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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
A co-defendant in former President Donald Trump’s RICO case in Fulton County, Ga., has made a stunning claim about District Attorney Fani Willis, according to a report published on Monday.
A court filing claimed that Nathan Wade, a private attorney who is acting as a special prosecutor in the case, paid for vacations he allegedly took with Willis using money the county paid his law firm as compensation for work on the case. The report said that his firm has been paid around $650,000.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the motion was filed on behalf of co-defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official. The paper said that the filing, however, “offers no concrete proof of the romantic ties between Willis and Wade, except to say ‘sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship.’”
The motion requests that the court dismiss all charges against Roman and for Wade, as well as the DA’s entire team, be “disqualified from further prosecution of the case,” the paper continued.
The motion also claimed that some of the alleged activity could constitute “honest services fraud, a federal crime in which a vendor gives kickbacks to an employer.”
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The AJC went on to speculate that Roman could have filed the motion to “simply muddy the waters by questioning Willis’ professional ethics,” though at this point, there is no evidence that presumption is accurate, either.
“Multiple co-defendants in the case have flipped and have agreed to testify against the others. Some of those who have flipped include multiple attorneys who represented Trump after the 2020 election,” The Daily Wire noted.
In an interview with CNN’s Nick Valencia ahead of the Christmas holiday, Willis was asked if the current 2024 GOP frontrunner would go to prison if he’s convicted, to which she responded that she would ask the court for an appropriate sentence because “no one gets a special break.”
“I know that in the media, and even in the world, we like instant gratification. The judicial process is a long process, and so we’ll be here with that case for a while,” she said, according to Mediaite.
Valencia responded: “When I get asked that I’m covering the story, many people say, you know, the former president is already gone to jail. Will he see prison time? What do you think about that?”
“I think that everyone in society is the same, and I don’t know why that’s such a difficult concept for people,” she replied. “You can look at the charges, and based on those charges, we’ll be recommending appropriate sentences. No one gets a special break because of their status.”
But in fact, Trump, as a former president, is not the same as the vast majority of Americans. He is statutorily protected 24/7/365 by Secret Service agents, a fact that, in and of itself, makes any potential jail term problematic, logistically speaking.
One former agent-turned-conservative broadcaster and author, Dan Bongino, explained the concept during a show in August when he advised the former president to refuse a bond when he faced a judge after he was indicted and force Willis to put him behind bars, adding that these “crazy times” called for “different, crazy, bold approaches.”
“Folks, I don’t think the Trump team should post the bond. I don’t,” he began.
“Fani Willis wants to be a smarta** tyrant, little socialist communist like she is down in Fulton County, Georgia? Don’t post. Don’t post the bond,” Bongino, also a former NYPD officer, continued. “You’re gonna jail him? Let’s elect our first political prisoner. Go ahead. Go to jail. Let the Secret Service shut the entire jail down, and we’ll see how long you’re willing to keep this charade going.”
“Let them put him in jail for a bit — folks, I know it sounds crazy,” he added, saying that the Secret Service had the authority under federal law to declare anything a protected area — even a jail — and that if the former president were to spend any time there, they would have to do that.”
