Trump claim DA’s MLK speech at Big Bethel stoked ‘racial animus’ in election interference case

ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump is adding his name to the fight to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis disqualified from prosecuting him and his allies, saying that during her speech at Big Bethel Baptist Church in downtown Atlanta last weekend, she used the opportunity to stoke “racial animus” in the case.

Thursday’s motion adds to one already filed by co-defendant Michael Roman, accusing Willis of having an “improper relationship” with the special prosecutor that she appointed to help with the indictment case against former Trump and others.

Willis did not use Wade’s name as she launched into the speech Sunday, only telling audience members at the historical church that the special prosecutor she hired was the same person hired in a different county to do a similar job at a much higher pay rate. She spoke glowingly about the credentials of everyone on her team and the importance of their jobs.

Willis also did not mention the allegations and motions by an attorney for Michael Roman, one of the 19 people indicted by a Grand Jury under the state’s RICO laws for interfering in the 2020 Presidential election.

She was at Big Bethel Church to speak ahead of the Martin Luther King holiday and how Dr. King’s teaching influenced her.

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In Thursday’s filing, Trump accused Willis of using the occasion to “repeatedly and inappropriately injected race into the case and stoked racial animus by, among other statements, asking God why the defendants were questioning her conduct in hiring a Black man but not his White counterparts, and why the judgment of a Black female Democrat wasn’t as good as White male Republicans.”

“These assertions by the DA engender a great likelihood of substantial prejudice towards the defendants in the eyes of the public in general, and prospective jurors in Fulton County in particular. Moreover, the DA’s self-serving comments came with the added, sought after, benefit of garnering racially based sympathy for her self-inflicted quagmire,” the motion went on to say.

The motions said that because of those reasons and the ones laid out by Roman’s earlier motion accusing Willis of the affair, the indictment be dismissed and Willis disqualified from the case.

A hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 15 to address the allegations brought up by Roman and his attorney.

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