Former President Donald Trump’s legal team just dropped a massive bomb in its latest filing in the RICO case brought by Fulton County DA Fani Willis against former President Trump and more than a dozen members of his 2020 campaign and legal teams. According to the filing, DA Willis stoked racial division by publicly accusing the defendants of racism, something which requires her dismissal.
As background, DA Willis gave a speech at Big Bethel AME church in which she responded to allegations of her having acted wrongly by hiring her alleged lover, Nathan Wade, as a special prosecutor in the Trump case. Among other claims she made, DA Willis argued that racism was behind the criticism of her hiring Wade for the position.
In her speech, which took place on MLK Day, she said, “I’m a little confused. I appointed three special counsel, as is my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one. I hired one white woman, a good personal friend and great lawyer. A superstar, I tell you, I hired one white man, brilliant, my friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one black man. Another superstar a great friend and a great lawyer. Oh, Lord, they’re going to be mad when I call them out on this nonsense.”
Continuing, she said, “First thing they say. Oh, she going to play the race card now? But no. God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one? Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years.”
She then, after further defending Wade, said, “All three of these special counselors are superstars. But I’m just asking God, is it that some will never see a black man as qualified, no matter his achievements? What more can one achieve? The other two have never been judges but no one questions their credentials. I’m just saying.”
Further insinuating that racism was behind the criticism, she said, “I’m just saying, Lord, I’m just asking, is it that I, because of the shell you chose to put me in, will never be qualified in their eyes to make the decisions the voters put me here to make you. Lord, never mind. Your flawed, imperfect servant has composed a team that wins, wins and wins. Never mind, Lord, that this leader has a trial conviction rate of 95%.”
Watch her here:
Team Trump used those comments to push for her removal in a recent filing in the case. In that filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that DA Willis “repeatedly and inappropriately injected race into the case and stoked racial animus by, among other statements, asking God why the defendants were questioning her conduct in hiring a Black man but not his White counterparts, and why the judgment of a Black female Democrat wasn’t as good as White male Republicans.”
Then, explaining why her comments were so problematic, the motion provided, “These assertions by the DA engender a great likelihood of substantial prejudice towards the defendants in the eyes of the public in general, and prospective jurors in Fulton County in particular. Moreover, the DA’s self-serving comments came with the added, sought after, benefit of garnering racially based sympathy for her self-inflicted quagmire.”
Continuing, the motion added, “[T]he DA’s comments directly ran afoul of Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.8 Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor, subsection (g): The prosecutor in a criminal case shall “… refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused. “2 The maximum penalty for a violation of Rule 3.8 is disbarment.” The motion argues that those comments and their running afoul of Georgia law mean that the situation requires the dismissal of Willis.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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