The opinion of this writer is not the opinion of the Ridgeview News. The Ridgeview News does believe in the first amendment and the rights of our community to know the opinions of others.
Trump Smears Anyone Who Works to Hold Him Accountable
In the entire country, only District Attorney Fani Willis in Fulton County, GA has gone up the ladder of responsibility and charged the “suits” with the “boots” in Donald Trump’s nation-wide enterprise to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
DA Willis has the smoking gun – Trump’s hour-long call to GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, pleading and threatening him to “just find 11,780 votes” for Trump. We all heard it.
It’s an open & shut case. Co-defendants have pled and are cooperating.
Time for a Trump sideshow to distract and delay. Turn the tables. Prosecute the prosecutor. Sex and money always sell. And the mainstream media will eat it up.
With Judge McAfee aiding and abetting, the Trump team were allowed to prosecute Fani Willis on national TV.
It was a malicious prosecution. A prosecution is “malicious” when prosecutors bring charges without evidence and with no legal basis.
Based on rumors, the Trump defendants alleged that DA Willis improperly hired Nathan Wade while they were dating and then profited by letting him take her on lavish vacations. There was no evidence. There was no plausible legal theory. That doesn’t even make sense.
A prosecutor should be disqualified when their actions prejudice a defendant by impeding their ability to present a defense or creating an unfair bias against the defendant.
No one has explained, including J. McAfee in his final order, how a prosecutor sleeping with another prosecutor or even taking “kickbacks” from the other prosecutor for hiring them prejudices the defendants. If anything, it would help them if the hired attorney was not competent.
The Trump charges against DA Willis have, instead, created a powerful and wholly unfair bias against Fani Willis, the prosecution, the government, justice, and the law.
Judge McAfee is a newbie judge, just appointed to the Fulton County bench earlier this year. In law school, he was a Federalist Society, Law Republican conservative. He was a state assistant DA and then, for 8 years, an assistant US attorney – a federal prosecutor – before taking the bench.
It’s not easy for a 10-year prosecutor, who has never even clerked for a judge, to lose that prosecutorial mindset. The case before McAfee became Trump Defendants prosecuting Fani Willis. J. McAfee aided the prosecution.
A more experienced judge might have held a conference in chambers to explore the unsubstantiated charges. J. McAfee called for an evidentiary hearing, nationally televised, that ran over 4 days and allowed counsel for Trump and his co-defendants to question Willis’ finances, her vacations, her morals, and her sex life.
At one point during the “trial,” DA Willis said, “You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial.”
She was mistaken. Trump had managed, with the aid of J. McAfee to have the only televised criminal trial regarding Trump’s election interference this year – likely the only one: the trial of Fani Willis for insinuations of “impropriety.”
In the end, J. McAfee dismissed the testimony of the Trumpian witnesses as incredible. He ruled that “Defendants failed to meet their burden of proving an actual conflict of interest” and that defendants were not prejudiced. DA Willis can stay on the case. That should be Case Closed.
But no. J. McAfee went on for 9 pages acting not as a court of law, but a court of morality and propriety. He sensed an “odor of mendacity “and a “financial cloud of impropriety.” Clouds and odors, could it be more nebulous?
Under the ethics rules, a lawyer must avoid even the appearance of professional impropriety to maintain the public’s trust in the legal profession. McAfee found none.
As for the public’s trust in the legal profession, no one in the history of our country has done more to destroy it than Donald Trump.
Trump’s legal tactics – stalling, frivolous motions, endless appeals, and attacks on the court, prosecutors, jurors and witnesses have smeared and befouled our justice system. The Deep State is on a Witch Hunt to persecute him. The courts are “rigged,” a “joke,” “unfair,” and a “sham.” Judges are “corrupt,” “biased,” “hostile,” “cracked,” “haters,” “tyrannical,” and “unhinged.” Prosecutors are “racist,” “deranged,” and “thugs.” Jurors are “tainted.” A lot of projection there.
Trump’s advantages as an ex-president, a cult leader, and a political mob boss go far beyond wealth. Judges, jurors, witnesses, and court personnel receive regular death threats and swatting attacks from Trump supporters, creating a climate of intimidation throughout the justice system.
Nevertheless, at every stage, he and his attorneys have been given undue deference. No other defendant could have acted out, excoriated the entire legal system, and continued to violate court orders without long ago landing in jail.
The malicious “prosecution” of DA Fani Willis gained Donald Trump another delay in facing justice for his many criminal activities. This week, J. McAfee approved a review of his ruling. The good news is the case is not stayed so this doesn’t add a further delay.
Trump’s plan is to attack and stall so that he is not a convicted felon before the election. If elected, he has said he will have his AG dismiss all federal charges against him. It is doubtful that a state court would prosecute a sitting president.
If Trump is re-elected, he will have proved that he is indeed above the law. Our legal system will have failed us. Justice delayed must not be justice denied.
Justice requires us to defeat Trump at the ballot box. After his defeat, Citizen Trump will face the same justice system as any other American who orchestrated an attack on the capital, stole classified documents, and sought to overturn the election results in Georgia and America to stay in power.
Life in prison. It’s up to us.
Ms. Purdy,
Please understand that my response to your opinion piece is not a defense of Donald Trump. I have no intent to address national politics in any way, shape or means. That being said, you have mixed apples and oranges and called it spaghetti. Before retirement I was a prosecutor for 25 years. I was also a defense attorney for 12 years sandwiched between my years as a prosecutor. I have filled the role of each side. You have addressed the actions of the defense attorneys as those of their client, Donald Trump. The motions, questions and arguments of the defense team are not those of the client and mixing the two is not an accurate assessment of what happens in a court proceeding.
More importantly, you either have no understanding of the role of a prosecutor or are willing to dismiss the misconduct of Ms. Willis in order to create your spaghetti out of apples. The motion before the Court was to disqualify Ms. Willis and her office due to her misconduct as a prosecutor and bias in this case because the continued prosecution meant money in her boyfriend’s pocket. Had the Judge granted the motion in its entirety, the result would have been to appoint another prosecutor to step in and proceed with the case. It would not have resulted in a dismissal of the charges. In the end the Judge gave Ms. Willis the choice of removing her boyfriend or removing her office.
Ms. Willis’ conduct in this matter, as evidenced by her courtroom impropriety, demonstrated her overgrown ego and personal involvement in the case. Any time a prosecutor allows their personal feelings, ego, arrogance and bias to influence a prosecution they need to step down and back away from the case. Ms. Willis failed to do any of those and, instead, clearly and unequivocally conducted herself in such a manner as to tarnish the image of a prosecutor. Being a prosecutor is an honor and, to a dedicated prosecutor, the image is one to be protected and cherished.
Please keep in mind and possibly understand that Ms. Willis did not utilize any of the experienced prosecutors who were already members of her office and already paid to prosecute this case. Prosecutors are not paid an hourly wage but, rather a salary. Their check at the end of the month has nothing to do with how much time is spent in the office. That was not the case for Ms. Willis’ boyfriend. Ms. Willis, for no discernible reason hired a “Special Prosecutor” who had limited expertise as a prosecutor and who just happened to have a personal relationship with her, while paying that special prosecutor a large sum of money based on an hourly rate to continue with this one prosecution. Taking politics out of the equation, that conduct stinks. Understanding and acknowledging the role of a prosecutor makes that conduct offensive.
The ethical considerations of a prosecutor are more strict and more demanding than those of other attorneys. The prosecutor’s ethical considerations demand strict adherence to the pursuit of justice, the avoidance of any appearance of impropriety and the total lack of any bias in a prosecution.
It is not uncommon for a Judge to allow the defense in a criminal case to air out all of their defenses in order to allow due process. It happens every day in courtrooms around the country. It does not happen every day in front of as many cameras and as much public scrutiny but that is the nature of this case and all of those against Donald Trump. They are going to draw attention.
Ms. Willis was aware of the scrutiny that this prosecution was going to bring to her office and the attention this case would bring to her conduct. What Ms. Willis did not fully anticipate was the exposure of her skeleton closet to the world. Trust me if you will, there are always members of an office who know where the dirt is hidden and who will willingly volunteer that information. Remove the politics from the equation and evaluate what Ms. Willis did and surely you can’t not see where she initially went wrong and exacerbated that misjudgment when she tried to defend her conduct and hide the truth.
Many, if not most, people do not fully understand the role of a prosecutor, let alone the importance of a knowledgeable, experienced, ethical and dedicated prosecutor. In speaking to a current candidate for local office, they told me they “weren’t sure what a prosecutor did”. It is not just a title or a job description. Our justice system starts with the prosecutor doing their job in an appropriate manner. If people understand, acknowledge and accept that concept, then their spaghetti would start with tomatoes.