The case brought against former President Donald Trump in the state of Georgia is looking worse and worse. Oh, not for him. For everyone else who is involved that brought the case against him in the first place. And all of the corruption in the matter seems to have connections to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. For example, Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, donated $150 to Willis’ campaign just prior to being assigned to the case.
Yeah, that’s not a good look. I know folks will say the amount of money is small, but that’s not the point. He’s obviously a fan of Willis and her work, thus, there is a conflict of interest with him overseeing the case. If he holds similar values as Willis and supports her, he’s more likely to side with her during the trial. It’s a violation of Trump’s constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. This man should have never been allowed on the case.
via Daily Caller:
McAfee, who was sworn in on Feb. 1, 2023 after being appointed by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, made his donation in June 2020 while still working as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to financial disclosures. He will soon have to decide whether Willis should be disqualified over allegations that she financially benefited from appointing her romantic partner, Nathan Wade, to work on the Trump case.
McAfee also formerly worked under Fani Willis when she led the complex trial division in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, according to the New York Times.
Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Philip Holloway told the Daily Caller News Foundation McAfee’s donation was “nominal,” but said it should still have been disclosed to the defendants so they could determine “whether they believed that amounted to a conflict of interest on the part of the judge.”
“The donation itself is more or less a token amount and was made prior to his becoming a judge,” he went on to say. “But failure to disclose to the defendants a political donation to the prosecutor can be seen as a present appearance of a conflict of interest. Judges are required to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
The good news is, despite the donation to her political campaign, McAfee has delivered more than a few unfavorable decisions to the district attorney, even going so far as to reprimand her for the way she behaved while delivering testimony of her own.
Just a week ago, McAfee also presided over a hearing from Trump’s co-defendant Michael Roman concerning a motion to have Willis disqualified from the case. He shot down her request to cancel that very hearing.
McAfee’s other donations include $200 to Kemp’s campaign in 2018 and $200 to Republican state representative candidate Lyndsey Rudder’s campaign in 2020, according to financial disclosures. McAfee’s wife donated $99 to Willis’ campaign in 2020 and $101 in 2018.
During the primary, Willis was running against former Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. Andrew Fleischman, an Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney, disagreed that the donation needed to be disclosed to the defense.
“It is such a routine part of how Georgia judges and attorneys interact that I don’t think it should have been disclosed, necessarily, past the mandatory disclosures,” he said in comments given to the DCNF.
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