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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

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Fani Willis is the Fulton County District Attorney. Her office, led by Nathan Wade, is prosecuting Trump and many others under Georgia RICO for election interference. Normally we would expect Trump to claim someone in the court had an improper relationship, but this time it was his co-defendant Michael Roman who claimed that Willis appointed Wade because of their romantic relationship and profited from it.

There had been calls for her to step aside to avoid the possibility of being disqualified, which would greatly delay the trial. She had already been disqualified for her handling of Burt Jones, where she fund-raised for his opponent.

Willis is not stepping aside, but she has now admitted to a personal relationship with Wade. About the facts in the case, Willis has at least two defenses. First, Wade may have paid for some of their vacations, but Willis paid for at least one $700 plane ticket for Wade. Second, Wade claims the personal relationship did not start until 2022.

The press, while stressing that these problems don't invalidate the facts of the case against Trump, has not been kind to Willis. This case has already been going for a long time, and seems unlikely to even start before the election:

  • In October 2021: Wade agrees to be special prosecutor.
  • November 1st, 2021: Wade is sworn in.
  • November 2nd, 2021: Wade files for divorce.
  • November 3rd, 2021: Wade begins work, charging 8 hours.
  • November 5th, 2021: Wade continues, charging 24 hours.
  • August 14th, 2023: Trump and 18 others are indicted.
  • January 8th, 2024: Roman files motion to dismiss.
  • January 30th, 2024: Wade reaches agreement in divorce to avoid testifying about Willis.
  • February 2nd, 2024: Willis and Wade publicly admit to their relationship.

I don't think I understand the central claim here.

So potentially Wade maybe got their job by sleeping with someone. Ok.

Does that make them unfairly biased against Trump and unable to try the case fairly, for some reason? Am I missing something tying these facts to the Trump case specifically?

Or is this just a purely ad hominem, this person is bad on an unrelated topic so ignore their judgement here' thing?

The below may be dated (my understand of this doesn’t really include the latest week)

  1. Wade isn’t a criminal law expert nor is he a staff attorney. The city is paying him as an “expert” to help with this case.

  2. Fani therefore is using the Trump case to funnel a lot of state money to her new boyfriend who in turn has taken Fani on lavish vacations. Fani has claimed without evidence she reimbursed Wade for these expenses.

Putting those together Fani is arguably using the Trump case to funnel state money to her new beau and herself.