(Update: Since this story was originally published, SADA Nathan Wade has resigned)
Georgia Judge Scott McAfee orders Fulton County DA Fani Willis to fire Special Assistant District Attorney (SADA) Nathan Wade for the mere appearance of impropriety. Meanwhile, the serial billionaire-gift recipient, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sits untroubled in the sewer of his blatant avarice.
Chief Justice John Roberts, reacting to the patent venality of his conservative teammates, was shamed into publishing a code of conduct for the nation’s highest court. What was the point? It contains no enforcement mechanisms. The only way to remove a self-dealing Justice remains impeachment — with its unattainable 2/3 of the Senate standard for effectuation.
McAfee gave Trump and his co-defendants in the Georgia election-fixing case 2½ days to produce evidence proving Willis was profiting from her prosecution. Or that she was funneling taxpayer money to Wade for his benefit. Or that she had lied about the start date of her romance with Wade. Or ….
They could not do it.
Clarence Thomas faces no such inquisition. Samuel Alito is free from consequence. Neil Gorsuch is immune to censure. Charges that Kavanaugh was a financially compromised drunk and sexual predator were waved away (see Thomas vs Anita Hill). And Amy Coney Barrett overturning Roe, after she implied under oath that she revered stare decisis, is dismissed as no biggie.
I am not saying that Judge McAfee got it wrong. Willis did make an unfortunate choice. She should have known that she would be under a microscope. And should have been aware that picking your lover to be part of your professional team would lead to the brouhaha it did.
But if we want to hold our legal professionals to a high ethical standard, we must start at the top. It makes no sense to tell a local prosecutor she has to follow the rules when the legal apex-dwellers can feather nests without review or penalty.
No doubt the party of family values is ‘scandalized’ by the possibility sex clouded Willis's thinking. But where is this moral perturbation when a SCOTUS justice shares a bed with a committed election denier and insurrection cheerleader? No one is asking Clarence to divorce Ginny.
But as long as he refuses to recuse himself from cases where he has an actual conflict of interest, not just the appearance of impropriety, the punishment meted out on Willis radiates judicial hypocrisy.
Making Willis fire Wade while the Supreme Court dismissed judicial ethics as inconvenient is like curing cancer with wart remover. Nobody wants warts. But, given the choice between aesthetics and life, most people would rather tackle the real problem.