Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade recently made public their relationship. In other news: water is wet, ice is cold, and the Earth is round. In other words: Big deal.
The personal relationship between a pair of consenting adults is as much breaking news as finding out that the Atlanta Falcons won’t be partaking in the Super Bowl next week in Las Vegas. It’s a nothing burger with fries.
Willis hired Wade while dating him. Smart? No. Unethical? Slightly, yes. Illegal? Not one bit. The Jan. 2, 2021 phone call that a certain former President of the United States of America Donald J. Trump made to the current Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was however quite dumb, unethical, and illegal. The allegations made by Michael Roman, a former Trump staffer from 2017 to 2018, that Willis had or is having what he referred to in the complaint he filed as an “improper and clandestine” relationship with Wade.
Whether or not the relationship was “improper” is a matter of opinion. That should not distract anyone, especially Willis, the first Black female district attorney in the history of Fulton County, the largest county in the state of Georgia, from doing her job as a prosecutor. Trump, Roman, and the 17 others who face charges for election fraud should have to pay for their crimes the same way any of us would have if we were dumb enough to make that phone call to Raffensperger, for example.
This past Friday I recently spent an hour on the radio in Chicago, WVON-1690AM, to be more specific. During the Matt McGill Show, which was hosted by former Illinois State Representative Ken Duncan in McGill’s absence, I explained my thoughts on Willis, Wade, and the allegations. Duncan and I took calls from interested listeners: some thought Willis should remove herself from the case, while others thought the relationship had nothing to do with the facts of the case against Trump and the others. The final caller we took during my time on the show, let’s call him Mitch, said there was a clear conflict of interest and that Willis should remove herself from the prosecution team. I made a futile attempt to explain to Mitch that an example of a conflict of interest might be a lawyer prosecuting his or her husband or wife. Or a doctor operating on one of his children. Mitch didn’t buy it. He said I was choosing a side and I sounded biased. I further explained that journalists are unbiased in their reporting. As the editor-in-chief of the only print Black-owned newspaper in Atlanta, I could not afford to jeopardize my position as a truth-teller.
After Mitch’s call was done and my time on the radio show was over I took a moment to think about what he said. His expectations for the Fulton County District Attorney prosecuting a case against a former United States President were high and he believed she might have ruined the case because of a relationship with a member of her prosecution team. I agree with Mitch that the relationship could have waited, but that still doesn’t make it illegal or reason enough to step away from what is arguably the most high-profile case in the country.
Rocks are hard. Fire is hot. The Falcons didn’t make the playoffs. Nothing to see here people. Don’t allow distractions to muddy the legal waters. Trump will have his day in court in Fulton County. Fani Willis, Nathan Wade, and the rest of the special prosecution team will be there to do their jobs.
In more news, Atlanta traffic is bad. See, nothing to see here.