Wednesday, March 20, 2024

'Like Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship': Liberal Media Turn on Willis, Call for Self-Removal From Trump Case


Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

There's a Democrat Party modus operandi I've seen play out multiple times throughout my years of writing about politics: Democrat politicians and their lapdog media staunchly support and defend one another — until they don't. Once they smell blood in the water, it's under the bus for the previously defended.

Such is the situation facing embattled Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis in the aftermath of Judge Scott McAfee’s 23-page ruling in which he sharply criticized both Willis and her former lover Nathan Wade, whom she hired as the special prosecutor in the RICO case against former President Donald Trump and other defendants in November 2021. 

Wade resigned from the case on Friday after McAffee ruled that either he or Willis had to go.

Throughout McAfee's ruling, he blistered both Willis and Wade for their "questionable" (lying under oath) testimony and “bad choices.” 

While “Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices — even repeatedly,” McAfee wrote, his decision was “by no means an indication that the Court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the District Attorney’s testimony.” 

Concerning Willis's absurd claim that she paid Wade in cash for half of the extravagant vacations they took together, McAfee wrote that while her claim was  “unusual,” it was “not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable.” (Yes, it was.)

This brings us back to the "blood in the water" analogy.

Despite MaAfee's ruling that Willis could remain on the case if Wade were booted or resigned, the liberal media aren't happy campers about the dumpster fire mess

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, many in the legacy media are now calling for [Willis] to recuse herself from the case. 

One of those unhappy campers is MSNBC contributor Andrew Weissmann, a partisan left-wing hack who had a leadership role on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia (hoax) investigation team. Weissman said he doesn't think Willis “has it in her” to effectively continue her prosecution of Trump.

I think this is such a huge body blow, almost a fatal blow to Fani Willis. I think the way forward is she has to voluntarily recuse herself. Willis clearly has no credibility with this judge. 

I think she needs to remove herself voluntarily and say someone else is going to oversee this case in Georgia. So that whatever happens to her in terms of ethics, it doesn’t taint this case.

Translation: Weissmann doesn't give a damn about Willis's credibility or lack thereof. What he very much gives a damn about is a conviction of Trump — whatever it takes.

Next up, CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid, who called the ruling “really a gift to President Trump and his co-defendants because they’re not only going to fight this case on the merits, they’ll fight it in the court of public opinion. Optics here matter.”

{Trump] has tried to undermine trust in the justice system. And if you have a judge who is overseeing a case, calling the prosecutor, again, unprofessional, saying that she made a bad decision, she had a lapse in judgment, that is a lot of ammunition.

Ammunition or not, Ms. Reid, Judge McAfee's description of Willis's unprofessional and dishonest behavior was spot on — so if a gift was given to Trump, it was given by Willis herself. 

While the Washington Post called McAfee's decision a “serious setback for Fani Willis,” The  New York Times wrote that “Disqualification isn’t the only threat to Fani Willis’s prosecution.”

Foremost, concerning the NYT's point, the State Bar of Georgia could disbar Wilis if it can be proven that she indeed perjured herself on the witness stand or in sworn statements she submitted to the court about her romantic relationship with Wade.

The Bottom Line

Actually, two bottom lines. 

First, the Democrats have shown us for nearly nine years that they'll go to any length to destroy Donald Trump. So far, they have failed to do so — save for the 2020 presidential election — and they will drive themselves mad between now and November 5.

Second, Democrats and their liberal media sock puppets will never change. Fani Willis undoubtedly sees that now — and the whole thing couldn't be grander.