Via Nicole LaFond at Talking Points Memo, there’s a report Georgia Republicans having been working on a plan for two years that would ‘discipline’ her and possibly remove her from office:
The Associated Press published a story last night headlined: Kemp signs Georgia law reviving prosecutor sanctions panel. Democrats fear it’s aimed at Fani Willis. The piece announces the news that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed a new law Wednesday that will allow the state’s Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission to begin disciplining and even ousting local prosecutors it deems to have gone “rogue.”...
...While it hasn’t yet reviewed any actual cases, one of the first complaints filed with the new commission was against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Eight Georgia Senate Republicans filed the complaint with the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission mere weeks after Willis’ office indicted Donald Trump and 18 allies on state racketeering charges, among other things.
This is a standard GOP tactic wherever they control state legislatures. Let Democrats achieve any kind of political power, whether it be in city governments or in a state level office, they pass state laws intended to rein them in. (It’s a fundamental GOP principle that only government run by Republicans is legitimate.) A city might pass worker protection laws only to have them overridden by the state. A Democratic governor may find his office suddenly stripped of critical powers. In Wisconsin, when an election shifted the balance on the state’s highest court, Assembly leader Robin Dos (R) threatened impeachment before backing down. (And Vos is now facing recall for not supporting Trump strongly enough!)
The Georgia law that might take out Willis has been in the works for a while, and backers are very clear about what it is meant to do. Via La Fond at TPM:
...Kemp and Georgia Republicans began pushing the initiative back in 2022 when other Republican governors were looking for ways to enact control over district attorneys whose enforcement they didn’t like. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was one of the primary ones pushing this at the time as he went after a local DA who said he wouldn’t prosecute people seeking abortions.
But the long game was clear from the start, which is why the AP’s headline on Democratic concern for Willis was so striking to me. Before Willis brought any charges against Trump or his allies and before the defendants in that case dragged her through hours of testimony on a romantic relationship she had with one of the prosecutors on the Trump case, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made it clear that the bill to create the commission was being introduced as a proactive retribution plan in the event that Willis brought charges against Trump. I unpacked that more here.
Judge Scott McAfee has ruled Willis can stay on the case — if she fires Nathan Wade.
“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed," the judge wrote.
"Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.”
Who are these ‘reasonable people’ of whom he speaks? IOKIYAR is going to be written into the Constitution if Trump returns to the White House, right along with IACIYAD. The courts are not going to save us.