Court has begun.
i’m wondering where they are going with this. are they trying for nathan wade is not experienced?
now they are calling fani’s dad???
No, they’re showing that Willis attempted to make other choices before asking Wade to be the special prosecutor, refuting the claim by Trump’s team that Willis was laser-focused on putting Wade in the position for her own nefarious purposes.
It’s going to turn out that Fani was adopted.
Trump wins!
/s
ah, thanks, i thought it might be a mix of the 2.
the judge did get in that he thought well of mr wade’s abilities.
Her dad is pretty awesome–and he just made a very clear distinction between “Dukes,” the disc jockey Willis was dating in 2019 and 2020, and Nathan Wade, whom he didn’t meet until 2023.
Unless team Trump has something amazing to pull out, this should conclude the hearing.
In retrospect, could McAfee just have summarily dismissed this whole motion by the defense (to dig into Willis & Wade’s relationship)? Or was that a bad idea politically? Who is/was thought to be the one to have held McAfee to task had he just pushed all this aside from jump?
I think he could have, and he may have been heading that way when Willis insisted on testifying. Personally, I’m glad she did, because it will leave a much more fulsome record of just how awful, cynical and political this whole proceeding has been.
As a counterpoint, this provides a much more sobering evaluation of the proceedings yesterday. These two Slate writers are generally fair and insightful, and they feel Willis did possibly irreparable harm to her case.
…None of her protestations could possibly inspire confidence in a skeptic that she should continue to lead this prosecution. Anyone bringing criminal charges against Trump is bound to face withering scrutiny of their professional and private lives; they must conduct themselves unimpeachably to avoid even a hint of bias or corruption. By failing to disclose her relationship to the court in the first instance, Willis did not live up to that standard.
…
The district attorney’s embarkation upon strange tangents and rambling monologues is proof in itself that the optics of the situation are not good for her side. No matter what happens to Willis next, a huge amount of damage has already been inflicted on the integrity and legitimacy of this case. All in all, Willis and Wade are asking for an extraordinary amount of benefit of the doubt, which feels very hard to extend given the original undisclosed nature of their romantic relationship itself. Even if everything they say is true, a responsible prosecutor would have immediately informed the court about the romance and let the chips fall where they may. Concealing it from both the court and the public raises the suspicion, fairly or not, that Willis and Wade felt they had something to hide.
I didn’t watch things live, so I can’t assess for myself how it came across. But I’m less optimistic after seeing this perspective. Assuming she doesn’t get removed, how much damage was done to the case just based on all this? How much does the case depend on her legitimacy?
the dreaded reverse mortgages rears its ugly head.
I dated a co-worker in a job a few lifetimes ago. I was higher up the org chart than she was.
We immediately went to HR to do whatever they needed of us, including some kind of interview and signing some forms.
Whatever happens here, Wade and Willis – IMHO – exercised extremely poor judgment. If this truly tanks the case, they’ll live with this for the rest of their lives.
But I still think of it as a PR and HR problem … so far.
I think they’re overreacting. I could be wrong, but I think the Judge will say “no conflict of interest” and that will be the end of it.
Fani Willis’s dad seems like a fun hang. He knew Nelson Mandela, had a Harvard fellowship, has a movie script he’s shopping around… Lot’s of great stories.
Asked about keeping cash on hand, “You have to understand, it’s a black thing…” I never knew about this but it makes perfect sense after a moment of thought. Black folks, especially older ones, do not have 100% faith in institutions because of course.
Conversations with the judge about privilege – “privacy” vs. attorney-client – before remaining State’s witnesses are available.
Trump’s lawyers sounded like they believed they had Dad hooked when he said that he was prepped by the State’s lawyers.
(I agree that Dad sounds like one cool dude.)
(My bold)
I’m trying to imagine a situation where an attorney would come to court to announce, on the record, who they are dating. Especially if the person they are dating is a colleague.
The court has no interest in who is fucking who. If it’s an HR issue, it’s for the DA’s office to handle. If it’s some sort of ethical dereliction (it’s not), it’s for the attorney regulatory body (usually the state bar) to handle.
It’s absurd that this is considered relevant to the criminal prosecution of trump.
The thing is, “withering scrutiny of … professional and private lives” can take down ANY conceivable person. Everyone has skeletons of some kind or another – certainly enough for defense counsel to seize on in bad faith as sort of a Hail Mary strategy.
Individual-ONE’s closet has more skeletons. The best skeletons. Every so often, he brings them out and shakes them at us. No one else seems to have mastered his skill at being defiantly immoral.
And that Wade is her long lost brother!
Seriously, can you imagine them trying to get the charges dropped for something like this if the charges were murder or armed robbery?
Whoa! is her middle name Hill?