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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt was Judge McAfee who created the 'odor of mendacity' in Fulton by allowing the DA's sex life into open court
Mendacity. What do you know about mendacity? I could write a book on it...Mendacity. Look at all the lies that I got to put up with. - from 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof '...McAfee took a cue from Robert Hur and didn't just acquit Fani Willis of charges of impropriety in her relationship with Nathan Wade, but used his order to deride and denigrate the accused, even though his own order says she and her lead attorney did nothing materially that affected the prosecution or denied the defendants their rights in any way.
Despite being unable to find any law, employee regulation, or anything in jurisprudence that prohibits two consenting adults on the same side of a case from having a relationship, McAfee gratuitously took the opportunity, anyway, without any legal guide or provision to trash the DA who is bringing a racketeering case forward for his own predilections against consenting sexual relations among the prosecution team.
He proclaimed in his ruling that his finding by no means an indication that the Court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the District Attorneys testimony, and he chastized the DA for what he derisively described in his decision as an "odor of mendacity.'
McAfee took pains to admonish Fani Willis for behavior in court that was cautioned by the judge at the time, but not penalized or even brought anywhere near the contempt you'd expect for such a slap down at DA Willis in the ruling.
It reads like a report card and not a court judgment which was supposed to determine the validity of the complaint, with the burden squarely on the defense to prove their case, not subject the prosecutor to a false and unfruitful effort to get her and her partner to lie on the stand and then pass non-legal, arbitrary judgments against the accused when you're compelled to deny the complaint in the end.
Let's not forget this is a judge up for reelection, and the slander in that order should be seen as a political statement, just as Hur used his own exoneration to make politically-charged commentary in his report before he quit and left town to ostensibly continue to be a partisan republican-enabling attorney.
It wasn't just that McAfee went to even further lengths in his decision to suggest other avenues that the defense might pursue to advantage their defense of the character assassination of their prosecutor he allowed in his courtroom over a consensual relationship which he ultimately ruled didn't affect the defendants in any material way.
It's that he seems to believe his own shit doesn't stink; himself an elected republican who conducted these hearings as if Fani Willis was on trial, instead of the election-interfering fellow republicans before him - not to mention the good-old boy network of Ga. attorneys he allowed to comb through the DA's sex life as if it was already determined to be relevant in any way to the complaint, or supported by something more than the hearsay testimony that proceeded the questioning of Ms. Willis.
McAfee had the depositions of everyone, and he could clearly see and determine the validity of the complaint from those depositions, and we know this because nothing new was offered or revealed in open court by the defense.
What occurred was a fishing expedition by the defense, advantaged by the judge, to try and get these prominent and distinguished witnesses and accused to lie or change their stories. It was a complete circus, and as backward as anything I'd ever expect from a post-civil rights Southern court with an all-white defense trying to muddy up the black woman prosecuting their party's election-denying defendants.
What other personal detail of this prosecutor's life which has zero bearing on the racketeering trial will this Trump-enabling, prosecution-smearing judge allow to derail the case before him?
___Boy, I've lived with mendacity. Now why can't you live with it? You've got to live with it. There's nothin' to live with but mendacity. Is there?

SoFlaBro
(3,690 posts)JoseBalow
(8,672 posts)
Silent Type
(11,432 posts)Willis or Wade could have a said that they did nothing wrong, trump is still a POS, but to move case along, one or both were resigning/recusing.
I dont think this mess is over, and wouldnt be surprised if the Democrats running against Willis and McAfee make a big deal over this mess in the upcoming election.
Stinky The Clown
(68,822 posts)Mike Niendorff
(3,631 posts)It was evident to any sane observer that the claimed "financial conflict" was a bogus and frivolous claim from the start.
There was absolutely ZERO need for the judge to conduct any hearings of any kind in order to make that determination -- and as a competent judge HE KNEW THAT.
So why go through this whole circus?
Well, there's a very obvious reason, and it's staring everyone in the face as we speak.
This Republican judge did this **to provide a pretext** for an "appearance of impropriety" claim by Kemp's DA-removal commission.
It's exactly that simple.
Expect a removal action by that commission to be incoming at high speed as the case picks back up.
This is how corruption works when the judge doesn't want to be **quite** as blatant as Cannon -- after all, he is still up for reelection in Fulton County -- but he still wants to play ball for the broader Republican team effort to protect the criminal leadership and the overall criminal enterprise.
MDN
bigtree
(92,991 posts)...and it's a sure bet they try to make up some standard that doesn't yet exist in Ga. law to apply it to Fani Willis.
There's still a lengthy process for them to go through before even considering taking some action against her, and DA Willis is joined in defense against the presumed authority of this particular commission by many other DAs.
But I agree that this judge did his best to give them a pretext to sanction her.
I would note that republicans jumped the gun and recommended action against her just weeks after Willis office indicted Donald Trump and 18 others. It was a clear bastardization of the law which established the commission with it's clear political complaint about prosecuting the ex-president.
Moreover, Gov. Kemp spoke at length about his rejection of plans to use the commission against state prosecutors. State republicans on the committee have a 'lookey here' plan to make a new complaint based on the gratuitous, contradictory language he included in his finding of no material harm to the defendant.
So yeah, there's that.
ecstatic
(34,958 posts)NBachers
(18,949 posts)Patton French
(1,792 posts)Despite his pro trump rulings. Someone needs to figure this out.
triron
(22,240 posts)Law.
bigtree
(92,991 posts)H2O Man
(78,082 posts)Recommended.
Patton French
(1,792 posts)OMG. Talk about conflicts of interest.