In case you haven’t noticed, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has been kicking ass and taking names. And she’s not targeting the usual suspects on the streets. Because she’s going after the presumed untouchables in the C-suites too.
Tish humbles Trump and LaPierre
It was another day of eye-popping courtroom victories for New York State Attorney General Letitia James on Friday. A jury in Manhattan found top executives of the National Rifle Association liable after a six-week corruption lawsuit that she brought against the men. …
Just hours earlier a state judge in New York City finalized a ruling in another case brought by James, ordering former President Donald Trump to pay a total of $454 million in penalties linked to fraud allegations.
(NPR, February 23, 2024)
Hail, Tisha! The veritable slayer of crooked White men. Take notes, Fani – this is how you do it.
It takes a (Black) woman
Nearly two years ago, I posed this forlorn question: “Are Women Prosecutors the Only Ones Who Are Going to Hold Trump Accountable?” September 24, 2022.
But then came Jack Smith, going after Donald Trump like Eliot Ness going after Al Capone. And, with all due respect to James, her colleague Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, might be the first to get a criminal conviction against Trump.
WTF, Fani
Fulton County DA Fani Willis was the other heroine I hailed back then. Alas, she’s now caught up in a scandal, effectively hoisted by her own petard. Instead of prosecuting Trump like James, Willis has been defending herself.
Trump engages in congenital projection, which invariably amounts to a public confession. But there’s no denying his uncanny knack for frustrating his enemies. James overcame that knack. Willis is falling prey to it.
Nathan Wade appeared to make at least 35 visits to the Hapeville neighborhood where Fani Willis was living before the district attorney hired him to lead Fulton County’s election interference prosecution, according to cellphone data included in a court submission filed Friday.
The filing, by attorneys for Donald Trump, raises fresh questions about the relationship between the two prosecutors, which the former president and other defendants argue has tainted the case against them and should result in Willis and her office being disqualified.
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 24, 2024)
Ironically, I argued at the outset that Trump had met his match in Willis. And she proved me right when she took the stand to testify in her own defense on February 15.
But it’s no compliment for a prosecutor to act like Trump in any context. Instead of emulating Trump’s combative defensiveness, Willis should have emulated James’s prosecutorial deftness.
She might overcome the Trumpian efforts to disqualify her. But, instead of taking the stand, she should’ve recused herself. Now, I fear, her reputation has suffered irreparable harm.