Fani Willis may have worn a dress backward during her outlandish testimony last month, but she’s embarrassed herself far worse since.
On Wednesday, Judge Scott McAfee quashed six of the charges against Donald Trump and his co-defendants. While several others remain intact, the Associated Press described it as "a blow for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who already is facing an effort to have her removed from the prosecution over her romantic relationship with a colleague."
"The Court made the correct legal decision to grant the special demurrers and quash important counts of the indictment brought by DA Fani Willis,” Trump’s lead counsel in the Fulton County, Ga., case said in a statement posted to X/Twitter. "The counts dismissed against President Trump are 5, 28 and 38, which falsely claimed he solicited GA public officials to violate their oath of office. The ruling is a correct application of the law, as the prosecution failed to make specific allegations of any alleged wrongdoing on those counts. The entire prosecution of President Trump is political, constitutes election interference and should be dismissed.”
It wasn’t just a major blow for Willis—it was also a major embarrassment for her. And you don’t have to take my word for it.
Just ask CNN.
"I don’t think this ruling changes the type of evidence that the DA’s going to be able to introduce, but it does knock out some of the charges, and look, it’s embarrassing for prosecutors," CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig said Wednesday on CNN’s "Newsroom." "It’s a screwup by prosecutors when you bring a charge and then a judge throws it out before it even goes to trial."
And Honig was far from done with his damning assessment of the development.
"There have been several screwups, frankly, by the DA throughout the history of this case,” he said. "Going back to the investigative phase, the DA got herself disqualified from a small piece of the case because she created a political conflict of interest. The judge who was overseeing the grand jury removed Fani Willis from the case."
Related: The Biden Admin Planted an Operative in Fani Willis’ Office to Target Trump, Say Sources
Honig continued, "We’ve seen Fani Willis make public statements in the church and elsewhere that have now been called into question that I think violate the ethics of prosecutorial rules, and now we’ve seen six of the charges thrown out of the case, and unlike the conflict of interest issue, this does go to the charges against the defendant. This does go to the indictment itself. And there is still a case—the lead charge the racketeering case is still in place—but this is a setback."
3.13.24 1040 am ET CNN Newsroom Anchor Jim Acosta @Acosta w/ CNN Senior Legal Analyst and Former Assistant U.S. Attorney SDNY, Elie Honig @eliehonig pic.twitter.com/GyX0RUhf5p
— Jeff Storobinsky (@jeffstorobinsky) March 13, 2024
Though not entirely related to this issue, Fani Willis also faces allegations of a conflict of interest for having an affair with one of her prosecutors, Nathan Wade, and paying him more than his counterparts despite having less experience in RICO cases. The two also reportedly took romantic trips together and may have lied under oath about when their relationship started.
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