Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who are leading the prosecution of former President Donald Trump on election interference charges in Georgia, testified yesterday at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta. Attorneys Steve Sadow and Ashleigh Merchant, representing former President Trump and some of Trump’s co-defendants, questioned Willis and Wade about the details of their personal relationship.
[NOTE: The Willis-Wade relationship is part of the court proceedings because Trump’s team argues Willis should be disqualified and removed from the prosecution, accusing the District Attorney of “benefiting financially from a relationship with the lead prosecutor that she hired to manage the case, Nathan Wade,” as the New York Times puts it.]
During her combative testimony, Willis made headlines (“Fani Willis Goes Scorched Earth From Witness Stand“) throwing back at her interrogators, saying, among other sharp retorts, “You’re confused. I’m not on trial — these people are on trial for trying to steal an election.”
Willis: You're confused, you think I'm on trial, these people are on trial for stealing an election in 2020. I'm not on trial. pic.twitter.com/YgARkEgJB6
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 15, 2024
Wade answered less sharply at times, as in the clip below when he takes a long pause before replying. When former Arkansas Governor and two-time GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee saw video of the testimony, he said he was reminded of a hanging.
Huckabee, who is also a Baptist minister, wrote: “This karma moment for Fani & Mr. Wade reminds me of Old Testament story involving Esther, Mordecai, and Haman. The gallows Haman built to hang Mordecai were used to hang Haman. What they designed for Donald Trump will be the gallows on which they swing.”
[It is a notable and startling analogy — coming from an elite white Southern politician whose daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is the current Governor of Arkansas — to suggest that the two Black prosecutors in Georgia would “swing” from the “gallows,” as if in a lynching.]
This karma moment for Fani & Mr. Wade reminds me of Old Testament story involving Esther, Mordecai, and Haman. The gallows Haman built to hang Mordecai were used to hang Haman. What they designed for @realDonaldTrump will be the gallows on which they swing. https://t.co/SbLJEZXs7b
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) February 15, 2024
Huckabee suggests that Trump is Mordecai — the innocent of the story — and Willis and Wade are the Haman of the story who gets his just desserts.
Analogy Background: In the Book of Esther, Haman was “a proud and ambitious man who demanded that everyone bow down.” When a Jewish man named Mordecai refused to bow down (or “kiss the ring” as Ron DeSantis might say), Haman convinced the King to eliminate the Jews in the Persian empire and built the gallows himself.
When Queen Esther revealed that she was also Jewish (she had concealed her identity from the King) and pleaded that her people be spared, the King was so outraged by Haman’s plot that he ordered Haman be executed — hanged on the gallows he built.
