Before the end of the week, we’re supposed to know whether Georgia Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis’s ridiculous street-gang prosecution of Donald Trump and associates will be killed off before it goes to trial. But for that to happen, it’s going to take an extraordinary act of bravery from Judge Scott McAfee and, well, the record so far is that he’s not exactly Rambo in a robe.
McAfee self-imposed the Friday deadline for his decision on the defense team’s move to disqualify Willis. They accuse her of self-dealing byhiring her then-boyfriend to join her office’s get-Trump prosecution at a salary earning him (and thus, her) hundreds of thousands of Georgia taxpayer dollars.
Willis denies the allegation, although the evidence that she was in a relationship with Nathan Wade at the time she recruited him as special counsel — an otherwise inexplicable choice given that he’s a defense attorney, not a prosecutor — is overwhelming. To make the Jerry Springer affair all the more entertaining: in defending herself, Willis claimed to keep alarming amounts of cash on hand, which she used to reimburse Wade for several lavish vacations they took together in recent months.
If cash was the game, there’s no one to blame!
It’s been a comically sleazy display straight out of a “Madea” movie but, in all likelihood, if McAfee has let this freak show come this far, there’s no reason to think he’s ready to shut it down now.
A serious judge under normal circumstances would have dismissed this patently absurd case from the beginning. Trump and associates of his 2020 campaign supposedly committed severe crimes by exploring multiple avenues in Georgia that they hoped in vain might secure the candidate an electoral victory in the state.
That included conversations with elected officials, including state representatives and the state secretary, wherein Trump and his team made their case that they had in fact won Georgia’s vote count. None of it worked because the evidence wasn’t there to support the case.
This is otherwise known as the right of the people to petition the government, a constitutionally guaranteed freedom that yes, even Trump and his supporters are entitled to. Americans can’t be stopped from challenging government workers to correct alleged wrongs, whatever they may or may not be. Apparently, Willis doesn’t think so, and she was able to convince the grand jury from a pool of voters that went nearly 75 percent for Biden that she’s right. Tough sell, but she did it!
As for McAfee, the limited extent of his fortitude was further revealed when he allowed Willis to put on a berserk performance in her own hearing before she was even asked to testify. In it, she shouted at the defense attorneys, called them liars, and used her race as a shield against all scrutiny.
The entire ordeal has cheapened the criminal justice system, and McAfee has sat on his bench watching it happen like a mute Elmer Fudd. You almost can’t blame him. Not only is he up for reelection, facing a Jesse Jackson-anointed opponent, but he knows just as well as everyone else that at shaking down Trump, Democrats ain’t playin’.
Any attempt by McAfee to check Willis, whom he supported in her election, will be invariably characterized by all Democrats and their media friends as an act of white supremacy, a move to thwart a Powerful Black Woman (of Color) holding Trump accountable. The attacks on his reputation would be withering and relentless.
In his ruling on the Willis hearings, he will likely acknowledge her obvious deception of the court, but ultimately conclude it doesn’t change the underlying case against the former president and his associates. It takes a lot to stand in front of the get-Trump train, and it doesn’t look like McAfee has much of anything.