Hey everyone, Ellie here, another Friday.

Thanks again for checking us out.

I think one of the things that I can offer that I believe is most helpful to you, the audience,

based on what I've heard from you, is when I can give you a look under the hood

of the prosecutorial strategy and prosecutorial practice. And I think this is one of those weeks.

We've been seeing a lot of headlines out of Georgia. And I think if we just sort of stop

reading after the top headline, we're not getting the full story. And so this week, what I'm

going to do is bring you my

prosecutor's experience to dig a little deeper and show you why one of the big headlines that

you've been seeing isn't quite correct, especially given some more recent development. So I hope

you find this interesting and insightful. As always, I do love hearing from you. Please keep sending me your thoughts, questions, comments to letters at cafe.com.

All this flipping down in Fulton County is not quite what it seems.

Over the past two weeks, District Attorney Fonnie Willis has reached plea deals with, as of the time of this recording,

four of the 19 defendants in her sprawling indictment of Donald Trump and others for their effort to steal the 2020 election. That number could change. By the time you hear that, we have been seeing

these pleas come in quickly and sometimes unexpectedly, but as of this moment, it's four. On the surface,

these guilty pleas look like good news for the DA, tangible signs of progress, and validation of the

case itself. Worse yet for Donald Trump, all the pled out defendants have agreed to testify.

Walls are closing in, right? Maybe not. There's still a lot we don't know, standard disclaimer,

but especially relevant here. But when we dig into the available facts, there's reason to question whether the plea deals,

one, are just and serious outcomes, and two, actually advance the DA's case against Donald Trump.

As you can probably sense, I'm skeptical on both of those counts.

Let's start with the good news for Fonnie Willis.

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