Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court, who is overseeing the massive RICO case against Trump and his Georgia election theft coconspirators, has kicked the lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade, off the case. Ironically, this may be the best possible ruling the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, could have hoped for. It means that she is still in charge and that the case can go forward, and the prosecutor won’t be tainted by sharing her bed and paying for her vacations.
But that’s cold comfort for the rest of us. In his ruling, was scathing about Willis and Wade’s conduct, calling their affair a “tremendous lapse in judgment” and “unprofessional,” and arguing that their testimony had “an odor of mendacity.” McAfee was dismissive of the strongest charge, however, writing that there’s no evidence that Willis hired Wade for purposes of self-enrichment.
Still, there’s plenty of meat left on the bone for an appeal. It is a good possibility that this case is fatally put off until after the election, and it could get tossed down the road regardless of who wins in November. We can add to this that McAfee earlier tossed several counts related to urging state officials to violate their oaths of office. Those are pertinent to the issue where Donald Trump is most glaringly guilty in this case, the famous call he had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, urging him to “find 11,780 votes’ to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.
The problem was in the vagueness of the charging document, so this is an error that can be pinned directly on Willis and her office. She could reconvene a grand jury to get the language right and press these charges again, but that’s more delay, delay, delay.
Perhaps someday the Georgia cases will bring a measure of justice, but by then other things will have probably have stolen the limelight.
I don’t expect much from the Stormy Daniels case. Even if found guilty, Trump doesn’t face any jail time, and the odds are decent he’ll get a hung jury. A conviction would be nice, but now the trial has been delayed another month at the least.
Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday said they are willing to delay Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to making hush-money payments for up to 30 days so they can review records newly obtained from federal authorities.
The request has the potential to delay the proceedings, which were to begin with jury selection on 25 March in New York and would be the first of the four criminal indictments against the former US president to go to trial.
The office of the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, told the court that they were open to the delay because they had received from federal prosecutors about 31,000 page of records, and expected more next week.
“Based on our initial review of yesterday’s production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case, including materials that the People requested from the [US attorney’s office (USAO)] more than a year ago and that the USAO previously declined to provide,” prosecutors wrote.
Trump’s lawyers have asked to either delay for 90 days or for the charges to be dropped against him, alleging violations of the discovery process, in which the defense and prosecution shares evidence with each other. Prosecutors have said a delay of that length is not necessary.
It doesn’t sound like there is anything here that would justify the case’s dismissal, but Trump might win a longer delay. Its a shame because this case was the only one on track to get started. Of course, it could backfire on Trump if the case is decided closer to the election and not in his favor.
But there’s really only case that I think might happen before the election which has the power to kill his prospects of winning the presidency again, and that is Jack Smith’s election interference case. The Supreme Court is doing everything they can to delay that case past the election. Why those Justices would want another term with Trump as president after that they’ve gotten from him everything he could ever give them, I do not know.
