Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis took another big hit when a judge tossed out six of the charges in her election interference case, three against presumptive GOP nominee Donald J. Trump, another setback for the Resistance.
Willis, who faces disqualification over her sordid relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade, could be disqualified from her own sweeping racketeering case as early as this week and her “bad lawyering” earned her a spanking from CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.
On Wednesday’s edition of “The Lead,” Honig joined anchor Jake Tapper to discuss the latest developments in the rapidly deteriorating case after Judge Scott McAfee threw out the changes brought under the state’s RICO act because they were lacking in detail.
(Video: CNN)
Asked by Tapper to explain the judge’s decision, Honig said, “So, Jake, the very fundamental purpose of an indictment is to serve notice, to notify the defendant, ‘Here is what you are charged with doing that was illegal.’ And in this case, the six charges, they all relate to a sort of unusual Georgia law that makes it a crime to ask a public official to violate his oath of office.”
“The way those charges are charged in the indictment here, it says, ‘Well, the defendants tried to get certain Georgia public officials to violate the Constitution,'” he continued. “And the judge said, ‘That’s not specific enough because there are dozens, if not hundreds, of separate provisions in the Constitution. So, you haven’t adequately informed the defendants what actual crime they are specifically being charged with,’ that’s why the judge, threw out those six counts.
“Could they have been written in such a way that they would have stood this test?” Tapper asked.
“Absolutely,” Honig answered. “And quite easily,” explaining what in his expert opinion, prosecutors should have done to the visibly disappointed anchor.
“So, is it just bad lawyering?” Tapper asked. “I don’t understand.”
“It is bad lawyering. That’s exactly what it is…” Honig replied. “It is true that this will not, this dismissal will not change the broad contours of the case, will not really change the evidence that prosecutors can use, but the DA’s office, prosecutors, they’re the ones who control the indictment. They’re the ones who draft it. The DA’s office is the one who’s been telling us, ‘This is the most important indictment we’ve ever seen. This indictment will vindicate the cause of democracy,’ Yet they make an amateurish error like this, an unforced error.”
“That’s entirely on them. And I think it undermines their credibility, their competency, and the seriousness of this office,” he said, a rebuke of Big Fani.
Earlier in the day, Honig also criticized the embattled Democrat DA.
“I don’t think this ruling changes the type of evidence that the DA’s going to be able to introduce, but it does knock out some of the charges and look, it’s embarrassing for prosecutors,” he told host Jim Acosta. “It’s a screwup by prosecutors when you bring a charge and then a judge throws it out before it even goes to trial.”
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