This morning, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee issued his ruling as to whether or not (1) Fulton County DA violated the law in entering into a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to handle the alleged attempt to overturn the results of the Georgia Election and (2) if her office would be disqualified from prosecuting said case. Here is the summary from Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney at Politico:
Judge Scott McAfee ruled that either Willis and her entire office, or another top prosecutor in the case, Nathan Wade, must step aside to prevent an “appearance of conflict” over potential financial improprieties caused by their romantic relationship.
Trump and his allies had failed to sufficiently substantiate claims that Willis’ romantic relationship with Wade had created an “actual” conflict of interest that required her and her office to be removed from handling the case, McAfee concluded.
“The Court finds that the evidence did not establish the District Attorney’s receipt of a material financial benefit,” McAfee ruled, despite characterizing the relationship as a “tremendous lapse in judgment.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/15/judge-rejects-trumps-bid-to-disqualify-georgia-prosecutor-00147286
As the decision was handed out at 9 am this morning, most analysts are still reading through it and parsing the reasons. Georgia Defense attorney Andrew Fleischman, who is a strong critic of Willis and her office, posted these thoughts about the decision on the platform formerly known as Twitter about the judge’s ultimate reasoning:
You can read all of Fleischman’s short analysis here. While Fleischman personally feels there was enough evidence to find a disqualifying conflict of interest, he notes in another post on Xtter that it definitely wasn’t open and shut. He also discusses the different potential lines of appeal that the defendants will most certainly take.
I think Judge McAfee’s decision is correct under Georgia law. That last part is critical. In some States, for example, California as Ken White (Popehat) has noted, that relationship definitely would be a violation of the law. Georgia statutes, on the other hand, are not as sweeping.
That said, regardless of whether or not there was an actual conflict of interest, Willis’s behavior was improper. That appearance of impropriety is enough to warrant addressing. Wade should have been removed from this case long before it reached this point. Honestly, this decision is doing her office a favor because it creates an opportunity to remove Wade from this case without losing face.
Either way, given the options of disqualifying the entire office or removing the special prosecutor (and, in doing so, eliminating this self-own headache), I expect we will get news of Wade’s “voluntary” departure from the case by early next week. In the meantime, I leave you with a sentence that Fleischman called out from the closing of the decision:
A reasonable observer unburdened by partisan blinders should believe the law was impartially applied, that those accused of crimes had a fair opportunity to present their defenses, and that any verdict was based on our criminal justice system’s best efforts at ascertaining the truth.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24482771-order-on-motion-to-disqualify
I suspect the Judge wrote this with a knowing eye to the criticism that this decision will receive from supporters of the former President (and most likely, as well, defenders of DA Willis). This quote also signals what Judge McAfee is focused on to guide his adjudication of this complex case.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Matt Bernius
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