LOS ANGELES.–Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAffee, 34, granted 77-year-old President Donald Trump request to appeal his March 15 ruling that Fulton County DA Fani Willis can stay on the case if she fires her chief prosecutor Nathan Wade. Wade resigned March 15 from the case but the ruling made zero sense legally. Why would McAfee allow Fani to stay on the election racketeering case when she was more responsible as DA to the conflicts-Of-interest that led to McAfee’s decision to end Wade’s involvement. Willis, after all, was Wade’s boss, allowing her chief prosecutor to have a romantic relationship, spending time on vacation in various high-end places, including pricey Napa wineries. Willis told McAfee that she went to Napa for Wade, saying she preferred vodka over wine. Keeping Willis on the case was a stunning omission by McAfee.
McAfee granted Trump’s request to appeal his ruling to the Appeal’s Court, to consider disqualifying Willis. McAfee ruled that while he had the discretion to disqualify Willis, he said the burden of proof to disqualify an elected official was higher than for Wade. “It means the defense is permitted to apply to the Georgia Court of Appeals for pretrial review of the Judge’s order reusing to dismiss the case or disqualify Fulton County DA Willis,” said Trump’s attorney, Steve Sadow. “This is very significant,” Sadow said, looking forward to making his case to disqualify Willis in the Appeal’s court. McAfee said he would move without interruption with trial preparations, whether Willis is disqualified or not. McAfee, a 34-year-old judge, was trying to play by the rules but he erred in not excluding Willis, knowing the role she played in the conflicts-of-interest.
Georgia’s appeals court could grant Sadow’s request to remove Willis, but, more importantly, to end the racketeering trial. How Willis thought of applying Georga’s racketeering statutes to Trump’s election interference case is anyone’s guess. Clearly, there was a misunderstanding with Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump asked Raffensperger to find 11,780 vote needed to win the election, but only if the votes were legitimate, accidentally omitted in the vote count. “The Court intends to continue addressing the many other unrelated pending pretrial motions, regardless of whether the petition is granted within the 45 days of filing, and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court,” McAfee wrote in his ruling. McAfee plans to continue preparing for trial even if cancelled or Willis is no longer on the case.
Knowing the extent of Willis’s involvement with her long-and-clandestine relationship with Wade, it only makes sense that McAfee’s ruling was appealable. How could McAfee conclude that it’s OK to only have one half of the romantic duo sign off on the case? Trump has a hard enough time getting a fair trial with so many Democrat prosecutors involved in his many legal cases from New York to Miami and parts between. In Trump’s two trials in New York, one pending, the other concluded, both prosecutors, New York State Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg both ran on campaigns to specifically get Trump. Listening to tapes of James boast about going after Trump shows for all to see the weaponization of criminal justice system with the intent of political persecution. How can any U.S. citizen accept political persecution of presidential candidates?
When it comes to the U.S. media, it’s disgraceful how they’ve prosecuted Trump in the court of public opinion, denying him the presumption of innocence. Trump already lived through years of political persecution claiming he colluded with the Kremlin. No media outlet retracted one story, either broadcast of print, that Trump was a Russian asset, started by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from her 2016 paid campaign opposition research. Now the same hoax goes on claiming that Trump paid “hush money” to a former adult film actor so she wouldn’t go public with an alleged affair 10 years before he ran for president. Bragg relies heavily on Trump’s disbarred felon, former attorney Michael Cohen who’s become the latest media darling all because he willing to attack Trump on national TV. How disgraceful of the press to use Cohen for anything.
Why the media thinks that it can inject political bias into all of Trump legal cases is anyone’s guess. Not a single media site, with the exception of some at Fox News, objects to the manner in which Trump has been treated by the law. “The March 15 order is of exceptionally great importance to this case, substantially impacting Defendants’ rights to due process,” wrote defendants’ attorney in their appeal’s motion. Even Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith has engaged in egregious political bias against Trump. When filing charges for harboring classified docs at Mar-a-Lago, Smith said Trump violated the 1917 Espionage Act. Smith said that Trump threatened U.S. national security retaining old, worthless classified docs in White House moving boxes in his Mar-a-Lago basement. How can any rational person think that Trump violated the Espionage Act?
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
