The Crime of Donald Trump
Technically speaking, Donald Trump is guilty of something -- he’s guilty of the crime of being Donald Trump. He hasn’t broken any laws, but laws have been modified to break him.
As former NKVD (now the KGB) head Lavrentiy Beria once famously said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” The Democrats have been shown one term of Donald Trump in power and they didn’t like what they saw.
Energy independence, historically low unemployment, almost zero inflation, a strong economy… I mean, who wants that?
Not the Democrats, that’s for sure. They prefer to keep a horribly corrupt, senile old man in the White House by any means necessary, and that means a never-ending onslaught of lawfare designed to bankrupt even a billionaire.
Let’s begin with the judgments already issued against Donald Trump and then evaluate the ongoing court cases. We will break down each case according to judge name instead of a state because New York has multiple cases against him.
Judge Lewis Kaplan – total damages $88.3 million dollars to be paid to E. Jean Carroll
Kaplan wouldn’t allow Trump to present any evidence in his own defense. The “trial” was a complete joke – Carroll couldn’t even remember the year the alleged sexual assault took place and by some miracle of a coincidence, all the details of her account matched perfectly with the plot of an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Her entire case was a bad joke that has gone on for far too long. The alleged assault took place “in 1995 or 1996” but Carroll never even accused Trump of raping her until 2019.
There is no doubt that Trump should win on appeal… but can he afford to appeal? The laws of New York are quite unfriendly to the appellant in this regard, and much of Trump’s wealth will be tied by in the “other” New York judgment against him.
Judge Arthur Engoron -- total damages $453.5 million to be paid to the state of New York
Of all the litigation involving Trump, this case is the most egregious of them all. Trump was convicted of a victimless crime, allegedly overvaluing his real estate holdings, in order to receive favorable loan terms from banks from whom Trump wanted to borrow money -- money that was borrowed and repaid in full. The banks that lent Trump money want to lend him money again, but Engoron’s draconian ruling temporarily prohibits them from doing new business with one of their best customers.
Unsurprisingly, Governor Hochul is suddenly finding it quite difficult to convince other people currently doing business in New York that the same thing that just happened to Trump can’t happen to them. And why is that? Because the laws apply differently to Donald Trump, right?
Trump should win this case on appeal in a slam dunk. However, the recent conversation has been over whether Trump can afford to appeal the case without liquidating much of his real estate empire in a fire sale because of New York’s bond requirements for appeals. Trump is expected to pay the entire amount of the judgment to the court in cash to appeal this unjust judgment against him.
This is so grotesquely unfair that the Supreme Court would seem to have little choice but to intervene based on the Eighth Amendment’s protections against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. Engoron had decided Trump was guilty before the trial even started. Trump was never allowed to present evidence rebutting the allegations of prosecutor Letitia James. It’s extraordinarily difficult to take Engoron’s ruling seriously -- he valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million. Do you know what you can really buy for $18 million in Palm Beach? The penthouse on top of the Tiffany building on the corner of Worth and Hibiscus Avenues. Unfinished.
Judge Tanya Chutkan -- Washington, D.C. AND Judge Aileen Cannon -- Florida
These two judges are mentioned together because prosecutor Jack Smith has brought the same basic case to two different venues -- the accusations that Trump mishandled classified documents. The first problem with Smith’s cases is that Trump had full authority as President to declassify government documents.
The second problem is that no other U.S. President has ever been accused of a crime for the same thing. Remember Sandy Berger? He stuffed classified documents into his socks and stole them from the federal archives before cutting them up with scissors, and he only got a slap on the wrist. Trump never destroyed anything. He merely took some documents the National Archives wanted but he didn’t want to give back. Rather than negotiate, the Department of Justice raided Mar-A-Lago with the FBI and hired a Special Counsel who issued indictments.
But the biggest problem for the prosecution is Joe Biden himself. Biden took documents when he was senator and then vice-president and never had the presidential authority to declassify, and handled them quite carelessly, even sharing them with his biographer. Yet Joe Biden has not and will not be charged for doing something worse than Trump because he’s old and senile… just not too old or too senile to run for another term.
This is yet another glaring example of unequal protection under the law. If you’re going to break the law or do anything even remotely questionable, you’d better have a (D) after your name.
Judge Scott McAfee -- Georgia
Judge McAfee just watched D.A. Fani Willis confess to adultery, paying her lover with taxpayer dollars, and embezzlement from her political campaign funds while completely melting down on the witness stand. Multiple witnesses have also testified that Willis committed perjury in sworn affidavits for her lover’s divorce case.
I’m no legal expert, but McAfee seems to have no choice but to disqualify Willis (and Nathan Ward) from further participation in the Trump prosecution. This doesn’t effectively end the Trump prosecution in Georgia, but it ought to delay it and there is no guarantee that another prosecutor will still want to move forward with the case, which involves the (alleged) losing party in an election contesting the results.
Democrats have a long history of protesting every national election they’ve lost since Reagan creamed Walter Mondale in 1984. If you watch movies like 2000 Mules, you’ll see there are reasons to think the 2020 election wasn’t fair, and Democrats cheated. Speaking of what isn’t fair, what is being done to Donald Trump in the courts isn’t fair. Democrats are trying to put him in jail for normal business practices and things Democrats do with impunity all the time.
It looks like it will be up to the Supreme Court to save the republic.
John Leonard is a freelance writer. He blogs at southernprose.com. His books, including The God Conclusion and Atheist’s Prayer, can be found at LeonardBooks.net
Image: National Archives
Trump Posts Text of 8th Amendment After Levin Notes Constitutional Challenge to Excessive Fines
Later that day, former President Trump posted the text of the 8th Amendment on TruthSocial.com platform, later linking to the same article linked by Levin in his comment posted on X (formerly Twitter).
The text of the 8th Amendment states:
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
In “Stalinist $370M judgment against Trump should be vacated immediately,” Arthur Fergenson, senior counsel with Ansa Assuncao LLP, explains both the “Stalinist” nature and 8th Amendment violation of Judge Arthur Engoron’s onerous decree:
“Professor Jonathan Turley called the $370 million judgment confiscatory, extreme and abusive. Professor Steven Calabresi termed it a travesty and an unjust political act. The subhead for his online commentary employed the term ‘Stalinist.’ Both law professors are right.
“Because the judgment does not relate to any loss, the $370 million is not, properly understood, violative of the prohibition against grossly excessive punitive damages. It does fall, however, directly within the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
As Levin, Fergenson, Turley, Calabresi and a host of other constitutional experts have noted, the fine is extraordinary, not only because of its unprecedented size, but also because it punishes Trump for a fraud conviction, in which no one was actually defrauded.
MEANWHILE JOE BIDEN IS OUT THERE SUCKING BRIBES!
REALLY, TRULLY??? A CASE WITH SUCH STAGGERING IMPLICATIONS AND THE PIG GAMER LAWYER-JUDGE WOULDN'T PERMIT A DEFENSE?!? FUK THE PIG TO HELL AND BACK!
Engoron also refused to allow Trump to mount any defense, declaring Trump guilty via summary judgment for the state.
Letitia James
Attorney General James ran for office with this promise: “We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well.” She also called Trump “an illegitimate president,” and promised that “Donald Trump’s days of defrauding Americans are coming to an end. We can spot a carnival barker.” Mind you, James said all of this prior to performing a single hour of investigation. This attorney general charged Trump with manipulating his property values to defraud his lenders. Then she took the case to the courtroom of Judge Arthur F. Engoron.
Judge Engoron
Engoron should have thrown out this case on day one -- just because of the stink of bias coming from Attorney General James and her associates.
However, Engoron is equipped with his own, personal prejudices. I believe his biases started with politics, but are now centered on saving face and protecting Engoron’s ego.
Engoron is an arrogant and hate-filled man, who is totally lacking financial, real estate, or accounting experience. Nevertheless, before hearing a single witness, or identifying a single victim, Engoron found Trump guilty of fraud, and fined him $350 million. Now, however, those early and precipitous decisions have led to problems.
When an appeals court ruled that the statute of limitations barred the prosecution of Trump with regard to several early years, Engoron should have dismissed the case, but that would have been embarrassing. So the judge found a way to partially circumvent the appeals court decision. He authorized James to support her case with information from those pre-statute years. James was happy to comply.
Then, Engoron was struck by disaster. A highly respected and qualified expert witness testified forcefully on behalf of Trump. New York University professor Eli Bartov, who has extensive accounting and financial experience, testified that the entire case was nonsense: Trump had done nothing wrong or unusual. In addition, bank officers testified that they had not been defrauded in any way.
After hearing that testimony, a less biased judge would have dismissed the case. Instead, Engoron raged like a lunatic, and he attacked the expert witness!
“Bartov is a tenured professor, but all that his testimony proves is that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say.”
In point of fact, Bartov was paid $877,500, which is a great amount of money. However, it was for countless hours spent analyzing many years of financial information and appraisals for numerous properties and companies. Engoron is a disgraceful little man for attacking the integrity and ethics of Bartov -- without a shred of evidence to support his slander.
Now, Engoron is in a quandary. He can’t dismiss the case entirely: That would be too embarrassing. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to get smacked by an appeals court.
SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT WHAT WALL STREET BANKSTERS GOT AWAY WITH UNDER THE BANKSTER REGIME OF BARACK OBAMA (LAWYER), ERIC HOLDER (LAWYER) AND 'CREDIT CARD' JOE BIDEN (LAWYER)???
Critics have noted that Trump is the only person ever to be sued under an obscure New York fraud statute that does not require any harm be done, and that effectively criminalizes the everyday practice of real estate valuations in negotiations with banks.
Trump Must Pay Half a Billion Dollars Before He Can Appeal New York Decision
Former President Donald Trump must pay nearly half a billion dollars as a bond to New York State before he can appeal the ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron last week that he must pay $354 million in fines — over $450 million, with interest — for fraud.
Critics have noted that Trump is the only person ever to be sued under an obscure New York fraud statute that does not require any harm be done, and that effectively criminalizes the everyday practice of real estate valuations in negotiations with banks.
Though Attorney General Letitia James — who ran for office promising to target Trump — claimed that no one is above the law, her case against Trump marks the only such case in the history of the state. And the staggering fine is likewise unprecedented.
Jonathan Turley points out another astonishing fact at the New York Post: before he can appeal, Trump must pay the whole fine:
Under New York law, Trump cannot appeal this ruling without depositing the full amount, including interest, in a court account. Even for Trump, $455 million is hard to come by. Likewise, a bond would require a company to guarantee payment for a defendant who has been barred from doing business in New York and is facing the need to liquidate much of his portfolio.
Nothing succeeds like excess for judges like Engoron. By imposing this astronomical figure, he can make it difficult or impossible for a defendant to appeal, absent declaring bankruptcy or selling off assets at distress prices.
The excessive fine and its basis raise serious statutory and constitutional questions. Many of us believe it should be substantially reduced or tossed out entirely.
Engoron also refused to allow Trump to mount any defense, declaring Trump guilty via summary judgment for the state.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
Dershowitz: Letitia James ‘Ought to Be Brought up Before the Bar’
Friday on FNC’s “Hannity,” Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz railed against former President Donald Trump’s civil prosecution, resulting in a more than $350 million fine and a three-year ban on doing business in New York State.
Dershowitz called for New York State Attorney General Letitia James to be brought up before the bar.
“Professor Dershowitz, I’ll start with you,” host Sean Hannity said. “You wrote a best-selling book ‘Get Trump.’ Where did you get the title for that book?”
“I didn’t make it up,” Dershowitz replied. “I wish I were creative and original, but I got it from obviously Letitia James campaign. She ought to be brought up before the bar. You should not have an elected prosecutor campaigning on the promise to get a particular defendant. Now if she didn’t get him. She would lose the election. This is a variation of Stalin and Beria back in the 1930s when the head of the KGB says to Stalin, show me the man, I’ll find you the crime. This is — show me the man, we know who it is. She told us who it was, Donald Trump, and we’ll find you the fraud even though there was no harm.”
“Generally in our legal system, particularly under the system of equity when you don’t get a jury trial, if it’s no harm, no foul, no harm, no fine, but when you have no damages at all. Usually you can do a multiple,” he continued. “Say there’s a million dollars of damages, you can give $3 million fine. But when you have zero damages, no matter how many times you multiply it, zero plus and nth times whatever, is all still zero. So it it’s outrageous. Now, I don’t know whether it’s going to be reversed in the appellate division.”
“The appellate division is also elected judges mostly by Democrats in a county which is 85% Democrat,” Dershowitz added. “The New York Court of Appeals which is the highest court may indeed come and give justice generally fines like this are reduced considerably, and that may very well happen in this case. But this tells us so much about the politicization of our justice system, the weaponization of our system and it’s so dangerous because it will mean that business people are not going to want to run for office because they know if they run for office, partisans are going to go after them, investigate them, figure out some way of getting them like overvaluating. You know, this is a judge, which over-evaluates when he wants to, $350 million for no damage, then under-evaluates when he wants to, Mar-a-Lago, $18 million. He’s just willing to manipulate the numbers to get him to the result he wanted. I hope the courts will look at this with a very, very, very stringent eye.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Criminals in Black Robes
Jack Smith wants to put Donald Trump in jail because Trump aggressively interpreted aspects of the Electoral Count Act. However, other people (not connected to Trump) were far more aggressive. They decided to completely ignore a constitutional requirement that had been firmly settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Who were those lawbreakers? They were revered justices of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. Will Jack Smith or Merrick Garland put those justices in jail? Will the Hawaii bar association suspend their licenses? Will anyone even comment on their defiance? Don’t hold your breath.
The Spirit of Aloha Legal Standard
In Hawaii, a man named Christopher Wilson was charged with a felony for violating three gun laws, but the charges were dismissed by a Hawaii circuit court in 2022. The court reasoned that the charges against Wilson violated his right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
Recently, however, the circuit court’s ruling was reversed by the Hawaii Supreme Court. According to the Epoch Times, the high court of Hawaii decided the case based upon a new legal standard:
“Article I, section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, ‘we read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.’”
The court explained its defiance by citing the Spirit of Aloha standard.
“Hawaii’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rule out an individual right to keep and bear arms under the Hawaii Constitution… The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.”
I had never heard of the Spirit of Aloha doctrine because I am not an educated justice or attorney. Without a doubt, however, many other states will soon adopt the Aloha standard, and our law schools will incorporate the doctrine in their curricula, along with coursework on micro-aggressions, DEI transgender rights for toddlers, and climate-friendly cuisine.
To me, these Hawaii justices are no more than thugs, and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, we see criminals in black robes every day and, were we to add in the many corrupt prosecutors who choose the cases heard by justices, we could probably fill a good-sized auditorium with them.
Consider how many judges (and prosecutors) violate the Constitution with regard to the recusal requirement. Recusal is not just a matter of ethics: It is a constitutional requirement.
According to the Cornell Law School.
“The Due Process clauses of the United States Constitution require judges to recuse themselves from cases in two situations:
- Where the judge has a financial interest in the case's outcome.
- Where there is otherwise a strong possibility that the judge's decision will be biased
In either case, it does not matter whether or not the judge is actually biased. What matters is that even if the judge is not biased, the high probability of bias still damages the integrity of the judicial system. Any party in a lawsuit may request that a judge recuse him or herself.”
If a judge knowingly ignores these requirements, he or she is flagrantly depriving the defendant or litigant of his or her constitutional rights. To me, that makes the judge a criminal. Let’s examine the recusal issue with respect to a few other judges and prosecutors.
Tanya Chutkan
Trump’s attorneys formally asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to recuse herself in a September 2023 motion filed with the court.
"Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned. Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying.”
As an example, the attorneys cited Chutkan’s own words with regard to the January 6 riot:
"This was nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government, by individuals who were mad that their guy lost... it's blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day."
This case has not even gone to trial, yet Chutkan has expressed regret that Trump is not in jail! It does not take a legal scholar to understand that the judge has violated the Constitution with regard to the recusal requirement.
Letitia James
Attorney General James ran for office with this promise: “We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well.” She also called Trump “an illegitimate president,” and promised that “Donald Trump’s days of defrauding Americans are coming to an end. We can spot a carnival barker.” Mind you, James said all of this prior to performing a single hour of investigation. This attorney general charged Trump with manipulating his property values to defraud his lenders. Then she took the case to the courtroom of Judge Arthur F. Engoron.
Judge Engoron
Engoron should have thrown out this case on day one -- just because of the stink of bias coming from Attorney General James and her associates.
However, Engoron is equipped with his own, personal prejudices. I believe his biases started with politics, but are now centered on saving face and protecting Engoron’s ego.
Engoron is an arrogant and hate-filled man, who is totally lacking financial, real estate, or accounting experience. Nevertheless, before hearing a single witness, or identifying a single victim, Engoron found Trump guilty of fraud, and fined him $350 million. Now, however, those early and precipitous decisions have led to problems.
When an appeals court ruled that the statute of limitations barred the prosecution of Trump with regard to several early years, Engoron should have dismissed the case, but that would have been embarrassing. So the judge found a way to partially circumvent the appeals court decision. He authorized James to support her case with information from those pre-statute years. James was happy to comply.
Then, Engoron was struck by disaster. A highly respected and qualified expert witness testified forcefully on behalf of Trump. New York University professor Eli Bartov, who has extensive accounting and financial experience, testified that the entire case was nonsense: Trump had done nothing wrong or unusual. In addition, bank officers testified that they had not been defrauded in any way.
After hearing that testimony, a less biased judge would have dismissed the case. Instead, Engoron raged like a lunatic, and he attacked the expert witness!
“Bartov is a tenured professor, but all that his testimony proves is that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say.”
In point of fact, Bartov was paid $877,500, which is a great amount of money. However, it was for countless hours spent analyzing many years of financial information and appraisals for numerous properties and companies. Engoron is a disgraceful little man for attacking the integrity and ethics of Bartov -- without a shred of evidence to support his slander.
Now, Engoron is in a quandary. He can’t dismiss the case entirely: That would be too embarrassing. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to get smacked by an appeals court.
Four Justices on the Colorado Supreme Court
By a vote of 4 to 3, Colorado’s highest court voted to remove Trump from the Colorado ballot. A junior high student would have known better. The U.S. Supreme Court will probably rule* 9 to 0 against the Colorado justices. To be fair and accurate, I am not sure this silly ruling had anything to do with bias: Perhaps it was just plain stupidity.
Lewis A. Kaplan
For hundreds of years there have been lawsuits in America, where one side wins and the other side loses. In the past, the loser retained his First Amendment right to express his disagreement with the ruling. It was taken for granted. That changed in the court of Judge Kaplan, who presided over the defamation lawsuit of E. Jean Carroll. A less biased judge would have thrown this case out immediately. We can only hope that the appeals process will result in a more reasonable decision.
Numerous Others
I am sure that we can all think of other disreputable, lawbreaking judges. It is going to take a new Justice Department and several other changes to get these criminals out of our courtrooms.
To begin the process, we must start by electing a new U.S. president.
Joe Fried is an Ohio-based CPA who has performed and reviewed hundreds of certified financial audits. He is the author of the book, Debunked? and a new book called, How Elections Are Stolen. It outlines 23 problems that must be fixed before the 2024 elections. More information can be found at https://joefriedcpa.substack.com/.
FANI WILLIS RACIST, ETHICALLY SQUALID WELL PAID HO!
ALL LAWYERS ARE LIARS. ALL ARE GAMERS OF THE LAW. ALL KNOW THE SYSTEM IS TIGHTLY RIGGED BY LAWYERS TO PROTECT THE CRIMINALLY INCLINED PIG LAWYER.
The Love Song of D.A. Fani Willis
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by poet T.S. Eliot shares the story of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man who wants to express his true feelings but is afraid to speak his mind.
“The Love Song of (Fulton County) D.A. Fani Willis” tells the tragic tale of a woman whose lust for power was exceeded by her lust for another woman’s husband, and now she faces embarrassment and possibly even legal ramifications for accusations based on her sordid affair with a married man.
Look for any parallels you might find between Eliot’s poem and the life and times of Fani Willis.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table ...
No one has ever accused Fani Willis of being the sharpest tool in the shed.
Fulton County Superior Court judge Robert McBurney said about Willis hosting a 2022 fundraiser for a Democrat candidate opposing a potential target of her investigation, “It’s a ‘What are you thinking?’ moment. The optics are horrific.”
When people believe they are above the law, they tend to do as they please. Case in point: D.A. Willis apparently hired her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to help prosecute former president Donald Trump under a RICO statute. Even though Mr. Wade has no experience trying RICO cases, she is paying him the exorbitant rate of $250 per hour. Thus far, Wade has billed the state of Georgia for more than $728,000 in legal fees. Contrast his salary with attorney John Floyd, a recognized expert on RICO prosecutions, also assigned to the Trump case, who is making $150 per hour. Mr. Wade is black, and Mr. Floyd is white.
There are only two possible explanations for why Mr. Wade should earn $100 more per hour than Mr. Floyd for doing the same work on the same case: either race played a role in the pay discrepancy or the personal relationship between Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis played a role. Ms. Willis hired her lover at the maximum hourly rate despite his lack of experience with handling such cases and has reaped the benefit of their romantic relationship by taking extravagant trips to Belize and Aruba, cruises in the Caribbean, and even a champagne and caviar tasting in Napa Valley.
What, no balloon rides? All courtesy of Georgia taxpayers.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Ms. Willis (and Mr. Wade) claims she reimbursed Mr. Wade with cash she just happened to have lying around the house. Apparently, she doesn’t have a checking account. In virtually every other instance where she reimbursed others for her personal expenses, she used Cash App instead of paying with actual cash, but in the instance of reimbursing Mr. Wade for far more money, she used actual currency — currency that never shows as being deposited into Mr. Wade’s bank.
Ms. Willis didn’t have to get involved in a political prosecution of former President Trump, but Joe Biden and the White House wanted him prosecuted, and she wanted to be a good Democrat and toe the party line. She didn’t have to hire Mr. Wade. She thought she could get away with it.
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
Ms. Willis got on the stand and may have gotten herself disbarred when she defiantly said, “Do you think I’m on trial? These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
However, she said this while on the witness stand after the allegations of her romantic involvement with Mr. Wade first surfaced, leading the judge to call for this hearing to decide whether Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade should be removed from the special prosecution or not, and it’s not looking very good for Ms. Willis.
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
Hiring your inexperienced lover and paying him considerably more than his associates is unethical and immoral, but it might not be illegal. But what is illegal is committing perjury, and that seems to be the biggest current problem for Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade. Both swore in court documents that their romantic relationship did not begin until early 2022, after Mr. Wade was hired in November 2021. However, Willis’s friend Robin Bryant-Yeartie testified under oath that she had no doubt that the relationship between Willis and Wade began as early as 2019.
When pressed about documentation or any evidence to support her claim she’d repaid Wade with cash for the extravagant vacations they’d taken together, Ms. Willis defiantly said she had her word and that the testimony of a single witness should be considered good enough. By that standard, the testimony of Ms. Bryant-Yeartie should also be accepted without corroboration.
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
Ashleigh Merchant, attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, made the allegations against Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade that culminated in the need for the hearing, and Ms. Wade was not happy with her. She said, “Ms. Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy, your Honor, not to mine,” as if the future of our right to vote depended on her integrity being questioned.
Ms. Willis appears to have made the fatal mistake of assuming the rules don’t apply to her.
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.
The prosecution of President Trump is purely political and designed to prevent him from winning the election this November. Mafia bosses running a criminal enterprise should be charged under RICO statutes, but not candidates for president. Linguini-spined Brian Kemp was content to let Willis run roughshod in the judicial system to engineer a corrupt indictment, but an astute defense attorney has accused Willis of adultery and perjury.
The evidence looks damning. We are being asked to believe, without evidence, that Ms. Willis reimbursed Mr. Wade for her half of all their travel expenses out of untraceable cash reserves she just had lying around her house — reserves that included funds she now claims she kept that were campaign contributions illegally converted to her personal use. We are being asked to believe that their affair didn’t begin until 2022 when a former associate has testified under oath that it actually began in 2019.
Just when you think it couldn’t get any more embarrassing for Fani Willis, the world discovered she was allegedly wearing her dress backwards. Even the London Daily Mail noticed.
At one point, the judge called for a five-minute recess because Ms. Willis had gotten out of control, shouting that Ms. Merchant is a liar.
Before the hearing began, the question being asked most often was whether Ms. Willis and Mr. Ward would be allowed to remain involved with the prosecution of President Trump. Now the question is whether Ms. Willis will be allowed to keep her license to practice law.
John Leonard is a freelance writer. He blogs at southernprose.com, and his books can be found at LeonardBooks.net. His latest novel is titled Atheist’s Prayer.
Image: Fani Willis. Credit: Atlanta News First via YouTube, CC BY 3.0.
Fani Willis’s and Nathan Wade’s testimony cries out for an investigation
Fani Willis’s and Nathan Wade’s testimony, to date, indicates that they allegedly engaged in the lowest form of money laundering, something that seems to have blindsided the state’s attorney general. On the facts, though, it’s clear that both need to be investigated and, perhaps, given the boot.
To frame the import of their testimony, consider that, occasionally, a pitcher will be called up from the minors in Major League Baseball. He’ll then strike out top hitters by throwing “fastballs” that peak at 70 mph. These are high-school speed pitches, but they somehow baffle big-league hitters. Why is this? Because the pitches are unexpectedly low-tech.
Thanks to scientific techniques, hitters are used to seeing pitches bearing down at them faster than 95 mph with sharp movement. When they see this slow, floating white object languidly approaching them, it confuses them, throwing off their timing and causing them to miss the ball entirely.
Viewing Fani Willis’s seeming money laundering as low-tech may explain why Georgia’s Republican Attorney General of Georgia has not already announced an investigation into her activities. In a hi-tech world, where people engage in sophisticated machinations to avoid detection, a scheme so basic and lacking in complexity confuses members of law enforcement.
Image: Fani Willis (edited). YouTube screen grab.
How low-tech was Fani’s activity? Just consider the known facts.
In politics, we often hear the phrase, “That explanation doesn’t pass the laugh test.” In Fani’s case, though, it literally failed that test as one of Trump’s co-defendants, David Shafer, laughed out loud after hearing Nathan Wade explain that Fani Willis paid cash to reimburse him for the trips and other outlays he spent on her. I’m almost surprised Ashleigh Merchant, who questioned Wade, didn’t say, “I’m sorry. I was all the way over here. I couldn’t hear you. Did you say she paid you back in cash, that’s it?”
In what universe did the chief law enforcement officer in a county of more than one million people think her explanation would fly? “Yes, I reimbursed my lover, to whom I paid hundreds of thousands in taxpayer funds, with cash. No, I don’t have a record of withdrawing the cash from a bank. No, my lover didn’t give me a receipt to show that I reimbursed him. And, no, there’s no record of my lover depositing the cash into a bank.”
Oh, OK. I guess we have to take you at your word for it, then.
Imagine for a moment that Fani Willis’ concept of ethics was to be the norm for government officials... A lobbyist for a defense contractor could drop off a new Porsche at the home of a congressman on the Defense Appropriation Committee right before that congressman voted to grant a large contract to the company the lobbyist represents. The congressman could do this despite explicit prohibitions on these gifts. Then, of course, he’d fail to report it.
Under the “Fani Willis rule,” if he were to be called out, he would just say it wasn’t a gift because he repaid the lobbyist with cash. And no, he has no record of doing so, but you should trust his word. The entire idea of an ethical framework would be rendered moot by such an interpretation.
The irony is that Donald Trump is being prosecuted in Georgia because, supposedly, he knew he lost the election but still attempted to contest the results. Now, though, we’ve learned that both Willis and Wade believe that their own personal beliefs supersede the actual law.
Wade, for example, explained that the reason he wasn’t forthcoming on his interrogatories in his divorce proceedings was because he personally believed that his marriage was irrevocably broken because his wife cheated on him in 2015, even though he was still legally married to her as of this date. At the same time, Fani admitted that she didn’t have to comply with the rules surrounding reporting gifts because, in her own mind, those weren’t really gifts. Apparently, Atlanta prosecutors get to apply their own individual standards vis-a-vis the law, but Donald Trump is not afforded that same leeway.
To date, the Georgia Republican party leadership has largely refused to intervene in this corrupt prosecution. The time for them to wake up has arrived. It’s time to square up and smack that slow floating white ball into the seats like the late great Atlanta icon Hank Aaron would have done. Such an apparently colossal breach of both ethics and the law can neither be ignored nor allowed to stand.
BIDEN IS NOTHING BUT A MEAT PUPPET FOR OBAMA - GEORGE SOROS. GOOGLE IT!
Recapping the two-tiered justice system in light of revelations that foreign intel spied on Trump associates
The Obama and Biden administrations have continually used government bureaucrats to target political opponents. The media has known this for a long time, and hasn’t cared. They pretend that Obama and Biden were clean, and that Trump was/is the “greatest threat to democracy” America has ever seen.
The story below is one of pure election interference in the 2016 election:
CIA and foreign intelligence agencies illegally targeted 26 Trump associates before 2016 Russia collusion claims: report
The US Intelligence Community asked foreign spy agencies to surveil 26 associates of Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, which triggered the allegations that the former president’s campaign had been colluding with Russia, according to a report.
Former CIA Director John Brennan identified and presented the targets to the US’s intelligence-sharing partners in the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ agencies – the intelligence-gathering organizations in the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – according to a report published Monday on Michael Shellenberger’s Public Substack.
Maybe the reason the intelligence agencies miss things like Hamas’s years-long preparation to attack Israel is because they’re more consumed with destroying politicians they don’t like.
Of course this story will not make it onto channels like CNN or MSNBC because the legacy media is complicit in the continuing election interference, doing their part and burying the truth about how corrupt our government is from the public.
Obama also used the IRS to target his political opponents who just wanted smaller government and lower taxes; the corrupt Justice Department tasked an Obama donor to conduct the pretend investigation of Lois Lerner who perjured herself and obstructed justice by destroying computers while violating the constitutional free speech and freedom of association rights of Tea Party members. Naturally, the corrupt DOJ let Lerner off because many Democrats in the Obama administration were above the law.
A report about how the Obama administration illegally spied on ordinary Americans throughout his eight years in office came out after Obama left office:
Report: Obama era NSA admits to years of illegal searches on Americans
A bombshell report claims that the NSA, under then President Obama, conducted years of illegal searches of American's private data. The report appears in the online publication Circa and details how once-classified documents show how the spy agency failed to disclose the abuses.
According to a previously classified report reviewed by Circa, one in 20 electronic communications by Americans were scooped up and kept by the NSA. The NSA admitted that the actions of the so-called 702 database potentially violated the fourth amendment protections of millions of Americans. This even after the spy agency's own supervisors agreed in 2011 to follow certain safeguards. The publication goes on to say the Obama administration self-disclosed the violations late last year just before President Donald Trump was elected. The admittance of wrongdoing was made before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Of course no one was charged for these constitutional abuses because the Justice department didn’t care. Why didn’t the media highlight this lawlessness while they campaigned for Biden and sought to destroy Trump in 2020?
Obama’s team used the Espionage Act to jail reporters’ sources, but instead of just reporting that, this article editorialized that “Trump could be worse” with no evidence to support the claim:
Obama used the Espionage Act to put a record number of reporters’ sources in jail, and Trump could be even worse
Under pressure from Congress and intelligence agencies, Attorney General Eric Holder directed the Department of Justice to aggressively prosecute government employees who discussed classified information with reporters.
Obama continually spied on journalists:
Obama Administration Secretly Obtains Phone Records of AP Journalists
The Department of Justice secretly obtained phone records for reporters and editors who work for the Associated Press news agency, including records for the home phones and cell phones of individual journalists, apparently in an effort to uncover a leak.
And here:
The Obama administration has investigated a reporter with Fox News as a probable ‘co-conspirator’ in a criminal spying case after a report based on a State Department leak.
How dare Sharyl Attkisson tell the truth about Holder and Obama!
Vendetta: How the Obama Administration Harassed Sharyl Attkisson for Her Reporting on Operation Fast and Furious
And, what about this?
Warrants to Spy on Trump Campaign Lacked Probable Cause, DOJ Admits
Turns out the FBI and Justice Department did abuse the FISA process, omit material information, and subvert justice, and the DOJ now has admitted it.
Yeah, we call that… lying.
So why didn’t a slew of people go to jail for all these crimes? Because the corrupt Justice Department didn’t care.
In 2020, 51 former intelligence officials who wanted Biden to be president, penned a letter (without evidence) that said that the Hunter Biden “Laptop from Hell” looked like Russian disinformation. This gave the media cover to hide the truth from the public.
The FBI knew by the fall of 2020 that this wasn’t true, yet contacted social media outlets to mislead them into burying the truth from the public before the election.
Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook’s decision to restrict a story about Hunter during the 2020 election was based on FBI misinformation warnings.
At this moment, Trump is fighting off how many felony charges? Close to one hundred. And, Biden officials have allegedly participated in decisions relating to these ongoing suits, as they continually claim that they are not involved. Here’s this from a Breitbart report:
Prosecutors Reportedly Met with Biden Admin Before 3 Trump Indictments
In three cases, prosecutors reportedly met with the Biden administration before indicting Trump:
Jack Smith: Miami – “Documents” Case (federal)
Fani Willis: Fulton County, Georgia (state)
The media knows about all this illegal spying and constitutional abuse by Obama and Biden, yet supports them and targets Trump. They are as big a danger to our survival as a great and free country as the corrupt government swampers themselves.
Image generated by AI.
NBC: Willis ‘Had a Strategy’ of Selective Recall YOU MEAN LIKE A LYING LAWYER???
On Thursday’s edition of NBC’s “Top Story,” host Tom Llamas and NBC Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos stated that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) had strategically poor recall when she was asked any potentially incriminating questions.
Llamas said, “She sort of had a strategy with the way she was answering questions, right? She seemed to have total recall when she could take the question head-on, and then, at other times, when it was a tough question, there was, oh, I don’t remember. There was a little bit of sort of sidetalk.”
Cevallos responded, “I hear a lot of folks saying she came out swinging, she fought back. And you know what, that’s great if you’re giving a speech or giving an interview. But I have to believe that every attorney who thinks she did a great job, I would ask, look, … would you tolerate a witness not answering your questions the way this witness did? … [T]he defense attorneys didn’t ask the proper leading questions. There’s a way to ask and limit the witness to a yes or no answer. And really, the defense attorneys could have done a better job in that area. But in terms of a witness testifying…she wasn’t following the rules of evidence. She got away with it. And you know what, she took a chance and it probably saved the day for her. Because, you’re right, she did get a message across. But if I was evaluating this strictly by the rules of evidence and what my good friends here would tolerate if they were cross-examining a witness, there’s no way.”
Later, Cevallos added, “[W]hen it came to things that could get her in trouble, she had bad recall. Have you paid your tax liens? Don’t know. But when it comes to all the continents and countries that Nathan Wade has visited, oh, she remembers that perfectly. Why? Zero risk whatsoever.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Fani Willis Campaigned in 2020 on Not Engaging in Sexual Misconduct
Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis campaigned in 2020 on not engaging in sexual misconduct, as her predecessor was accused of doing.
The irony of Willis’s campaign promise was evident after allegations of her own affair surfaced, along with financial implications.
When asked in 2020 about her qualifications to be elected Fulton County’s prosecutor, Willis said, “Because they deserve a DA that won’t have sex with his employees, because they deserve a DA that won’t put money in their own pocket when it should go to benefit children. Because we deserve better.”
Willis won in the general election on November 3, 2020, dislodging a longtime former county prosecutor accused of corruption. She assumed office on January 1, 2021. Her term will end on December 31, 2024.
In 2023, Trump and codefendant Mike Roman accused Willis of maintaining an improper romantic relationship with her top Trump case prosecutor, Nathan Wade.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis arrives to speak at a news conference at the Fulton County Government building on August 14, 2023, in Atlanta, Georgia. A grand jury today handed up an indictment naming former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies over an alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in the state (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).
Wade testified Thursday that his relationship with Willis began in 2022 after Willis opened the case against Trump in 2021. But former Fulton County District Attorney employee and Willis’s college friend, Robin Yeartie, said she was definitely in a relationship with Nathan Wade since 2019, contradicting Wade and Willis:
Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak further analyzed Thursday’s hearing:
But it was Willis who was in the spotlight — and she performed abominably, throwing a tantrum on the witness stand that led the judge to call a five minute recess to regain order. She corroborated Wade’s claim that she had reimbursed his expenses for her with cash — but could provide no receipts for cash withdrawals from her bank (nor did Wade provide receipts for cash deposits).
Her claim that she only developed a romantic relationship with Wade after he joined the Trump case seemed to hinge on the nebulous definition of what a romantic relationship is and whether it involved sexual intercourse. Former friend Robin Bryant-Yeartie testified that Willis and Wade had a relationship as early as 2019; both denied that — but then, of course, they would.
Willis also tried to claim that she did not need to declare on disclosure forms that she had received gifts — meals, or travel — in excess of a net of $100, in aggregate, over a calendar year because she had paid her own way and paid for some of his expenses. In one bizarre admission, she seemed to suggest she had taken cash from one of her campaigns for public office for personal use. And she struggled to reconcile her campaign promise not to have sex with subordinates with the fact that she had clearly done so with Wade; she tried arguing at first that he was an “agent” rather than an “employee,” though he remained in charge of his work.
If the presiding judge determines Willis engaged in an actual conflict of interest with her lover and fellow prosecutor, Willis would be removed from the case, handing former President Donald Trump a massive victory in the Georgia election interference case.
RELATED — CNN’s Honig: Willis Should ‘Step Aside’; She’s Prejudiced Jury Pool, Dodged Key Questions on Conflict of Interest
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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