On Tuesday, the flagship morning news shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC refused to acknowledge a Monday night bombshell revelation via one of the 18 co-defendants of former President Trump in his Fulton County, Georgia case that the county’s district attorney office should be barred from prosecuting them due to an inappropriate romantic relationship between lead D.A. Fani Willis and a man brought on as a special prosecutor.
Not surprisingly, the Fox News Channel, Newsmax, and NewsNation had been all over this, including on shows such as (but not limited to): Dan Abrams Live, Fox & Friends: First, Fox & Friends, Fox News @ Night, Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, National Report, and Wake Up America.
Even the far-left Atlanta Journal-Constitution took it seriously. Here was its lead: “District Attorney Fani Willis improperly hired an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Donald Trump and financially benefited from their relationship, according to a court motion filed Monday which argued the criminal charges in the case were unconstitutional.”
Reporters Bill Rankin and Tamar Hallerman explained that “[t]he bombshell public filing” from Trump 2020 campaign official Michael Roman’s lawyer claimed “special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a private attorney, paid for lavish vacations he took with Willis using the Fulton County funds his law firm received.”
They added that, thus far, Wade and his firm have received “nearly $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022” with none other than Willis herself having authorized the payments.
The two reporters tried to throw cold water on this by claiming there’s “no concrete proof of the romantic ties between Willis and Wade” but they returned to the filing that argues Roman’s counsel has “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship.”
They further explained how Roman’s team came upon this stunning development and what some of the vacations entailed, but The Journal-Constitution also suggested this could be merely a desperate attempt to “muddy the waters” (click “expand”):
Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, said she reviewed the case file in Wade’s ongoing divorce proceedings at the Superior Court Clerk’s Office and made copies of certain documents. But the case file was later improperly sealed because no court hearing was held as required by law, the motion said.
Because the case remains under seal, Merchant said she is not sharing the information she obtained from the divorce file until the seal is lifted. She also said she is asking a judge to unseal the case file.
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The filing alleges that Willis and Wade have been involved in a romantic relationship that began before Wade was appointed special prosecutor. It says they traveled together to Napa Valley and Florida, and they cruised the Caribbean together using tickets Wade purchased from Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines — although the filing did not include documentation of those purchases.
The motion said the checks sent to Wade from Fulton County and his subsequent purchase of vacations for Willis could amount to honest services fraud, a federal crime in which a vendor gives kickbacks to an employer. It is also possible this could be prosecuted under the federal racketeering statute, the motion said.
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A problem with Wade’s appointment is that it was not approved by the Fulton board of commissioners as required by law, the motion said. The motion also questions Wade’s credentials, contending he has never prosecuted a felony case. (Wade was a prosecutor in Cobb County but it was not immediately clear what cases he handled there.)
NBC’s Today was too busy with stories such as ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel blasting Aaron Rodgers for joking he’ll be mentioned in the new Jeffrey Epstein documents, but the network’s barely-noticed overnight Early Today had a 47-second brief on this allegation.
Host Frances Rivera scoffed at all of it, saying “[t]here is no direct evidence given to support the claims in the court filing, which only cited unnamed sources” and “NBC News has not been able to independently verify” that Willis’s team “should be disqualified from prosecuting the case, alleging an inappropriate romantic relationship” with Wade.
“A spokesperson for the D.A.’s office said response will be made in a court filing,” she later added.
Today and its counterparts ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS Mornings all had full stories on the criminal cases Trump faces, but none mentioned this Georgia appeal. How convenient.
Instead of finding time to tuck this into their Trump trials stories, CBS Mornings was preoccupied with celebrating co-host Gayle King’s 12 years as a co-host of the network’s morning shows with cupcakes and a celebrity montage. King, of course, shouldn’t be confused with being a journalist given she’s both a Democratic Party donor and family friend of the Obamas.
And, on GMA, they spent five minutes and 41 seconds touting far-left meteorologist Ginger Zee’s trip to northern Canada to see the aurora borealis that was sponsored by the Canadian government-funded tourism board. You see, climatologists get fancy trips while the rest need to cut our carbon emissions.
