Trump and others charged with conspiring to overturn 2020 election in Georgia

[N.E. Brigand]

Trump's attorney Sadow is incredibly condescending. I had to turn it off; watching and listening to a white man treating a black woman in that way was just too much.

I'm just catching up with some updated from the past hour. Josh Kovensky has been live-blogging it at Talking Points Memo:

There’s a big racial component to all this, to put it mildly. As one TPM editor put it: when was the last time you saw a white male prosecutor questioned in court over a romantic relationship?

[Mike Roman's attorney Ashleigh] Merchant asked when Willis’ personal relationship with Wade ended. Willis asked her to define what she meant by “personal relationship,” saying that she had a “personal relationship” with staffers in her office that she considered friends.

That forced Merchant to specify the question: when did the romantic relationship end?

Around August 2023, Willis said.

She accused Merchant of lying again, prompting a five minute break.

Also:

Willis keeps making reference to the threats she received which forced her to leave her home.

It goes to several issues here: Merchant is asking whether Wade ever visited Willis at her home; Willis specifies that she was forced to leave her home because of threats associated with her prosecution.

There’s an elephant in the room here.

Willis said in filings last week that the accusations around her relationship with Wade had resulted in another volley of racist threats. She included evidence of that in court papers.

It’s what Willis keeps returning to when Merchant asks about the relationship: the threats keep coming, they keep forcing her to change her life.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm not able to watch the Georgia hearing on television, but responses to it seem split based on people's general sympathy for prosecuting vs. defense attorneys.

And the latter apparently had other things to do this afternoon, because I haven't seen any commentary from them about the second half of Wade's testimony or any of Willis's testimony. Edited to add: actually, I was wrong about that. Those folks are all on Bluesky, and their feeds weren't refreshing for me, but now they are. And now I can read, for example: "Fani Willis took the stand and accused Ashleigh Merchant of lying. She is a terrible witness". (I see that V concurs below.) That said, the same commentator added that he thinks Willis is credible about the cash reimbursements.

[N.E. Brigand]

Had Fani Willis previously indicated in her filings that Nathan Wade wasn't her first choice for the special prosecutor role? That seems pretty important.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not able to watch the Georgia hearing on television, but responses to it seem split based on people's general sympathy for prosecuting vs. defense attorneys.

Here is the youtube link:

[N.E. Brigand]

Actually, what she said that her father insisted that she always keep at least six months of cash at the house. A small but subtle difference.

Thanks. I now see that Fani Willis said while she had plenty of cash on hand for everything about which she's being questioned, it wasn't actually six months' worth.

I also see that Willis found herself obliged to explain why she and Nathan Wade broke up: she says she came to realize that he seemed to think of women as less than men. This is so far astray from the supposed issues under discussion.

And Trump's attorney asked her if she went to the White House when she was on a visit to D.C. The intended implication is that she was colluding with President Biden in this prosecution of Trump, Roman, and the rest. (Which is just ridiculous.) It sounded like there was an objection to that question. I don't think the judge had a chance to respond, because she just answered it: "I did not go to the White House."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I must say, while I think this all ridiculous, Willis made a terrible witness. I would be furious if I had a client act like that on the stand.

[N.E. Brigand]

I must say, while I think this all ridiculous, Willis made a terrible witness. I would be furious if I had a client act like that on the stand.

I hear you. And I'm seeing multiple people say that. The one I cited above was Andrew Fleischman, whom I've referenced numerous times on this case because he's generally seemed the most reliable of the Willis skeptics who knows Georgia procedures. He does seem to have a beef with Willis, possibly a legitimate one: he sees her as an agent of the carceral state who relies on cries of "racism" to deflect criticism for "a massively overcrowded jail where people die every month ... Hundreds of people languishing there for months of years ... High profile cases reversed for misconduct." And yet, while I think Fleischman has made mistakes in his commentary on this case to date (e.g., when he said that staying overnight was the same thing as "cohabitating"), he also, as I noted above, said today that Willis's account of paying by cash seemed credible to him. That said, he also said today that Sadow as doing a good job on cross, whereas you found Sadow to be condescending. And Fleischman, apparently responding to a video I can't see, said this:

"The women on MSNBC would stand up for her no matter what she did. She is a professional in this courthouse, with an important job."

Why would it be "the women" in particular who would defend Willis? That seems particularly sexist, the very kind of thing that Willis was complaining about today.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not surprised that Flieschman thought Sadow did a good job. As far as I am concerned, they are two peas in a pod.

That youtube link that I posted above works for all of the hearings in this case, so unless you can't access youtube, you should be able to watch tomorrow if you so choose.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Coincidentally, yesterday when I was driving home from work I heard a story on NPR about the history of mistrust between the African-American community and the banking industry stemming from the forced failure of the Freedman's Savings Bank, which was originally set up to help the community that had recently been released from being enslaved following the Civil War. That story noted that as a result, African-Americans are much more likely to keep cash in hand rather than using banks, which would go along way towards explaining why Fani WIllis' father insisted that she keep cash in the house.

Surprisingly, when the hearing resumed this morning the state announced that it had no questions for WIllis so she did not take the stand again. Apparently, Merchant wanted to re-call Wade's former law partner, Terrence Bradley to the stand, but he is at a doctor's appointment so it is not clear what is happening.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Willis' father just testified to that issue, saying "Your Honor, I'm not trying to be racist, but its a black thing. He is now elaborating on why it is that African-Americans feel the need to keep cash and why he instructed Willis to do so.

[N.E. Brigand]

I see that Roy Barnes, the governor of Georgia from 1999 to 2003 (and the last Democrat to hold that position), testified that in October 2021, Fani Willis met with him to discuss the possibility of him being the special prosecutor in this case, but he didn't want the hassle.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

He did, and he was accorded great respect by all of the defense attorneys. Fani Willis father, John Lloyd (a highly experienced and respected retired attorney), was not.

Can you guess the one difference between the two of them?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And just after I wrote that, I saw this from Elie Mystal:

[N.E. Brigand]

Terrence Bradley, who was Nathan Wade's law partner and later also his divorce attorney (in 2021-2022), was called as the first witness yesterday but was unable to testify about much because Wade invoked attorney-client privilege. He was called back to testify this afternoon. The defendants' attorneys made various unavailing attempts to pierce the privilege, including trying to claim that because Wade and Fani Willis had engaged in adultery, which is a crime in Georgia, the crime-fraud exception applied. We've discussed that argument before here, and the judge confirmed what had previously been suggested: the Georgia law is unconstitutional, so the exception doesn't apply. Even so, the defendants' attorneys, by asking some questions on unprivileged matters, were able to make it clear that Bradley claims to know that Wade and Willis were romantically involved before 2022. Now Bradley is being cross-examined by the prosecutors, which some legal observers say is a mistake by prosecutors. It got ugly quickly, when it was revealed that Bradley left the firm due to allegations of sexual harassment. Is that relevant to this case? I don't know.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Then the prosecutors tried to call a former associate in Wade and Bradley's firm who they claimed witnessed the sexual assault that Bradley was alleged to have engaged in. But the judge sustained the defense objection that that was too far afield to be admissible in the hearing. I also think was a mistake for the prosecutors to go so hard at Bradley. It would have been better to leave well enough alone.

[River]

I was a little surprised about the cash and then I thought "Of course."

Regarding when the romantic relationship started, I am suspecting that they were acting real friendly towards each other before they decided they were officially an item. In other words, people around them suspected there was something going on before they determined that they had something going on.

[N.E. Brigand]

I suppose one could argue that former Sen. Kelly Loeffler isn't playing favorites by calling for the replacement of the district attorney who chose not to charge her:

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN has spoken with a Napa winery host who remembers Fani Willis paying in cash at a tasting she attended with Nathan Wade last year. He said she had at least $400 in her purse.

[RoseMorninStar]

I'd be very concerned and uncomfortable with that kind of personal information being made public. What a shame.

[Voronwë the Faithful]