Fani Willis Rolls On
Solomonic Lessons from the Georgia Sideshow
Today, Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Fani Willis could stay on the case against Trump in Georgia, provided Nathan Wade leaves the prosecution team. It’s a judgement that proves the adage about Solomon splitting the baby is routinely misapplied. In Solomon’s case, he made a shockingly clean but injudicious decision to avoid a revoltingly messy outcome. Here, Judge McAfee made an unnecessarily messy decision because he was trying to look judicious — but whatever. No one really thought this guy was Solomon anyway, and in the end, Fani Willis gets to stay on the hunt.
Good.
Personally, were I the judge, I would have tossed aside the charges against Willis months ago and told the adversaries to stay focused on their roles in the case against Trump and his associates. I’d have made the judgement that — as a white guy in Georgia — there was zero chance that ANY good would come out of publicly examining the private, sexual, and financial lives of prominent Black professionals in an already highly polarized and racialized historical and legal milieu. Even admitting that I shared a hint of suspicion that, for some reason, an attorney and political leader as accomplished as Fani Willis would stoop to using a combination of sexual persuasion and political clout to extort and manipulate a colleague — who is also a man of substance, means, and power — for paid vacations is just offensive on its surface. It plays WAY too hard into the Jezebel / Wild Buck stereotypes of Black sexuality, and even considering it — I’d have surmised from the offing — would only turn my courtroom into a pathetic sideshow of shadow-play racism for weeks on end. But I’m not Judge McAfee — so here we are, two months after this unnecessary stupidity began, with the trial again moving forward.
Ugh, what a silly distraction.
Defenders of Trump — and even a sizable percentage of Democrats who can’t seem to silence their inner Karens no matter how hard they try and no matter how hard they work at it — will continue to harp on the “appearance of impropriety” and the “taint of suspicion” that lingers over the case moving forward. Undoubtedly, there will be Sunday talk show guests aplenty to sagaciously weigh in about Fani Willis’s “lack of judgement” and Monday morning quarterbacks galore to whinge about how she’s left this case vulnerable upon appeal. But, honest to Christ, all of that bullshit should be tossed out the front window like so much Medieval London nightslop.
Whatever Fani Willis did or didn’t do, whatever her choices were, pale to ghostly transparency when compared against the manifest impropriety waged on Donald Trump’s behalf by the fishbelly white Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, and our field team of national overseers — John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Beerbong Kavanaugh — on the Supreme Court.
So, after this brief comment, count me out of any further discussions on Fani Willis’s case in Fulton County. America clearly is facing a crisis of legitimacy in the judicial system, but it’s not caused by dating D.A.s on vacation. The bitter gall of corruption in America comes from one political party hoisting ideologues into positions of power and influence when they are politically beholden to the very forces driving our nation away, at light speed, from a foundational commitment that no one is above the law.
THAT is the fucking problem: Not Fani Willis.
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The other lesson people like me might want to take from this whole silly affair is far less erudite: Look, white folks, just don’t mess with powerful, brilliant, Black women like Fani Willis. She didn’t get where she is in this life through nepotism, favoritism, or structural ladders built to benefit people like her. She got there by working ten times harder and being ten times smarter than the competition. When you see someone like that who can be your champion — get behind her. When you oppose someone like that, do your best to honor their journey and stay the hell out of their crosshairs.
And if you’re the judge and some prattling gossipmonger suggests you look into her private affairs for sexual and financial mismanagement — be smart enough to wave that shit aside and get back to the business at hand.
Solomon sure as hell would have.
Onward.
