Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis has not had the best of 2024s.
Oh, sure, it started out great. She was the prosecutor overseeing what liberals hoped would be the most damaging case against former President Donald Trump’s attempts to get re-elected: an indictment that alleged Trump was part of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 results of the election in Georgia, where President Joe Biden narrowly won.
And then, just days into the new year, defense attorneys dropped a reportorial stick of dynamite into Willis’ hopes to get the trial started this summer, just as the presidential race was heating up: The DA was allegedly having an undisclosed relationship with a prosecutor on her payroll in the case, with her lover taking home over $650,000 in lawyer’s fees, as per The New York Times.
According to the New York Post, Nathan Wade — the man to whom Willis is romantically linked — was billing the Fulton County District Attorney’s office $250 an hour for his work on the election interference case, while another lawyer described as “the state’s foremost expert on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) cases” was billing only $150 for the same work.
In addition, it was reported the two took swanky getaways to Belize, Aruba and Napa Valley in California for which Willis reimbursed Wade in cash.
When papers had been filed asking that she and her lover be disqualified from the case, Willis had told a local church assembly that “I appointed three special counsels, as is my right to do, paid them all the same hourly rate.” Not only apparently lying, but in God’s house, too. Nice.
Willis is now in the midst of a misconduct hearing after details continued to emerge, none of them exculpatory.
Most damning was the testimony of a former friend who said that, while the two claimed in affidavits that they had “no personal relationship” before 2022, she had witnessed Willis and Wade involved in “hugging, kissing, just affection” as early as 2019. He was hired by Willis’ office in November 2021.
Willis and Wade, may I add, are real lawyers, not movie ones. I must preface what you’re about to see and read with that fact — because what transpired at the misconduct hearing on Thursday sounded more like it sprang from the febrile mind of someone who got his juris doctor from the University of I’ve-Watched-“A Few Good Men”-Several-Times, specializing in whatever area of criminal law relates to the scene where Tom Cruise’s character yells, “I want the truth!” and Jack Nicholson’s character snarls back, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Should Fani Willis be removed from the Trump case?
See, Willis — the woman who, thanks to the delays in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution of Trump over the events of Jan. 6, 2021, has become the most important liberal prosecutor in America — thought it was a good idea to take the stand in her own misconduct hearing.
Not only that, she decided that, instead of behaving like Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, she would conduct herself like whatever actress ends up playing her in David Fincher’s “Orange Man Justice in Georgia.” (That’s the project’s working title, anyway; I’m sure they’ll come up with something catchier by the time it gets greenlit.)
Addressing the allegations made against her — that she had an improper relationship with a subordinate who she overpaid and took taxpayer-funded vacations with, and then lied under oath about it — she spurted lines only a screenwriter could love.
“You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused,” Willis told attorneys looking to obtain personal records from her.
“You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial — no matter how hard you try to put me on trial!”
It gets even better when watched, I am pleased to inform you:
Fani Willis pushes back against efforts to obtain her personal records: “You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.” pic.twitter.com/6AfHlq325Q
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 15, 2024
I hope they get a halfway-decent actress to play Willis in “Orange Man Justice in Georgia” — Viola Davis, say — because in auditions, this is where the casting director yells “cut!” and thanks you for your time.
Willis was indeed correct during part of her tantrum: She’s not on trial for anything — yet.
Instead, she’s in a misconduct hearing that will decide if she potentially committed ethical or legal breaches that preclude her, Wade and the rest of her team from trying Trump in a court of law.
To paraphrase another Hollywood character in a different line of work: I don’t know how to say this, but that’s kind of a big deal.
Thus, this is the kind of thing that lawyers generally take with the utmost degree of gravity and seriousness. That includes 1) avoiding taking the stand under oath if at all possible and, 2) if they do, refraining from delivering semi-scripted dramatic rebukes that land with such a thud that they go bad-viral with howling-with-laughter conservatives on social media.
Willis apparently forgot these things on the way to the courtroom Thursday, with predictable results.
“This is a historic meltdown,” Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz wrote on X:
This is a historic meltdown https://t.co/9KpqbpGkKr
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) February 15, 2024
As for her being the one on trial, pundit Mike Cernovich noted, “That might change soon.” He included video of another part of her testimony in which it sounds an awful lot like she admitted to, at the very least, carelessness in handling campaign funds.
That might change soon. https://t.co/CTqg6896HF
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 15, 2024
Radio host and former California GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder put it this way: “This is entertaining ‘angry black female’ vs ‘white Karen.’ Suddenly, nobody cares about DEI.”
This is entertaining “angry black female” vs “white Karen.” Suddenly, nobody cares about DEI.#FaniWillis pic.twitter.com/5GkidNQ39P
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) February 15, 2024
And Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson simply put it this way: “BIG FANI IS BIG MAD.”
BIG FANI IS BIG MAD:
“No! No! No! Look! I OBJECT to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial? THESE people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020.” pic.twitter.com/zCkK5ANRy8
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 15, 2024
But how exactly did she think this was going to end up? Did she have some kind of fever dream where she pictured her own personal version of “A Few Good Men” transpiring:
Willis: “You want my personal records?”
Lawyer: “I think I’m entitled to them.”
Willis: “You want personal records?”
Lawyer: “That’d be nice, thanks.”
Willis: “You can’t handle my personal records! Ma’am, we live in a world that has Trumps. And those Trumps have to be stopped by strong-armed lawyers who bring politically motivated cases against him at suspiciously convenient times, preferably strong women who check intersectional boxes. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Attorney Weinberg?”
Lawyer: “Ma’am, there is no Attorney Weinb –”
Willis: “I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the rule of law and you curse the fact that I may have — hypothetically speaking, you know — lied about a romantic relationship with a colleague. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That our Napa Valley tryst — I mean, trip — probably saved Biden. And my prosecution of Trump, while grotesque and incomprehensible to those who value the objectivity of the legal system and the respect it commands, saves Biden!”
Lawyer: “I — I’d really just like the personal … you realize you’re still talking, right?”
Willis: “You don’t want my personal records — because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me at that plaintiff’s table. You need me at that plaintiff’s table! We use words like ‘election denial,’ ‘threat to democracy’ and ‘safest presidential vote in history.’ You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time or the inclination to explain myself to a Karen who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom from Trump I’m trying to provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it!“
Lawyer: [looks around, nervously] “Your honor, does anyone want to call for a recess? … Anyone? Or a cold compress? Maybe an ambulance?”
Willis: “I’d rather you just said ‘thank you’ and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a law degree and charge Trump with something. Either way, I don’t give a d*** what you think you are entitled to!”
Poof! It’s then, I’m guessing, that she woke up from her dream and decided on her course of action. It didn’t go quite that way, although it still caused a pretty big splash on social media — if not the one she intended.
And maybe it’s better it didn’t play out like the dream I’m conjecturing she might have had. In the dream, she may have been playing Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men.” Infelicitously — in my version, anyway — she woke up right before the part where Nicholson gets arrested in the courtroom for admitting to a crime during his verbal outburst. Whoops! Hollywood court can work that way.
But, thankfully for her, that typically doesn’t happen in real courtrooms in which real cases tried under real law take place.
Of course, lawyers taking the stand in their own defense during misconduct hearings and then throwing a Hollywood-inspired tantrum doesn’t usually happen in real courtrooms, either.
That should perhaps clue you in to how seriously one ought to take the Fulton County farce.
