Fani, Flagged In Georgia, Con't

With their signature "rogue prosecution" law having been passed and having taken effect as of October 1, Georgia state Republicans are now trying to shut down Fulton County DA Fani Willis's RICO fraud case against Donald Trump and his inner circle of co-conspirators.

 

Georgia Senate Republicans filed a formal complaint to punish Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she sought charges against former President Donald Trump under a new law aimed at sanctioning “rogue” prosecutors.

The complaint contends Willis “improperly cherry-picked cases to further her personal political agenda” and asks the newly formed Prosecuting Attorneys Qualification Commission to initiate an investigation and take “appropriate measures” to sanction her.

“The integrity of our justice system is at stake, and the trust of the community in the District Attorney’s Office has been severely eroded,” states the complaint, which a group of eight state senators submitted hours after the law took effect Oct. 1.

The Republicans don’t specifically mention Trump in the complaint, but they sought to link a spate of deaths in the Fulton County Jail to Willis’ decision to “empanel a special grand jury to investigate her political adversaries” amid a yearslong backlog of cases.

Willis, who has criticized the law as racist and retaliatory, declined to comment through a spokesman. But she has long said that she can balance the high-profile trials in the Trump case with the other demands of her office.

The complaint sharpened an already deep rift over Trump among state Republicans.

Gov. Brian Kemp, a chief sponsor of the law, has repeatedly said there’s no evidence Willis should face any sanctions by the commission for bringing the indictment against Trump and his allies alleging they participated in a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Kemp, however, has criticized the timing of the charges.

“I haven’t seen anything that she has done that has broken the law or the procedures that we have. And I’ve been very honest with people about that,” Kemp said in a recent interview. “It may be a political action she’s taken in some ways, with timing and other things, but it doesn’t mean it’s illegal.”

But the GOP-controlled state Senate has forcefully broken from that approach. Senate leaders encouraged their constituents to file complaints with the commission against Willis shortly after she announced the indictment in August.

And last week, Senate Republicans launched a probe into dangerous conditions at the Fulton County Jail that is expected to scrutinize Willis’ handling of the backlog of cases that worsened during the coronavirus pandemic.

The document, reviewed Monday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was filed by a group that included Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch and state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, another high-ranking Republican in the chamber.

The complaint contends that Willis has “prioritized cases that align with her political party’s interests” rather than on the merits of each case. And it invokes the 10 inmates who have died in Fulton County custody in the past year.

 

Republicans can't let Fani Willis prosecute the case, or Trump will destroy them. They have to punish her or their political careers will be ended. That's where we are right now, even though this investigation will most likely go nowhere as far as the Trump case.

 

But they can make it very difficult for Willis and frankly, since Georgia Republicans are writing the laws and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on the legislation, an investigation into her office right now could very well sink the case completely on a technicality or "prosecutorial misconduct". Anything to get Trump off the hook.

 

And if you think Brian Kemp is going to play along when he's told his career ends if he doesn't, he will fall in line in the end. They always do.

We'll see where this goes.