Questions about whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has a conflict of interest distract attention from her case against Donald Trump.
As we all know, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis charged former President Donald Trump with 13 felonies that she says were part of a large conspiracy to undermine the 2020 presidential election results in a state Joe Biden won. But now that she’s been accused of a conflict of interest, Willis herself may now be the biggest threat to the case against Trump.
At a hearing Thursday into whether Willis must be disqualified from the case, a defiant Willis took the stand to lambaste the accusations that she acted inappropriately and to tell her side of the story, arguing that any allegation of misconduct against her amounts to baseless character assassination. Willis had already acknowledged that she’s had a personal relationship with Nathan Wade, the special counsel she appointed to the case involving Trump, but she’s argued that their relationship doesn’t give rise to a legal conflict of interest.
For those who generally have faith in Willis, she was understandably enraged and gave a master class in how to defend oneself in a public setting. For others, her protestations were over the top. Even so, the fact that there was even a hearing into Willis and whether she has a financial conflict of interest in the case was a windfall for Trump. Obviously, it would be an enormous boon for him if Willis or the entire Fulton County district attorney’s office is disqualified.
But even if neither Willis nor her office is disqualified and her office is allowed to continue prosecuting this case, the damage done to the public’s perception of the case is incontrovertible.
Thursday’s hearing took all the attention away from the egregious, and perhaps illegal, actions that Trump took trying to try to hold on to power.
