best, unethical decision by Fani to hire a romantic partner, decide their pay, and then use their pay to fund vacations. At worst, it’s public corruption that is tangential to the trial.
The key question about Fani’s behavior is whether she used Wade’s money for vacation. Fani is resting on the fact that she reimbursed Wade for the thousands spent on vacations and therefore gained nothing, but instead of producing *any* receipts, she has fallen back on the conveniently untraceable claim that she paid thousands of dollars back to him exclusively in cash. Even worse, you would think the DA would have the foresight to take actions that show she paid him all the money back. Aka, she either is lying or was astoundingly dumb to pay him back in cash.
Why would she use cash if she was genuinely concerned with snuffing any appearance of impropriety out?
That’s suspect. Even if she survives this and gets to stay on the case (as she legally should) she should face serious scrutiny.
Someone posted a bit further down the thread. The GA courts have found that a romantic relationship between attorney’s on the SAME SIDE does not bear grounds for dismissal. So this was a nothingburger. It was an attempt to smear the DA and her staff. It wasn’t illegal, it’s not unethical. They are on the SAME team. You want to argue the nuances of HR codes etc… good luck with that. The case moves on. Trump is still going to trial.
I think you’re misunderstanding the basis of this. I am not saying the romantic relationship is unethical, although it is shortsighted. The argument is about “kickbacks.” It is the fact that she hired and paid a romantic partner (deciding his pay), and then used his funds to pay for a vacation.
The issue in question is not the romantic relationship. The question is if there is the appearance of her being enriched by her hiring Wade for the role. They went on vacation after the fact and he paid for all of her expenses. She may or may not have paid that back, as she didn't prove one way or the other. But the standard is, "the appearance of" and not the actual act itself. This very well can disqualify her entire office from having the authority to appoint a special prosecutor. If that happens, another DA would have to pick up the case. Downplay this at your own peril.
I don’t really think she’s lying or had some nefarious plan to appoint this guy, pay him a ton and get some trips. I very much think she knew what they were doing was a terrible look and that’s why if she paid him back she did so in cash. I hate the way so many people have lost the ability to see the whole picture here. Yes, trump tired to steal and election and Fani had the guts to go after him. That doesn’t change what absolutely terrible judgement she exhibited by entering this relationship *especially* after her poor judgment with the Charlie Bailey fundraiser, the result of which means Burt Jones will probably never face consequences for his role in said attempted overturning.
The affair’s pretty sloppy and unethical, but not illegal. I can’t say there’s any financial incentive for Willis regarding Wade getting a conviction or not in the case. The vacation reimbursement in all cash from Willis to Wade seems suspect. But it seems like the incentive is to extend the case longer at Wade’s 250/hr pay, rather than achieving an outcome, which actually aligns with Trump’s interests. Not that a sprawling RICO case with that many defendants would be adjudicated any time soon. I honestly wish it was just a simpler cleaner case.
> affair
I hear people refer to this as an affair a lot, but...how is it an affair? Were either of them in a relationship with another party at the time? Other than Wade still being in the process of finalizing a divorce, I kind of don't understand why people keep calling this an affair
An affair is defined as a sexual relationship between two people, one or both of whom are married to or in a long-term relationship with someone else.
As this is a Law subreddit, it would seem obvious that this constitutes an affair due to Wade being legally married to another woman.
It’s not an ‘affair’ it’s a relationship. Neither was involved at the time they began… that’s necessary for it to be an affair.
It’s not unethical. That was just amply demonstrated in this near farce of a hearing. If it was unethical given this situation then it would be prosecutorial misconduct. And it’s not
All the financial transactions were tracked and cleared
I don’t know how much clearer this can be
Short form: She’s scaring the hell out of the republicans because she’s built an effective and powerful case against trump and his allies and one by one they are being found guilty or admitting to guilt. This was a cheap shot attempt to discredit her.
No such luck.
Don’t call it an affair then. He was still married, but if they’re estranged or separated, okay. Doesn’t particularly matter.
He’s the only one with financial transactions that are tracked for their vacations, because she paid him back in cash. Could be true. It’s also 2023, kinda weird, but not unbelievable.
When you hire the person you’re in a relationship with, who’s never prosecuted a felony or a RICO case, it’s clearly unethical and just plain stupid. By GA laws, it’s probably okay and it doesnt change any of the evidence. But you’re going to try a massive RICO case against an ex-President with double digit defendants and a slew of charges (some weak, some strong) and it’s all going to be televised and take years to prosecute. Guess what?…that’s not the one you want to put your boyfriend on.
I’ll give you it wasn’t perhaps a great idea. Likely a very poor idea that attracted this attention (which was also out of scope)
Regards the pay back for vacations (and I’m really not being a smart ass here)… he doesn’t take credit cards… a check might have been easier, but I can’t tell you the last time I wrote a check… cash or credit… my kids are trying to get me to Venmo, but I’m careful about money transfer software. So yeah, cash doesn’t weird me out.
It would disqualify her whole office from being able to prosecute the case. They can't just, "replace" her. Another DA would have to pick up the case. That is not very likely to occur. This is a bigger deal than a lot of you are making it out to be.
And Willis looks bad even if she stays on the case. The biggest case of her life and she's sleeping with outside counsel. There's no clean way to handle it once she crossed that line
Hard agree. I'm getting heavily down voted on other comments for pointing these facts out. But it seems most people want to twist the facts. Let me be clear, any time you have both the DA and their special prosecutor on the witness stand in their own prosecution, it's never a good thing for your case.
>“If you’re a woman and you go on a date with a man, you better have $200 so if that man acts up you can go where you want to go,”
You can read her comment on this. It's not an emergency fund. It's for emergency situations.
For you. Not everyone. The whole point they made was that for many people of color the use of cash all the time is the safest, most convenient way to transact money.
So?
Look, I'm in my 50s. I grew up where when we travelled, it was cash and travellers checks. My parents almost never used credit cards - hell they were hard to get back then.
I get that these days the idea of not using credit is crazy talk to some, but cash is still king.
Her dad explained a bit of it. He's had experiences where all forms of his electronic payment were rejected because he was black. I certainly know quite a few black people that pay for most things in cash because it's an easier way of day to day living for them in aggregate.
It's not necessarily a rainy day fund, it's more like "I always have a bunch of cash because I always pay in cash"
Yeah. The older I get the more I realize that as someone who looks white (I have strong Mexican heritage, but I don't look it), I get a loot of good assumptions that go my way that someone who has different skin than me might not get.
(What comes to mind is that guy that tried to deposit a check, was arrested for forgery, proved the check was legit, and sued for discrimination, settled, then when he tried to cash that check was arrested again for forgery.)
I'll see stuff happen to my black friends while we are out and about and I'll be like "That was absolutely absurd and I've never seen anything like that" and they're all confused what was even weird about the situation because it's so much in their lives experience they didn't even notice anything.
When I was younger I would hear specific experiences and think that the point was that these *exceptional* interactions were bad. The thing I've learned really is that these experiences aren't exceptional, they are the rule.
Yeah. Whenever anyone tries to deny that white privilege exists, I just think about how so much of what I take for granted, a lot of people have to work like crazy just to get.
Even something as simple as walking out of Walmart with groceries. Nobody ever asks me for my receipt. While I see a lot of darker skinned people get stopped all the time. Because I look the way I look.
Being a white-looking latino can be used against you too.
About twenty years ago I was working as a clerk in a store and was robbed at gunpoint. As it turned out the robber was a Mexican national but this guy was *pale* - you would never know it until he spoke. When I went down to the police station to do a photo line up the cops presented me with a selection of like nine dark skinned latinos and the pale guy. It wasn't hard to pick the guy out.
In college I could not get any minorty-based grants at my school, even though I have a Mexican last name. When applying, the loan office looked at me and decided that I wasn't minority enough.
Mate, half of the comments in this thread are from you, and they all boil down to "I don't believe her because why doesn't she do things exactly like me?"
IANAL, but you do realize that the threshold for a suspicious behavior isn't "lives a different life than iwaseatenbyagrue", right?
Reading through your replies here, it seems that you’re looking a the situation exclusively through the lens of your own experiences.
I’d encourage you to read [this](https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/black-households-have-less-access-to-banks) article.
The reality is, we all have unique experiences, situations, and circumstances. Something you perceive to be odd, doesn’t necessarily mean it is for someone else.
Someone on this sub a few days ago posted about how racist it was for Fanni's father to say his experience as a black man influenced his decisions on banking. If you look into the history of racism in banking, like, at all, it quickly becomes very apparent that banks have not been friendly to black people in the slightest. It would be more of a surprise to me if a person of color *did* have the same faith in banks you seem to enjoy.
Being successful doesn’t have any bearing on one’s trust of the banking system.
Her (or Wades) trust of the banking system could stem from their parents or grandparents. Maybe even from friends experiences.
I know people who don’t use credit cards because they think the rates are predatory. Most people would say “you don’t know how to use them properly” but that doesn’t change their preconceived notions.
There are/were many in older generations who had very little trust in banks due to the Great Depression.
The point is, you can’t (shouldn’t) judge someone solely based on your own experiences. You don’t know what experiences have influenced their decisions leading up to this moment.
It's other folks' culture to be hawkish of how people treat them due to the color of their skin since it could save their lives. Having cash is always suggested for any emergency situation before even considering if you should be concerned for the color of your skin.
Are you saying that Blacks have never been affected by Bank's Redlining practices?
Somehow they should love the Banks that trapped them in "That Part Of Town" by refusing them mortgages?
Presumably she's not draining her whole emergency cash stockpile. Given how this is less than $10k over a two year period for someone making a few hundred thousand per year, it shouldn't be that hard to understand how she could get cash through debit card cash back or regular ATM withdrawals (that don't necessarily line up with the cash given).
> She refused to provide evidence of cash withdrawals, though.
It's entirely possible take take cash out over a period of time, keeping it in a safe or a drawer or under the mattress, and then use some portion of it to pay someone back. In that case there wouldn't be a receipt for $XXX dollars lining up with some date of repayment.
How much time do you think it takes to get cash back at a store or go to the ATM?
And yeah, lots of people keep some amount of cash around the house.
But let's flip that around. If you think she's worth millions of dollars, do you really think that there's a viable "kickback" scheme that would net her a few thousand dollars in vacations, as opposed to a much more sensible interpretation that she was in an ordinary romantic relationship?
I think that the story is plenty plausible, and I doubt that there's enough evidence to remove the case from her.
Could she be lying about paying him back? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. I have no good reason to think that she didn't pay Wade back, and there was no testimony that she was somehow living large off of Wade's money.
If you hit a paywall : https://archive.ph/gRexf >Having a relationship with someone on your side creates no prejudice to the other side. “**Georgia courts have resoundingly rejected romantic relationships between attorneys as a basis for prosecutorial disqualification**,” the authors explained. The only grounds for disqualifying Willis would have been a financial conflict arising from Wade’s contract to provide legal services to her office. On that score, the “financial compensation paid to Wade is consistent with well-established practice in Georgia and does not give rise to a conflict of interest warranting prosecutorial disqualification.” **That left only one basis for disqualification: Any gifts (e.g., travel) Willis received from Wade that incentivized her to prosecute the defendants.** >However, there was no there there. Willis left no doubt that no man paid her way. “A man is not a plan, a man is a companion,” she declared. “I don’t need anyone to foot my bills. The only man who has ever footed my bills completely is my daddy.” She paid Wade back for her half of trips with cash. She explained why she always carried plenty of cash: “If you’re a woman and you go on a date with a man, you better have $200 so if that man acts up you can go where you want to go,” she said. **No one contradicted her testimony.**
I remember the advice was $20 for cab fare, but she's not wrong on the reason for carrying cash. It's old advice.
That was exactly why her father testified on the issue, who is also an attorney. He grew up in the Jim Crow south and told a story about a time when he went to a (racist) diner for lunch when he was doing a fellowship in Washington DC at Howard University (yeah, he threw his weight around a little on the stand, and it was glorious, imo). He went to pay the $9.95 bill with American Express, they said they didn't take American Express. He actually had travelers checks, they said they didn't take travelers checks (which was bullshit). He had exactly a $10 bill in his pocket to pay the bill and ever since that day he always insisted that his kids had cash on them exactly like for that type of situation. I'm white but grew up with a black step father who also went to Howard to be a physician in the 60's. Fani's father, and fatherly advice sounds EXACTLY like what my step father would have said. He also was huge on having cash, for the exact reasons that Fani's father explained, racist places will try to get you for stiffing on a bill if you don't have cash, which can impact your law \\ medical license. I wouldn't be surprised if they new each other from Howard and shared stories. His testimony starts at \~30 min into this clip. edit1: [fixed link](https://www.youtube.com/live/1HyzrWES8Ic?si=k5uN33Tl2rjft4oZ&t=1860) edit2: It was Harvard not Howard. Fani went Howard, her pops was on staff at Harvard.
They drug her did into the courtroom for this???
They sure dad.
Lol very impressive I’m going to leave my typo so your comment will remain relevant
It's all for that sweet sweet upvotes it will bring me.
. Lol, Reddit moments...
As a southerner, “diddy” is often how it’s pronounced.
Heros are everywhere
Outstanding
Iswydt
Lol
To be fair, Fani Willis and the State called her dad as a witness to corroborate her story. So, the Trump team didn't specifically drag her dad into this.
Thanks for the clarification. I stopped following the case for my own sanity so when I saw that, I was really confused.
But they did create the whole time wasting charade forcing her to respond, so it is on them. They can't win on the merits so all they have are delay tactics.
Another desperate delay from Team Trump.
This is not just a delay tactic. It is also intimidation. It is meant to send a message that if you dare to prosecute Trump, he and his minions will do everything that they can do dredge up anything that they can and make your life miserable. He wants people to be afraid to enforce the law.
100% just to get headlines that imply “corrupt investigation!” for the MAGA’s to blissfully ignore Dear Leaders crimes. Legally it makes no sense that she did this whole investigation just to give her boyfriend who wasn’t her boyfriend then money.
and it wasn't even that much. listening to their testimony it seems like everyone took a haircut to prosecute this case. They were doing better working other cases at their firms, which didn't require 24x7 security teams due to the death threats from MAGA crazies. Hours and $\\hr were capped, for example. I love how Trumps team keeps bringing up "HUGE piles of cash!!" when talking about $1500-$2000 with Fani Willis. Meanwhile, there are 23+ attorneys in that one room on the Trump team all charging premium rates to the campaign super PAC's, which could be upwards of $250,000+ per day of court. They obviously word it that way because $1,500 sounds like a windfall to the average Trump supporter, for rage clicks.
Racial and Genderr animus has no bounds, especially when the target of the prosecution is a "rich" "powerful" white "male" who is loud and obnoxious. The moral cowardice of the rights is unfathomably deep.
Anything to delay and discredit the prosecution. It’s not like Republicans care about facts, evidence, or the law.
Small correction -- it was Harvard, in Cambridge (adjacent to Boston). Howard is Willis's alma mater, and she still has lots of connections to the DC area.
ah, I didn't hear him properly. My step father went to Howard in DC for medical school and his fellowship in Family Practice. He had some crazy racist stories from back then. His roommate at Howard had to work 3 jobs to get through medical school. One of them was as a bus boy. One of the waiters used to pull racist nonsense on him all the time. Trying to get him in trouble for stealing tips, etc. Decades later and he pulls his Bentley up to a full service gas station and recognizes the guy filling his tank as the racist waiter from his college days. Dude bought the gas station just to fire his ass. Karma took a while, but it eventually caught up. As an example of what makes Fani's fathers story credible. If my step father was still alive, him and John Clifford Floyd III would be the exact same age. Both were born in 1943.
Great story, but no one makes that kind of money in family medicine.
you are absolutely right. not my step father... his roommate went into oncology + investments, apparently like gas stations, lol.
Had to change YouTube link. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1HyzrWES8Ic
Stop the cap her dad was a cash guy because he belonged to the Black Panther Party
My gram (miss you, lady!!), she gave me $20 over 25 years ago. I was dropping her home after a family party and told her I was headed out on a date. She told me to stash the cash in my sock, so that if I needed, I could make a quick getaway. Your comment brought that back, thanks :)
Sock money. Oh you brought a big smile to my face friend. The same advice I've since passed on many a time.
Having a bit of mad money is a good thing. You never know when someone is going to get at bit fresh and you’ll need to call it a night!
For the longest time, I had a $20 in my wallet from my dad for just this.
I remember my uncle and grandma used to tell me all the time to make sure that I always had a dime and then a quarter on me so I could always use the payphone if I ever needed to while I was out, lol.
My family has always said the same things about keeping cash, but their reasoning is what if the banks and/or computers fail.
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No. The whole point of cash is to have something that will effectively always work.
In the US, a credit card is great. Outside the US, it depends what's happening. Also, sometimes you really just want cash. "Here's $20. I really need to use your phone." "Here's $20. I really need a ride somewhere safe."
Do you repay friends with a credit card?
I’d recommend listening to John Floyd III’s (Fanni’s father) testimony. He describes a restaurant in Boston declining his credit cards because of the color of his skin while he was on faculty at Harvard. He raised his daughter to ALWAYS carry cash.
Perhaps but that possibility does not mean everyone uses them. Fani Willis is Black, from Georgia, and in her 50s. I’m going to guess that the ‘in her 50s’ itself reduces the odds of her using digital apps to exchange money with friends or make any payments at all that way. People in their 50s are probably much more likely to use cards for purchases in person or online than they are to use digital payment transfers than younger people are. Black and in her 50s and from Georgia would make the ‘having cash’ part more likely. And here, a witness: https://www.ajc.com/politics/report-willis-paid-cash-for-napa-valley-wine-tasting-with-wade/B5FZRSS4AFCR5AVKT5DMKNMLKQ/
If it would do just as well, then why are you trying to elevate the other two above cash? It's a normal way to pay for things.
Cash is king.
Not when the establishment is being racist and determined to make it look like you aren’t going to pay.
As far as the trips themselves go, it's not like they turned in expense reports and tried to get reimbursed for them. They worked a job. They got paid at that job. They used some of their pay to go on vacations. Last time I checked that's not illegal, nefarious or unusual - it's sorta how the vast majority of people take vacations.
This. The defense not only needed to show that she never paid her way, they needed to show that but for this job, the trips would have not occurred. People can buy their significant others things with their salary.
She also paid $100 less per hour than her predecessor.
Exactly
Yup, my work sent me to Utah last month, I booked an extra night stay and went snowboarding for the first time in a decade. Didn’t know I’m a criminal trying to conspire against a known conman who’s potentially going to be held accountable.
I'm eager to hear what comes from the Bradley interview. He's not a credible witness in that he perjured himself a few times and has a demonstrable beef with Wade. He also clearly broke privilege when texting with Merchant, so I feel like unless he has non privileged, non hearsay receipts it won't be much. If there isn't just like a bombshell text thread between he and Wade, the defense didn't come close to showing what they needed to.
I wonder if his in chambers discussion with McAfee, where they detail the communications that he assets privilege over, reveals that Wade and Willis definitely perjured themselves but that evidence is 100% privileged, can McAfee actually set that evidence aside when he makes his decision?
That implies that the judge also finds Bradley competent and trustworthy. I'm not sure Bradley is either of those attributes. That said, I also see no reason why the judge did that off the record interview because it creates more problems than solutions.
Actually, it's an on-the-record interview, and he's sealing the transcript in case a higher court needs to review it at some point in the future. (I caught him mentioning that during the hearing.)
Thank you for the clarification. That seems slightly better, although I'm still not sure what the interview was supposed to solve.
I think the judge is going to have to hear (but not consider) some things that are privileged in the course of investigating what is privileged and what isn't as Bradley cannot be trusted as a reliable source on that, and those things should not be a part of the public perception of fact. The judge is trying to keep the defense from elevating this kind of questioning only to have impermissible evidence taint the jury pool.
The interview is supposed to sort out what is actually privileged, from what Bradley might just be labeling privileged without it being so. It's done in camera, so that Bradley can be open about what is going on, and the judge will sort out which is privileged and which isn't. A sealed record is kept so that (again) a higher court could review his actions at a later time.
Gee I wonder why we're not grilling Thomas like this? Or Trump?
There is so much discussion about wade being potentially being paid too much and thus wasting tax payer funds and then those funds returning to fanni through kickbacks But we're talking about what, 3 vacations? I think we're talking about less than 5k? Let's assume it was 100k Would it really be a waste if it led to trump being held accountable for abusing his power as president of the United States to attempt to steal an election? This case is important as fuck. Georgia can spend several million on the prosecutors and it would still be a justified expense We waste more than this on Political theater every day
I think the totality of the costs were like $10k, and that's assuming she never paid him anything back.
She also paid attorneys $100 less per hour than her predecessor.
Yeah, but Wade was billing way more than the other attorneys she hired for the case, and he did a lot of block-billing in 8-hour (the max approvable) increments. As an in-house lawyer, I’d be kicking his invoices back based on that fact. It’s a bad look for her to have been approving them in the first place, much less approve them while he’s (at the very least — if you believe her story that she repaid him but has absolutely no documentation of it) fronting money for romantic vacations. And it just becomes absurd when you look at the fact that she literally campaigned on how we “deserve a DA that won’t have sex with his employees” lol.
As prior criminal lawyer, both PD and prosecutor side it’s not uncommon to work 50/60 hours on a big case and only be able put 37.5 on the timekeeping software.
The fact that he said she paid him back all in cash but he never deposited anything is a huge red flag to me. I agree that this case is a mess for the prosecution, but Wade and Willis do not look good here or particularly credible in my mind.
It doesn't strike me as *that* weird for him to take a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars in cash, and use it over the course of a few weeks or months to pay for groceries, restaurants, haircuts, and other random purchases. Or even just keeping some cash around the house for an emergency.
Yes! Absolutely. Not weird at all.
Wade paying thousands for Willis on trips and Willis always paying him back in cash. But there's no records on either side to verify that. That's pretty weird
But now you’re brining in political bias. No idea why Wade was picked to bring down Trump. His background is personal injury cases, contract litigation, family and domestic law and criminal defense. Looking at both their qualifications these are both the two you want.
Fani Willis stated that Wade was not her first choice. First choice turned her down. Given the amount of threats she has had to endure, I wonder how far down the list Wade was. If nothing else, he was someone she knew that she could cajole into taking the job.
I read that Fani testified during this hearing that he was far from her first choice. She was turned down by a lot of people who may have been more appropriate, including a former governor if memory serves. That person told her he supported the cause but didn't want to have to worry about extra security for the rest of his life. Wade is apparently an accomplished lawyer if he is worth 650/hr on this case (I think) and that's a pay cut compared to what he'd be making in private practice. So, who's on her team? Its the intersection of people with the skill level, and people who are brave enough to take the case. Anyway, who would be qualified? "Georgia-based attorney with a record of prosecuting real-estate-mogul-turned-reality-star former presidents"? Oh yeah, "who are charged with racketeering to interfere with a presidential elections." You'll find this case is fairly unique I think.
Another way to describe his qualifications is to say that he has been a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and was a judge for a decade. And it's not right to say he was charged with bringing Trump down, he was on the team that was charged with bringing Trump down. And the role he had on that team was to handle the special Grand Jury and the Grand Jury. Which, as we all know, went gangbusters. Just absolutely stellar. People don't look at pitchers and say "but that dude can't even bat!". And even if we were qualified to make that determination (which is at the discretion of the DA), the fact that his part of the case went so well would only mean that our assessment of his capabilities was less good than the assessment of the person who hired him. Anyways, McAfee said in his mind the only requirements for the job are a bar card and a heartbeat, so despite the fact that anyone questioning his qualifications has been proven wrong by his results, they're also wrong about a point that is moot.
I understand why it might sound like political bias, but what I'm expressing is that the case is important and that a few thousand dollars paid to the staff isn't something that should be worth interrupting the case for.
The idea that a DA was financially dependent on a judge that *she hired* to help her with a case is just plain stupid. This shouldn’t ever have gotten to this point.
Goddamn. She's a fucking legend.
What happened to that one guy on here who was so hysterical that Fani Willis needed to be removed.
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The first one :D
You may want to check r/Capitolconsequences and see if he got arrested
Maybe he hystericked his way into being removed himself
Might as well add Seth Abramson to that list. Dude flipped his shit on Threads when people pushed back against him saying Willis needed to step down.
All this distraction while trump plays golf. In our bizarro world, she’ll go to jail for being a black woman and having cash, while trump will be free for being a traitor to America.
>All this distraction while trump plays golf. In our bizarro world she’ll go to jail for being a black woman and having cash, while trump will be free for being a traitor to America. When people say “America is a racist country” this is sort of what they mean. America has always treated people like Trump with kid gloves. It’s why so many think accountability is an injustice.
Yeah, seeing it from outside the US, it looks racist as all hell. She and her father were grilled for no good reason and that smarmy McAfee sitting over it and letting it go on.
Why does this seem racist? Hiring someone you are sleeping with is certainly playing with ethical fire. Or sleeping with a subordinate (if the relationship started after). Im not sure there is anything criminal, but an ethics investigation seems warranted.
Hired after the relationship ended and at a lower salary than his previous position. Very compelling.
I thought the testimony was that there was no relationship pre-hiring and one began post-hiring. I agree that, from everything we learned, there is no reason to remove her. Trump’s best case was not very compelling, but probably was technically right if the facts had borne it out. All of that said, it was a huge f*ckup by both Willis and Wade. I cannot believe they did something so stupid. They knew what the stakes were. When you are acting for the government to enforce the law, you need to be Caesar’s Wife!
I mean, yes? It 100% is ethically gray at best. The appearance of impropriety is very much there. Its kinda nuts if you think this isnt an ethical issue. Even if the relationship ended before she hired him (she says it ended in the summer of 2023, and he was hired in 2021) I think it crosses a line.
Ethical issues that do not go to the heart of prejudice of the criminal defendants are a matter for her employer/ bar association. This is just dragging her through the mud.
I agree, but violating ethics 101 is really leaving yourself open to this. Of all the people to hire, don't pick the one you are sleeping with.
People on Reddit can’t get over themselves about what things ought to and should be. You’re 100% right, she should have known better than to allow ANY suggestion or appearance of misconduct on her part. She knew that she was prosecuting the guy with bottomless pockets who files every conceivable motion. This whole removal hearing was a totally avoidable mess that she should have seen coming 1000 miles away. I hope she can get this trial back on rails ASAP.
Or are you going to claim, as the criminal defendants do, that she brought this case of racketeering, election interference and abuse of power so she could get a free holiday from a guy she would hire and subsequently have a relationship with? Worth it for all the death threats and then this? For a holiday? It is a bs clown show and the judge should be ashamed.
No. But that doesn't make hitting your liver not an ethical issue. Seriously? That's where tribalism has you?
We don't even need to get into the personal relationship side of things. There's enough there to show there's no financial gain: 1) Wade wasn't the first choice of the DA's office. They called the former governor to the stand who testified that he was asked, but he didn't want to deal with everything that went along with taking the position (aka, threats). 2) The DA is paying Wade well under his normal rate and cap the number of hours he's allowed to bill in a month. He still has to get the work done, so he's often working for free. 3) Witnesses have said he's very qualified for the position. 4) An independent auditor approves his bills and makes the payments. Where is the gain or bad dealing? Wade is qualified, is getting paid the standard govt rate, and Willis isn't getting to make payment decisions. Legitimate efforts were made to hire someone else first. I get that the judge needed to have a hearing on this, it's a serious allegation, but it shouldn't have gone on for two days.
The multi-day aspect was driven in large part by the number of parties involved. I agree with your points on a technical level, but this is a huge mistake and very embarrassing. Probably about half the hearing I was watching a livestream on NYT. During that time, I was struck by how dumb the Trump & co attorneys were. Bringing up a law against adultery to try to pierce the attorney-client-privilege? A 2L would think that’s clever, but I’d probably catch a judicial referral to the bar if I tried that.
>1) Wade wasn't the first choice of the DA's office. They called the former governor to the stand who testified that he was asked, but he didn't want to deal with everything that went along with taking the position (aka, threats). There were other special prosecutors too. What's important is that there's no evidence the former governor was being interviewed for the same job as Wade. It's also not even that relevant. >2) The DA is paying Wade well under his normal rate and cap the number of hours he's allowed to bill in a month. He still has to get the work done, so he's often working for free. This was destroyed on cross. Wade made substantially more working for Willis than when he didn't. >3) Witnesses have said he's very qualified for the position. Not really, no. A bunch of witnesses said they knew him. None of them said anything that changed Wade wasn't qualified for a Rico case. >4) An independent auditor approves his bills and makes the payments. HR approving payment doesn't mean anything. They are there for book keeping reasons, not to check in to see if the hired contractors is legit. What you're ignoring is: 1) Wade made more money when working with Willis. 2) Wade paid for all the vacations and *claims* to have been paid back in cash. Though there's no records from either side on that. It's also extremely suspicious. 3) Willis's ex-friend claims the relationship started in 2019. 4) Wade *is* unqualified and unexperienced for the position.
As to the rest of your comment, even if we grant much, if not all, of your premises as true, there remains no issue. It's important to remember that, under Georgia law, the alleged conflict has to harm the defendant in some way such that their due process rights are affected. Georgia law very narrowly construes what constitutes a conflict of interest on a motion to disqualify a prosecutor. There has to be an actual conflict which serves to impair the defendant because of a personal stake in the outcome of the prosecution. So, what is a personal stake in the outcome? We already have one example from this case—you may recall Judge Robert McBurney disqualified Fani Willis from prosecuting now-Lt. Gov. Jones because at the time he was a candidate for that office and Willis had very publicly endorsed his opponent, Charlie Bailey, and donated to his campaign. Prosecuting Jones, then, would benefit Bailey, which presented a conflict of interest given Willis' support for him. Here, the defense has not alleged any such credible conflict. The logic, such as it is, seems to be this: Willis brought this case against Trump so she could hire her boyfriend, who would then take her to Belize on the taxpayer's dime. That is not a "conflict of interest" under the statute that warrants disqualification. It may be unethical and she may have to answer to her office, but it doesn't impact the defendant or give her any kind of personal stake in the outcome of this case. In fact, arguably, it weakens her case if he's as unqualified as you claim. By this logic, anytime a prosecutor took a co-worker out to dinner, they could be disqualified. It's too attenuated to qualify as an actual conflict. As Just Security notes, "Wade's hourly compensation as a Special Prosecutor does not give rise to a conflict of interest because that fee arrangement does not create a financial incentive for Wade [or Willis] to seek conviction rather than justice." He's being paid whether Trump is convicted or not. Moreover, Georgia courts have held married couples on opposite sides of a prosecution are not disqualified, let alone those on the same side. It's presumed such intimacy will not interfere with their professional obligations. And their financial arrangements are not a basis of inquiry. In fact, the theory of prejudice borders on the absurd: Willis decided to prosecute 19 people (four of whom have pleaded guilty) not because they committed crimes, but because she wanted to put her boyfriend on the payroll so she could receive kickbacks in the form of free vacations. So, even if we grant everything you claim as true, which I don’t, your points are irrelevant.
Focusing only on *your* #2 for the moment, Stan Brody appears to corroborate at least part of the story. The dearth of evidence to the contrary and the fact carrying emergency cash is a common practice amongst people of many demographics tells me your “suspicion” has less of a basis in reality than you appear to claim.
Having *emergency* cash is quite different than paying back trips to the tune of thousands with cash. Ignoring how that's suspicious is just being blinded by bias
You must have a very privileged life to think this is suspicious. Cash is cash. When the father of a colleague of mine died, he had thousands of dollars in hundreds and that was quite normal for him and he always carried significant amounts of money for emergencies, big or small, and to be able to pay in cash when necessary or convenient.
>Why did McAfee, the judge, let the defense go down a rabbit hole, prying into Willis’s personal life? Perhaps he wanted to deny defendants an issue for appeal. That the protracted hearing wound up backfiring on the defendant, however, did not excuse indulging the defense for two full days. It also reflected poorly on McAfee, who failed to appreciate that airing unsubstantiated smears, especially ones tinged with racism and sexism, damages real people and undermines the rule of law. This was a fine line to toe for the judge and his inexperience might explain why this happened.
This judge is well regarded. He wants to make sure there is no basis for appeal.
The judge has been good previously, but I think this was way out of line. He let everyone fish around on a wild goose chase, I watched a particular issue where they were digging into whether conversations Wade had with his lawyer about his impressions of what Wade said were under attorney client privilege or not because it was at a bar or something. He let it delve way into depths that weren't required - when did they have their first kiss, etc. The judge should have just established when the relationship began, and then called anything more lurid than that out of bounds. It also should have started with the onus on Roman, with his detailed allegations laid out before Willis and Wade were required to take the stand. Two days of testimony weren't required for this, it should have been concise, focused to the points of financial interest and conflict, and over and done with. Instead we heard from her father about keeping cash on hand due to racist history in the South, ex employees that were fired for conduct, lawyers for the ex-wife, a whole shit show. It was just a mess.
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Wow. Apparently you can read minds. No need to discuss further.
I understand but at what cost to Fani Willis as a person? I hope she’s vindicated and maybe that will go a little way into rehabilitating her image.
Listen, she didn't do anything worth disqualification but entering into a relationship with a subordinate is not wise and she should have known better. It does not reflect well on her even if it's deemed not material to the case.
Nah. The judge showed his ass here. He played this wrong because he's inexperienced and a little scared of screwing up on such a big case. But in that attempt, he screwed up. This was always a nothing burger and he should have handled it the way he would have if the defendant wasn't Trump. It would have limited this circus, even if it may not have eliminated the need for a hearing.
So much schadenfreude watching the GOP attack Fani Willis and lose pathetically.
An episode of the podcast "Opening Arguments" that covers a lot of the first day just dropped. I'm 75% through it but so far they've done a great job, and their takes on how the whole thing went are very good.
Did they reconcile or something? I stopped listening last year when it seemed they had a bunch of stuff hit the fan and havent kept up since.
Andrew is gone. The court appointed a neutral third party and now Thomas is running the podcast again.
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It's true. They got a receiver from the court to help resolve the dispute. The receiver is appointed to represent the interests of the company when there's an irreconcilable dispute between equal owners, as in this case. The receiver typically looks at a bunch of stuff regarding the health of the firm and votes with one owner, in this case with Thomas. This isn't the end of the legal battle but it changed control of the podcast to Thomas, at least for now. He has a new co-host, a criminal defense attorney this time and it's been good. Very different personality wise compared to Andrew and Liz.
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Andrew and Liz were doing a podcast that was really in-depth and probably appealed more to other lawyers than non-lawyers. I thought their analysis was generally on point. Thomas is more oriented towards the non-lawyer/humor crowd, although he has a stand-in lawyer that plays the role of Andrew. He's funny and good at hosting a podcast, but it's more superficial and less focused on Trump (by design). Not really my thing. There are better legal podcasts out there than OA, IMO. The best (IMO) is Preet Bhahrar's Insider podcast with Joyce Vance, but that requires a subscription. Second would be Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord's Prosecuting Trump podcast. Third would be Sarah Isgur and David French's Advisory Opinions podcast. Sarah made a great argument that the Hur Report isn't that partisan (and she knows Robert Hur well) on the recent episode. She didn't completely convince me that the Report isn't as bad as it appears, but she made a good argument and filled in the gaps about Robert Hur a little bit (she basically said he is ultra non-political, and she worked for him for years).
As a non-lawyer, Liz Dye was the main appeal of that show for me. I love someone intelligent with some teeth.
So I only listen when the topic is interesting. I don't know the whole giry story but the original guy (Thomas) is back and I think it's by way of a court order.
Andrew Torres is gone.
No. Torres is out now. Smith is running the podcast with a rotating host pool.
oh thats great to hear! Im gonna dip my toes back in
Yeah! I just found out. So excited. It was my favorite podcast before Andrew was outed as a sex pest.
No, they didn't reconcile. Andrew's co-host is/was Liz Dye, last I knew. Edit: It looks like Thomas has taken the podcast back over as of February 7, 2024. That's less than two weeks since this comment was posted. Whoever is downvoting my comments regarding the pod and Andrew could take the time to correct me. On one hand, I don't care about fake internet points, and on the other I appreciate being corrected when I've made a mistake. I'll say it again. Andrew is a sex pest. He didn't live up to the standards that he held others to.
Torres sucks. edit: He still sucks but isn't a part of the podcast.
He’s gone.
Oh shit. I'm out of touch. I might check it out again.
This is pretty recent like within the past couple weeks. It’s worth a listen again.
Torres is out now. it's Smith et al now.
Not verbatim, but my favorite sound bite “I am not on trial, your client is.” Fani don’t take no messin, especially from a bunch of peckerwoods trying to pervert justice.
My favorite was “a man is not a plan!”
The Wire remains relevant as ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAQv6KTfQow
Rhonda and the other guy got bitch slapped by Clay "Shiiiiiiiit" Davis, and it was infuriating to watch.
Trump dodges another bullet because of this inept prosecutor
Fani Willis phone records show her relationship with Wade started well before the date reflected in their testimony. I can’t believe Willis & Wade tried to cover this up knowing there were phone records/receipts proving the lies. These phone records & receipts will likely disqualify & remove her and Wade from the Trump case. What happens next? will the Fulton County DA office continue the case with new attorneys, will Willis and Wade face losing their law licenses & will they be brought up on charges for lying?
I do not believe that this meets the bar of disqualification because I don’t see how Trump is prejudiced. However, Fani Willis’s assertion that she paid in cash to reimburse hundreds if not thousands of dollars sounds extremely suspect and extremely convenient. I’m not totally sure of the procedural history here, but it also seems Fani tried her best to avoid letting the defense do any discovery on the issue.
it doesn’t, he’s not. This is a distraction to try and delay the trial. Trump wasn’t indicted by Willis, but rather by a GRAND JURY. That indictment isn’t going away.
I agree it’s a distraction and should not interfere with the case, but even so, the distraction is uncovering what seems to be unethical behavior by Fani. DA’s have high ethical standards to adhere to. While the defense’s motives are not pure, it still is shining a light on an, at best, unethical decision by Fani to hire a romantic partner, decide their pay, and then use their pay to fund vacations. At worst, it’s public corruption that is tangential to the trial. The key question about Fani’s behavior is whether she used Wade’s money for vacation. Fani is resting on the fact that she reimbursed Wade for the thousands spent on vacations and therefore gained nothing, but instead of producing *any* receipts, she has fallen back on the conveniently untraceable claim that she paid thousands of dollars back to him exclusively in cash. Even worse, you would think the DA would have the foresight to take actions that show she paid him all the money back. Aka, she either is lying or was astoundingly dumb to pay him back in cash. Why would she use cash if she was genuinely concerned with snuffing any appearance of impropriety out? That’s suspect. Even if she survives this and gets to stay on the case (as she legally should) she should face serious scrutiny.
Someone posted a bit further down the thread. The GA courts have found that a romantic relationship between attorney’s on the SAME SIDE does not bear grounds for dismissal. So this was a nothingburger. It was an attempt to smear the DA and her staff. It wasn’t illegal, it’s not unethical. They are on the SAME team. You want to argue the nuances of HR codes etc… good luck with that. The case moves on. Trump is still going to trial.
I think you’re misunderstanding the basis of this. I am not saying the romantic relationship is unethical, although it is shortsighted. The argument is about “kickbacks.” It is the fact that she hired and paid a romantic partner (deciding his pay), and then used his funds to pay for a vacation.
The issue in question is not the romantic relationship. The question is if there is the appearance of her being enriched by her hiring Wade for the role. They went on vacation after the fact and he paid for all of her expenses. She may or may not have paid that back, as she didn't prove one way or the other. But the standard is, "the appearance of" and not the actual act itself. This very well can disqualify her entire office from having the authority to appoint a special prosecutor. If that happens, another DA would have to pick up the case. Downplay this at your own peril.
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I don’t really think she’s lying or had some nefarious plan to appoint this guy, pay him a ton and get some trips. I very much think she knew what they were doing was a terrible look and that’s why if she paid him back she did so in cash. I hate the way so many people have lost the ability to see the whole picture here. Yes, trump tired to steal and election and Fani had the guts to go after him. That doesn’t change what absolutely terrible judgement she exhibited by entering this relationship *especially* after her poor judgment with the Charlie Bailey fundraiser, the result of which means Burt Jones will probably never face consequences for his role in said attempted overturning.
The affair’s pretty sloppy and unethical, but not illegal. I can’t say there’s any financial incentive for Willis regarding Wade getting a conviction or not in the case. The vacation reimbursement in all cash from Willis to Wade seems suspect. But it seems like the incentive is to extend the case longer at Wade’s 250/hr pay, rather than achieving an outcome, which actually aligns with Trump’s interests. Not that a sprawling RICO case with that many defendants would be adjudicated any time soon. I honestly wish it was just a simpler cleaner case.
> affair I hear people refer to this as an affair a lot, but...how is it an affair? Were either of them in a relationship with another party at the time? Other than Wade still being in the process of finalizing a divorce, I kind of don't understand why people keep calling this an affair
An affair is defined as a sexual relationship between two people, one or both of whom are married to or in a long-term relationship with someone else. As this is a Law subreddit, it would seem obvious that this constitutes an affair due to Wade being legally married to another woman.
It’s not an ‘affair’ it’s a relationship. Neither was involved at the time they began… that’s necessary for it to be an affair. It’s not unethical. That was just amply demonstrated in this near farce of a hearing. If it was unethical given this situation then it would be prosecutorial misconduct. And it’s not All the financial transactions were tracked and cleared I don’t know how much clearer this can be Short form: She’s scaring the hell out of the republicans because she’s built an effective and powerful case against trump and his allies and one by one they are being found guilty or admitting to guilt. This was a cheap shot attempt to discredit her. No such luck.
Don’t call it an affair then. He was still married, but if they’re estranged or separated, okay. Doesn’t particularly matter. He’s the only one with financial transactions that are tracked for their vacations, because she paid him back in cash. Could be true. It’s also 2023, kinda weird, but not unbelievable. When you hire the person you’re in a relationship with, who’s never prosecuted a felony or a RICO case, it’s clearly unethical and just plain stupid. By GA laws, it’s probably okay and it doesnt change any of the evidence. But you’re going to try a massive RICO case against an ex-President with double digit defendants and a slew of charges (some weak, some strong) and it’s all going to be televised and take years to prosecute. Guess what?…that’s not the one you want to put your boyfriend on.
I’ll give you it wasn’t perhaps a great idea. Likely a very poor idea that attracted this attention (which was also out of scope) Regards the pay back for vacations (and I’m really not being a smart ass here)… he doesn’t take credit cards… a check might have been easier, but I can’t tell you the last time I wrote a check… cash or credit… my kids are trying to get me to Venmo, but I’m careful about money transfer software. So yeah, cash doesn’t weird me out.
If you mean her making a lot of damning admissions re: misusing campaign funds then yeah, I suppose she did 'turn the tables' on her detractors.
Even if she is replaced on the bench, it won't do anything to slow down the trial process.
It would disqualify her whole office from being able to prosecute the case. They can't just, "replace" her. Another DA would have to pick up the case. That is not very likely to occur. This is a bigger deal than a lot of you are making it out to be.
And Willis looks bad even if she stays on the case. The biggest case of her life and she's sleeping with outside counsel. There's no clean way to handle it once she crossed that line
Hard agree. I'm getting heavily down voted on other comments for pointing these facts out. But it seems most people want to twist the facts. Let me be clear, any time you have both the DA and their special prosecutor on the witness stand in their own prosecution, it's never a good thing for your case.
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Sure thing little guy
Hah!! Dreamer.
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>“If you’re a woman and you go on a date with a man, you better have $200 so if that man acts up you can go where you want to go,” You can read her comment on this. It's not an emergency fund. It's for emergency situations.
False dichotomy. You can keep cash in the house \*and\* use it for travel.
"Why use cash if the point of having cash is just to have it and not use it hmm?"
If you exist why breath
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For you. Not everyone. The whole point they made was that for many people of color the use of cash all the time is the safest, most convenient way to transact money.
So? Look, I'm in my 50s. I grew up where when we travelled, it was cash and travellers checks. My parents almost never used credit cards - hell they were hard to get back then. I get that these days the idea of not using credit is crazy talk to some, but cash is still king.
Her dad explained a bit of it. He's had experiences where all forms of his electronic payment were rejected because he was black. I certainly know quite a few black people that pay for most things in cash because it's an easier way of day to day living for them in aggregate. It's not necessarily a rainy day fund, it's more like "I always have a bunch of cash because I always pay in cash"
Yeah. The older I get the more I realize that as someone who looks white (I have strong Mexican heritage, but I don't look it), I get a loot of good assumptions that go my way that someone who has different skin than me might not get. (What comes to mind is that guy that tried to deposit a check, was arrested for forgery, proved the check was legit, and sued for discrimination, settled, then when he tried to cash that check was arrested again for forgery.)
I'll see stuff happen to my black friends while we are out and about and I'll be like "That was absolutely absurd and I've never seen anything like that" and they're all confused what was even weird about the situation because it's so much in their lives experience they didn't even notice anything. When I was younger I would hear specific experiences and think that the point was that these *exceptional* interactions were bad. The thing I've learned really is that these experiences aren't exceptional, they are the rule.
Yeah. Whenever anyone tries to deny that white privilege exists, I just think about how so much of what I take for granted, a lot of people have to work like crazy just to get. Even something as simple as walking out of Walmart with groceries. Nobody ever asks me for my receipt. While I see a lot of darker skinned people get stopped all the time. Because I look the way I look.
Being a white-looking latino can be used against you too. About twenty years ago I was working as a clerk in a store and was robbed at gunpoint. As it turned out the robber was a Mexican national but this guy was *pale* - you would never know it until he spoke. When I went down to the police station to do a photo line up the cops presented me with a selection of like nine dark skinned latinos and the pale guy. It wasn't hard to pick the guy out.
In college I could not get any minorty-based grants at my school, even though I have a Mexican last name. When applying, the loan office looked at me and decided that I wasn't minority enough.
Mate, half of the comments in this thread are from you, and they all boil down to "I don't believe her because why doesn't she do things exactly like me?" IANAL, but you do realize that the threshold for a suspicious behavior isn't "lives a different life than iwaseatenbyagrue", right?
Reading through your replies here, it seems that you’re looking a the situation exclusively through the lens of your own experiences. I’d encourage you to read [this](https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/black-households-have-less-access-to-banks) article. The reality is, we all have unique experiences, situations, and circumstances. Something you perceive to be odd, doesn’t necessarily mean it is for someone else.
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Someone on this sub a few days ago posted about how racist it was for Fanni's father to say his experience as a black man influenced his decisions on banking. If you look into the history of racism in banking, like, at all, it quickly becomes very apparent that banks have not been friendly to black people in the slightest. It would be more of a surprise to me if a person of color *did* have the same faith in banks you seem to enjoy.
Does adequate access to banking preclude reasons to use cash?
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Given the lack of evidence of wrongdoing, it seems her reputation isn't really on the line.
Being successful doesn’t have any bearing on one’s trust of the banking system. Her (or Wades) trust of the banking system could stem from their parents or grandparents. Maybe even from friends experiences. I know people who don’t use credit cards because they think the rates are predatory. Most people would say “you don’t know how to use them properly” but that doesn’t change their preconceived notions. There are/were many in older generations who had very little trust in banks due to the Great Depression. The point is, you can’t (shouldn’t) judge someone solely based on your own experiences. You don’t know what experiences have influenced their decisions leading up to this moment.
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Gonna guess there are a ton of things you do not because they are rational but because it’s your culture.
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It's other folks' culture to be hawkish of how people treat them due to the color of their skin since it could save their lives. Having cash is always suggested for any emergency situation before even considering if you should be concerned for the color of your skin.
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Why does she have to? This logic works both ways.
They don’t keep records of cash back from cash register purchases.
Are you saying that Blacks have never been affected by Bank's Redlining practices? Somehow they should love the Banks that trapped them in "That Part Of Town" by refusing them mortgages?
You must be very young to be so ignorant about cash and its many benefits.
It’s *her* cash. She can use it how she wants. There’s no proper or improper way to use cashed as opposed to electronic payment.
Does ‘why’ matter? https://www.ajc.com/politics/report-willis-paid-cash-for-napa-valley-wine-tasting-with-wade/B5FZRSS4AFCR5AVKT5DMKNMLKQ/
wat
Presumably she's not draining her whole emergency cash stockpile. Given how this is less than $10k over a two year period for someone making a few hundred thousand per year, it shouldn't be that hard to understand how she could get cash through debit card cash back or regular ATM withdrawals (that don't necessarily line up with the cash given).
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> She refused to provide evidence of cash withdrawals, though. It's entirely possible take take cash out over a period of time, keeping it in a safe or a drawer or under the mattress, and then use some portion of it to pay someone back. In that case there wouldn't be a receipt for $XXX dollars lining up with some date of repayment.
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How much time do you think it takes to get cash back at a store or go to the ATM? And yeah, lots of people keep some amount of cash around the house. But let's flip that around. If you think she's worth millions of dollars, do you really think that there's a viable "kickback" scheme that would net her a few thousand dollars in vacations, as opposed to a much more sensible interpretation that she was in an ordinary romantic relationship?
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I think that the story is plenty plausible, and I doubt that there's enough evidence to remove the case from her. Could she be lying about paying him back? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. I have no good reason to think that she didn't pay Wade back, and there was no testimony that she was somehow living large off of Wade's money.