ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump has responded to the court filing where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis admitted to having a relationship with the special prosecutor brought in to oversee the case against the former president and several of his allies.
In the eight-page fiery response, Trump’s Georgia attorney, Steve Sadow, went after Willis once again over her speech at Big Bethel AME Church over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, saying the speech injected race into the case but also referenced Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade, who she is alleged to have an “improper relationship” with.
“Who else would the DA be repeatedly and predominantly referring to in her use of the words ‘they’ and ‘them’ and ‘themselves,’ other than the defendants via disparagement and condemnation of their defense counsel? Those references are just as clear as the fact that her unnamed reference to the hired ‘Black man’ could only be Wade,” the filing said.
Sadow reiterates that Willis should be removed from the case over her relationship with Wade.
“The threshold issues are the disqualification of the DA and the dismissal of the case because of her prosecutorial misconduct. Maybe what the DA expects this Court to do is to acquiesce in, and accept at face value, her proclamation that she is unlike all other prosecutors. That this DA is somehow something special. That this DA must be treated differently. That the ethical rules, and laws, simply don’t apply to this DA. That this DA alone can make prejudicial out-of-court racially partisan and invidious statements about this case, defense counsel, and the defendants whenever she pleases, in clear violation of her ethical duties as a prosecutor, and therefore that this Court is powerless to punish her by dismissal of the case and her disqualification, and instead may only seek to undo the substantial prejudice she creates during voir dire. Such hubris; such self-consequence. The State knows better,” the filing said.
He again notes several references in Willis’ speech that he said injected race into this case.
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“The DA’s conduct was indeed egregious. It was undeniably unethical. Her MLK holiday ‘church speech’ intentionally and in bad faith injected race, religion, and politics into the case and stoked racial animus by, among other statements, asking God why defense counsel and 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,” the filing said.
Sadow said the relationship between Willis and Wade is worse than a “what-were-you-thinking moment,” referring to Willis being removed from prosecuting now-Lt. Gov. Burt Jones over allegations he helped conspire to overturn the 2020 election here in Georgia after hosting a fundraiser for his opponent during the lieutenant governor’s race.
“The DA utterly failed to learn any lesson about unethical behavior from that incident. Instead, DA Willis made a calculated and purposeful choice here to disregard her special ethical responsibilities as a prosecutor because she conceived it was in her own best interest to do so. She must not be given a third opportunity to flagrantly flout the rules to serve her own self-interest to the prejudice of the defendants,” the filing said.
In a statement to Channel 2 Action News on Wednesday, Sadow said, in part:
“Our filing argues persuasively that, contrary to the DA’s response, Georgia law authorizes and compels the disqualification of the DA for her extrajudicial prosecutorial comments in violation of her special ethical responsibilities as a prosecutor. Once again, President Trump respectfully asserts that the DA’s egregious misconduct requires the dismissal of the indictment and her disqualification.”
Willis’ filing last week dismisses efforts by Trump and two defendants to remove her from the case as “meritless.”
“While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek,” the filing said.
Clark Cunningham, who teaches law at Georgia State University, said the acknowledgment of the relationship means defense attorneys will have ammo to fight that point in a lengthy court battle unless Willis takes a leave of absence.
“I think this is going to be a long, complicated issue, and it’s going to delay this case terribly. And that kind of delay is bad for the case. It’s bad for the public,” Cunningham said.
A hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 15 to address the allegations that have been brought against Willis and whether or not she should be disqualified from the case.
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