The Fani Willis scandal is getting a lot of attention. But even though former President Trump is a defendant, his attorneys have not produced the evidence of the scandal. Instead, Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, is behind the revelations about whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her prosecutor, Nathan Wade, have “an irreparable and fatal conflict of interest” and whether Willis has used “public monies for personal gain.”
In response, Willis has admitted a “personal relationship” with Wade, causing the Washington Post to conclude the charges constitute a “damaging blow” to the case against Trump.
Equally important, the revelations could refocus attention on the election fraud that cost President Trump the White House in 2020.
In an extraordinary story, the Post blames Michael Roman for the damaging revelations in the Fani Willis scandal, implying this was somehow a dirty tricks operation, even though it was attorney Ashleigh Merchant who uncovered the scandal through basic research techniques. The paper is upset that the conflict of interest involving Willis and her boyfriend Wade has become a national scandal.
The paper said, “Roman’s defense attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, told The Post in a brief exchange that she, rather than her client, unearthed the information that underpins the claims against Willis and Wade.”
This didn’t stop the Post from trying to make Michael Roman’s personal life and political history of fighting for conservative values into a major controversy.
What we can say for sure is that Ashley Merchant is an attorney who has an impressive reputation and has accomplished much more than Trump’s team of lawyers. Her 38-page submission to the court, requesting dismissal of the indictment, includes documents and invoices from the law offices of Nathan Wade making her case.
This lawsuit was described at the time it was filed as a “bombshell.” The allegations of misconduct against Fani Willis are explosive.
If we had a real investigative press, papers like the Post would have uncovered the Fani Willis scandal. The Post’s slogan is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
What Trump needs is an attorney like Ashleigh Merchant to uncover the conflicts of interest involving Special Counsel Jack Smith. I have uncovered some of them.
Incredibly, in its story about Michael Roman, the Post conceded that evidence of election fraud is real. It said that he got a break in politics in 1993 knocking on doors for Philadelphia lawyer Bruce S. Marks, a friend of Roman’s for more than 30 years who was running a Republican campaign for the Pennsylvania state Senate.
“Marks appeared to lose in a close race,” the paper said, “but overturned the result in federal court by proving that his Democratic opponent benefited from fraudulent absentee ballots. The case caused Roman to fixate on voter fraud years before it became central to Republican politics.”
A local CBS News story in 2016 quoted Marks as saying, “We have a sordid history of corruption among the Democratic elected officials and in elections in Philadelphia and my 1993 election to the State Senate is the poster child for that. I give the Democrats credit in Philadelphia. They don’t commit fraud every year. They only commit fraud when they have to. They had to commit fraud in order to deny me an election to the State Senate in 1993. They did it through massive absentee ballot fraud. They did it by putting thugs at the polls to keep us from contesting the absentee ballots. They did it through the participation of the City Commissioners, who were directly involved in the wrongdoing, ignored our challenges and illegally certified my opponent.”
Marks went on to say that it took a federal court ruling to overturn the fraudulent outcome.
Such corruption was exactly what Trump and his co-defendants were trying to guard against in the 2020 election.
In fact, Marks and Roman wrote a 2020 article, “Some advice from victims of voter fraud who won the day,” explaining the 1993 case in these terms:
“After months of legal battle, a federal judge issued a landmark decision finding that candidate William Stinson and the Philadelphia city officials engaged in a massive fraud involving thousands of illegal votes, removed the Democrat from office, and instated the rightly elected Republican as a senator. A dozen campaign workers were convicted of election fraud. We should know. Bruce Marks was the candidate, and Mike Roman ran his ballot security operation.”
This case puts the efforts of Fani Willis and Jack Smith and other anti-Trump prosecutors in the proper perspective. The Democrats do steal elections and don’t want Republicans to uncover their techniques and conflicts of interest.
For arguing that there was election fraud in Pennsylvania and other states in 2020, Trump and his attorneys have been accused of “election denial” and Trump has been charged with “insurrection” by media such as Politico. Trump vice-president Mike Pence betrayed Trump with his failure to send the 2020 election results back to the states for reconsideration.
A Heartland Institute study of the impact of unconstitutional and fraudulent mail-in voting found that Trump won in 2020.
Viewed in this context, the Fani Willis prosecution of Trump and the other co-defendants on a bogus charge of “racketeering” reflects the fear that vote-stealing schemes would be uncovered. Her case now lies in ruins over an office romance.