Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

Donald Trump is a desperate man and, according to those who know him, someone who is going broke. Trump may be concerned about his bottom line and status in the billionaire club (at the bottom), but his biggest concern, and perhaps fear, is where he will stand after the first Tuesday in November 2024. If the former president were a betting and praying man, where would one think he would place his faith to get himself out of the quagmire he is in? It wouldn’t be his lawyers, who are not only doing their best to keep him out of court but also getting very rich. It wouldn't be God but in the legal opinion of Judge Scott McAfee, who will decide if Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis can continue her RICO case against Trump and his co-defendants. Give Trump’s lawyers credit, as they are pulling out all the stops not to defend Trump but to somehow find a judge who will miraculously dismiss all charges against him and probably just him and not his co-defendants. Remember that Trump is said to be willing to throw everyone else under the bus if it means saving himself. Lawyers for Trump and some of his defendants have somehow convinced Judge McAfee to hold a hearing to determine whether Willis and a prosecutor she hired for the case have developed a “conflict of interest” in the Trump case because of a past relationship. If this were a soap opera, this reporter would pass on watching. However, because it involves one of the most watched upcoming trials in history (this one surpasses OJ Simpson), the legal implications will have legal scholars talking about it long after it is over. And besides, it WILL be taught in history classes, as well as that of Watergate. McAfee has to decide, based on the evidence presented, whether the relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, a prosecutor that she hired after others turned it down, “compromised the integrity” of the case against Trump.

Trump contends that Willis and Wade, who are on the same team, somehow enriched themselves through the relationship and that they were not truthful about when the relationship began. Many are asking, so what is the problem? Their focus (which the judge should also focus on) is the 17,800 votes that Trump wanted the Georgia Secretary of State to find (just one more than needed) to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in his favor. Willis and Wade's jobs are to prosecute wrongdoing, and just about everyone in the legal world agrees that Willis has a very strong case. Some of Trump’s fellow defendants have already pleaded guilty, something that the judge should keep in mind. The case boils down to whether Willis and Wade enriched themselves with county funds by taking extravagant trips. Records indicate that both Willis and Wade split the expenses, with Willis paying cash for her part of their trips. Fulton County auditors have not indicated any improprieties in how Willis has spent funds on the Trump case, another point the judge should note. If somehow Willis is removed, no one is entirely sure if another prosecutor will continue the case. Though Willis is on record as saying that she wouldn’t have a relationship with someone who worked in her office, this does not rise to the level of the case being “tainted” because the grand jury indicted Trump on those facts, not Willis or Wade. But this is another example of how the law is applied to the privileged and that a “fair trial” seems to apply only to those with that privileged status. Remember, the world is watching. So is God.