Fani Willis and a Tale of Two Ethics Violations
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
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Summary
The future of the Fulton County, Georgia election subversion case against Donald J. Trump and many many accused co-conspirators was cast into doubt this week as the court saw evidentiary hearings in the defence’s motion to disqualify Fulton County AG Fani Willis. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s chief Law of Trump correspondent Jeremy Stahl to discuss why, even with a very high bar for removing Willis from the case, the court was dragged through some tawdry details that are bound to come back to hurt the prosecution, one way or another.
Later in the show, executive director and co-founder of Court Accountability, Alex Aronson, talks with Dahlia about what could possibly be done to make Supreme Court justices follow reasonable recusal guidelines (we’re looking at you, Justice Thomas), and whether the American electorate might at last be finding an appetite for court reform.
In the Slate Plus segment, Jeremy returns to the podcast martini lounge to discuss what might be the first Trump case to reach a criminal trial. They also discuss the latest on Trump’s claim of blanket immunity.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're confused. You think I'm on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. |
| 0:07.5 | This is a spectacular cell phone. |
| 0:09.5 | I'm not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. |
| 0:12.8 | And this is something that really, really puts this prosecution at risk. |
| 0:18.6 | Given these entanglements between Thomas and the broader mega movement, I think it's just not close in |
| 0:24.0 | terms of whether his impartiality may reasonably be questioned by an |
| 0:27.2 | impartial observer. |
| 0:30.3 | Hi and welcome back to Amagus. This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and |
| 0:37.3 | the Supreme Court end the over 65 days that Donald Trump has managed to delay his criminal trial in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:45.0 | with dumb stalling tactics and really bad legal arguments. |
| 0:50.0 | I am Dahlia Lethwick and I cover the courts and the law for Slate. |
| 0:54.4 | And I actually want to pause for a moment to uncharacteristically thank those of you who just |
| 0:59.8 | signed up as Slate Members members last week. |
| 1:03.1 | We see you and we are really grateful that you see us too. |
| 1:07.8 | So in last week's two shows, we dove pretty deep into the law of Trump as it intersects with the Supreme Court. |
| 1:16.0 | In a pair of cases, the aforementioned appeal of blanket immunity claim in the January 6th prosecution |
| 1:22.4 | that's being tried in the District of |
| 1:24.2 | Columbia and in a second case out of the Colorado Supreme Court about whether the |
| 1:28.8 | 14th Amendment might keep the former president who is known in his legal filings merely as the president, off |
| 1:36.4 | the ballot in that state. |
| 1:38.6 | Both cases were and are dogged by the unshakable truth that one of the nine justices hearing both |
| 1:45.3 | appeals is married to a person who believed on January 6th and still evidently |
... |
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