I agree that this is a big nothingburger in terms of the merits, but doesn’t anyone else see at least hints of an appearance of impropriety?
I think it can possibly “look bad” any time a boss dates a subordinate/contractor, while continuing the employment relationship. And a public official in a high profile job ought to be sensitive to such appearances, and realize opponents will try to take advantage of them. In such instances, IMO it can be helpful if the parties disclosed the relationship to HR, or disclose it themselves - especially in a case as high-profile and with a defendant/opponent as vindictive as Trump.
Heck, aren’t there enough guys to date whom your office ISN’T paying? Or couldn’t you wait until his contract is ended?
I suppose it can raise questions about power imbalance in the relationship, or about how the prosecutor is spending public money. If the personal relationship ends, then their working relationship may suffer.
As things stand, though, there’s really no reason to question the prosecution. If Nathan Wade owned stock in Truth Social (or whatever the holding company is called), that might give him a reason to go easy on Trump. That would be a conflict of interest.
That doesn’t mean Trump’s lawyers won’t make the argument, and his followers won’t be outraged. Outrage is what they do. But “Willis and Wade are dating, therefore Trump is innocent” isn’t exactly an iron-clad argument.
No, but it could be manufactured into another cause for delay…and that could end up making all the difference (in terms of election results, and therefore much, much else).
The biggest potential problem that I see is that the Georgia legislature has given themselves the power to pretty much arbitrarily remove any DA they don’t like, and now they have an excuse to go after Willis. That would wreak havoc with the timing and logistics of the trial.
If Republican wingnuts in Georgia remove Willis and replace her with a MAGAt toadie, that will be the biggest setback yet to the institution of democracy in America. It would make me fearful of living so close to a nation that is about to embrace fascism in all its abhorrent totality.
I don’t see that. Most criminals, including leading politicians, get away with the great majority of offenses, regardless of whether the locale is a democracy. And in order to complete trials and appeals before Election Day in November 2024, he needed to be indicted in 2022, or, more likely, 2021.
Also, I could cite some other big setbacks to the institution of democracy in America, like the Dred Scott Decision.
However, if you are just saying in frustration that this may be used to scuttle the Georgia prosecution, agreed:
I’m not engaging in hyperbole here. The Georgia case is arguably the most serious of the ones Trump is facing, and the only one that is immune from a potential self-pardon. If that’s scuttled by political partisans I see it as the beginning of a cascade that ultimately lets him once again skate free of consequences, and likely enter a second term as a genuine wannabe dictator who is much less likely to give up power this time than he was even in his outrageous actions the first time.
Now you may disagree about the consequences of a second Trump term, but that was the basis of my comment, and there’s a whole separate thread about that. And while it’s true that politicians in the past have often escaped the full consequences of illegal acts, none of them have been anywhere near as dangerous as Trump. Even Nixon was a saint compared to Trump, and despite all his conniving, genuinely wanted to do good for his country.
I didn’t like Nixon when I was a kid and he was almost impeached. (I decorated a schoolbook cover as a ‘Watergates’ cereal box. Did a good job, too. ‘Shaped like tapes!’) But even though he was a crook, he believed that he was the one who could do the best for the country. He gave us the EPA, and he almost got us universal healthcare. (That was scuttled by the AFL/CIO IIRC.) But he was still a criminal. Trump doesn’t give a rodent’s rectum about the United States or ‘what’s good for the country’. Which makes him worse than Nixon.
If Trump gets back into office, the fact that he can’t pardon himself in Georgia isn’t going to save us. What we need is for him not to get back into office. The cases about whether he’s disqualified by virtue of insurrection could do that directly, and any of the other cases, individually or collectively, could do it indirectly by finally puncturing the information bubble for some fraction of his supporters.