My dad and I have a ritual of 5 o’clock cocktails and TV/cable news when I’m visiting, so I watched way more MSNBC over the holidays than the none that I normally would watch. 5 PM Central means Ari Melber on MSNBC, whom I usually don’t mind too much, but he seemed to be on a mission to spout breathless encomiums to the prosecutors going after Trump. I’m not talking one episode — it was multiple lead-off pieces about Jack Smith, Fani Willis and Tish James, to name the ones I can remember.
Maybe I’ve spent too much time listening to my lawyer siblings, and to Ken White (Popehat), but I sure don’t have a huge amount of confidence in your average — or even above-average — prosecutor. The deck is very stacked in their favor in most cases, with clients lacking resources to mount a decent defense, with elected judges who are invested in appearing to be “law and order judges” and with clients who are likely to plea out when they see the charges stacked up against them. So, I think they get lazy and/or sloppy.
This seems to be what happened to Fani Willis. I don’t know what she was thinking when she hired her boyfriend Nathan Wade as the outside counsel (paid $650K) in the Trump and friends RICO case, but it’s definitely sloppy work to think that someone wouldn’t make hay from accusations of self-dealing based on that decision. And here we are today, with news that she traveled with Wade (gift link) to Miami and San Francisco using tickets he bought. Tomorrow or the next day will bring another drip in this drip drip scandal, because Wade is going through an apparently acrimonious divorce, and his wife seems to be more than a little interested in fucking him over. That does tend to happen with divorces, especially when one member of the couple is a lawyer. At minimum, a major fail by Willis that taints the case. At most, it destroys the case when she has to recuse and another prosecutor without the same level of interest/drive is appointed to the case.
I’m all about getting Trump in front of as many judges and juries as possible, but this Willis scandal is a great reminder that prosecutors are quite fallible, often look at prosecutions as a way to advance their political careers, and sometimes have the hubris that comes from easy wins. Also, with regard to the Department of Justice January 6 investigation, prosecutors are sometimes too timid — I’ll outsource the commentary on Merrick Garland’s timidity to Josh Marshall (gift link). In other words, we can’t count on them to do the heavy lifting in getting rid of Trump.
Villago Delenda Est
Yeah, this whole thing looks bad, and distracts from the case itself, which is something that TFG specializes in.
gene108
I’d doubt Trump will be found guilty in the did documents case. Cannon will try to get the most pro-Trump jury seated as possible.
I have no idea how much jail time he might be on the hook in the NYC fraud / campaign finance case. It doesn’t get much attention. My guess is a misdemeanor and a fine.
The J6 DC case might actually get him in trouble, but I’m not sure how much jail time might be involved. Plus, there’s the chance a court will decide he has absolute immunity for what he did as President.
My faith in the court system is pretty limited to actually hold Trump accountable. They have given far more deference in every circumstance than other defendants. I’m not sure why that would change during a trial.
Edit: IIRC, Roland was the one defendant in GA, who did not post bail and was in the Fulton county jail. He got effective counsel. He’s also very low level in regards to future threats to democracy. I’m not sure why Willis couldn’t have let him off with an offer of a misdemeanor or fine.
HinTN
Human beings are fallible and flawed. We’re also incredibly invested in perceiving ourselves as not being fallible and flawed. Will Ms Willis’ hubris damage the case? Maybe. The real deal will be whether she has the gumption to tough it out. I for one hope she does.
oldster
“In other words, we can’t count on them to do the heavy lifting in getting rid of Trump.”
True: it’s the job of the voters to keep him from getting elected, and we still have to do it.
On the other hand, it’s the job of prosecutors to convict criminals. I’m not asking them to do my job, but could they at least do their own job competently?
Old School
Even if self-dealing accusations are true (and I’m not saying they are), it isn’t clear to me how that affects the case against Trump.
JaySinWA
@gene108: I don’t think the NY fraud cases have jail time attached, although Trump may end up in criminal contempt. The real threat of the fraud case is the dissolution of Trump businesses and not being allowed to do business in NY. The mark to market nature of selling off the business will put a serious dent in the “Billionaire” label, and expose his lack of assets.
In short it could be a more effective undoing of Trump than the other criminal cases
ETA combined with payouts for defamation T could be visibly hurt financially.
evodevo
Yeah…she screwed the pooch on this one…I am sorely disappointed. She seemed so competent and focused, and now this. I don’t think she realizes what a mess this will be. I had high hopes, but not now…
jimmiraybob
I can’t get up to outrage level yet after years of blaring news featuring a prominent narcissistic, power-hungry, ignoramus, pussy-grabbing, convicted rapist, life-long conman, twice-impeached and multiple felony-indicted asshole. I am not panicking over the “scandle.”
People fall in love and do dumb things and marriages fail and hurt-spouses and their lawyers can be petty and vicious. I’ll wait to see what develops beyond the mud-slinging OMG! phase.
NotMax
The entire dust-up is absurd. There’s no there there.
Leto
@Old School: it doesn’t but the rural dipshit voters who inhabit the Dakotas seem to think it means something. We put into office the most unqualified candidate in history, but she hires a judge to be on her staff and it’s a problem. Ok.
Leto
The “timid Merrick Garland” at the end… *chef’s kiss; the link goes to a paywalled article, so who the fuck knows what’s said.
AlaskaReader
Fani Willis Allegations Won’t Save Donald Trump..
There are a lot of moving parts to this and the courts will decide after the facts play out in court.
Forming conclusions about whether anyone has done something is premature since the actual evidence hasn’t been heard, only accusations.
Yarrow
If she’s looking to advance her political career then hiring the guy you’re in a relationship with is incredibly dumb. Terrible judgment.
Damien
So I’ve read a bunch of stuff about how Wade was hired by other prosecutors to do similar work in the past, but I haven’t yet read anything that indicates what his disqualifications would be for the job that Willis hired him to do. Before I come to bury Fani Willis I want to hear some procedural criticism of the decision, because given her meticulous preparation of the case thus far I just struggle to imagine her blowing it over hiring an unqualified outside counsel.
I think that people focusing on his lack of experience with RICO also skip over the wide variety of skills that a lawyer can bring to the prosecutorial (or defense) table. Contacts, knowledge, specialized expertise that isn’t readily apparent to people not involved directly in preparing the case, there must be a reason why Wade has been hired and paid by other prosecutors besides Willis, and if there isn’t then I will the first to ask for my own torch and pitchfork.
teezyskeezy
@Leto: Yeah, but it seems obvious this is EXACTLY the kind of thing Trump’s allies will find out about and make hay over. When she made the decision to hire her boyfriend to one of the most important legal cases in US history, did she even think twice about it? Extremely poor judgment.
Peke Daddy
The voters are the only people capable of lifting now. Are they up to it?
geg6
I never have thought anything other than re-electing Biden and getting a majority in both houses of Congress would stop Trump. Hopefully, the law will catch up with him one way or the other, but it’s up to us to keep him out of the White House.
$8 blue check mistermix
@Leto: It meant it to go to this link:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/some-further-thoughts-on-jan-6th-the-merrick-garland-question/sharetoken/pi1FOUuuaO8a
Which is a gift link
(ETA: apparently gift links to TPM expire after someone looks at them? I don’t know what’s going on with that…)
Art
I’m calling BS.
Willis needs legal help. Who is she going to call? Someone she knows to be reliable, likely from law school. He is hired at the standard rate for the position, $250- 350 an hour. They travel for what … Everyone, helped along by the Trump crowd and the stink of their corruption, says tryst and vacation … I don’t know. Lots of professional groups having conventions in those locations.
But sure. Let’s say Willis has a boyfriend hired at an exorbitant rate and they have a romantic get away. Unless it can be shown this queered the Trump case, and there is no credible claim it has, this has no bearing on the Trump case. Any more than a parking ticket. Recusal is not required if the alleged acts do not have a direct bearing on the case. There are ethics boards for such allegations. Such matters are typically handled separately. Worse case, getting laid out of wedlock does not change the form or logic of the prosecution.
As for his divorce; get over it high profile cases occupy huge amounts of time. Wives get lonely.
This is standard Trump tactics. Smear with rumor and innuendo. Something might stick. Trump is counting on the appearances. Dig deeper. Seems to me Willis, and the guy, are just being human. Don’t fall for the head fake. Stick to your guns.
If and when some credible person produces verifiable evidence of actual wrongdoing, something effecting the prosecution, I’ll revisit the situation.
JaySinWA
@$8 blue check mistermix: Apparently TPM is not the gift that keeps on giving.
EarthWindFire
The tell that this is utter BS: none of the other defendants have signed on to Roman’s motion. Not even Trump.
Hoodie
Kind of an own goal by Willis. IIRC, GA recently passed legislation that would allow the legislature to remove DAs. I think Kemp called of the dogs when they were first making noises about using it against Willis, but I’m sure GOPers in the GA legislature salivating for an opportunity to bring it up again. It shouldn’t matter, but I’m also sure she could have hired other lawyers to do what this guy is doing.
Leto
@teezyskeezy: they’ve made hay over everything she’s done. Every decision, since the time she announced she was doing it. It doesn’t matter with them. The “give them nothing” doesn’t matter with them because they’ll simply invent something and move from there.
AlaskaReader
@NotMax: I agree that we can’t at this point know if there’s anything there, …I believe its a certainty that most of the folks ready to draw conclusions will end up finding they’ve jumped the gun.
After the facts and the actual relevance of those facts are revealed is when I’ll start to feel as if there are grounds for anyone to pass judgment on the actors involved.
ps…went back and checked your links, they were great.
I was thinking they were links to eagworms, so, …
eclare
@evodevo:
I agree. Anyone taking on this case had to know that every action would be examined under a microscope. And I would argue that anyone who has a relationship with a subordinate has some ethical issues. Combine the two, and it’s a disaster.
If they were in a relationship at the time, she never should have hired him. If the relationship started after she hired him, he should have resigned. Give some statement about professional ethics/good conscience, etc. Or use the oft cited “‘family reasons.”
MomSense
I guess I’m not getting why this is bad other than sexy time between lawyers who work together.
It’s only something because the media love stories about sex because humans love sex (not all humans).
Trump paid hush money to a porn star to prevent that story from adversely affecting an election. That was about something.
I’m so sick of this.
New Deal democrat
@Leto: I see our front-pager has already linked to the article at comment #18.
If that doesn’t work for you, let me know and I will copy and past the meat of it.
Bottom Line: Josh Marshall thinks Merrick Garland was too timid or institutionalist-bound and effed up.
AlaskaReader
…Just want to add, the online communities I know of that are driven by lawyers and folks otherwise invested in legal proceedings have paid little or no attention to this issue other than to note the lack of evidence.
Accusations are not evidence and accusations is all there is at this point.
(some evidence is ‘under seal’ and it may even remain under seal and that will drive the speculators to greater depths of despair)
EarthWindFire
@eclare: Yeah, just because the accusations are utter garbage doesn’t mean Wills and Wade should have opened themselves up to them.
NotMax
@AlaskaReader
Thanks for taking that extra time.
$8 blue check mistermix
Just a couple of facts for those saying this ain’t nothing:
So even if it isn’t a big something, it ain’t nothing.
Leto
@New Deal democrat:
it doesn’t work, unless the entire thing ends at: I think the reader is right.
lowtechcyclist
Since this is an open thread, I’ll just say what a very pleasant snow day we’ve been having here. My wife fixed eggs, grits, and toast for lunch, and the kiddo was actually conversational. After lunch, he and I went sledding down the hill in back of the house, and stomping around the woods back there. Then we came back, I took a hot shower, and we all had cocoa and marshmallows while playing a game called Abducktion, which involves ducks and a flying saucer. I followed that up with a nap. Can’t beat that with a stick.
Hoodie
@$8 blue check mistermix: I wouldn’t place a lot of confidence in Willis’ judgment if this is the case. Sounds pretty dumb to me.
EarthWindFire
@$8 blue check mistermix: I lean toward small something that Trump will push on. There’s gotta be a reason the other defendants’ lawyers aren’t touching Roman’s motion.
Edit: Trump’s pushing may be discrediting in the court of public opinion, the one court lawyers don’t often consider to their detriment. We’ll see.
Suzanne
@EarthWindFire:
Agree.
Don’t allow for any openings.
AlaskaReader
@NotMax: …the linear nature of blogs has always caused a dialog to drop off the bottom of a page, don’t know how you get around that without going back,
…cross linking through numerous threads is unwieldy, maybe unworkable,
…I tend to take a look back to see if someone late to a thread should address a question to me that I missed after ‘leaving’ a thread.
Don’t otherwise know how to best address that pitfall of the format, that loss of continuity…
Hoodie
@Suzanne: It’s not just openings – they’ll find anything to attack. This is spectacularly dumb if the account given in the post is anywhere near accurate, placing it well beyond email server practices kind of nonsense. There are probably scores of lawyers who could do what this guy was hired to do.
jlowe
I found business travel to be isolating, especially in the mornings which were long being an early riser. Television would help alleviate the boredom. Sometimes I’d luck out with viewing choices – something worthwhile on Adult Swim or perhaps Star Trek on BBC America. However if I couldn’t find decent cartoons or escapist fare to watch, in desperation I’d tune into MSNBC. Corrosive stuff but better, perhaps, than staring out the window into a parking lot. But it amuses me to think of MSNBC as being of little more than entertainment value. Certainly I found zero meaningful knowledge from watching it.
laura
What geg6 said. We must save democracy ourselves, with all of the civic tools we citizens still have- our votes and our voices (and postcards). Fitzmass and Mueller and impeachment 2 and J6 committee and Jack Smith have shown that expectations that relief will come by the law, the courts, our elected officials provides no guarantee that external forces will right the ship. Its us- you and me and everyone we have the obligation and ability to encourage to vote out those who wish us ill and worse. It us. Let’s do this thing.
UncleEbeneezer
@EarthWindFire: The important thing is for all of us to hang our heads and spread the exact same talking points that Fox/Trump are about these trials /sarcasm
I swear, people on our side are really bad at taking the bait that helps Trump, the GOP, Putin etc. We see it repeatedly with the Garland/DOJ bashing too. We do much of the work for MAGA world without them even needing to ask.
New Deal democrat
@Leto: I’m in the middle of working on something else. Give me about 20 minutes.
Chief Oshkosh
I’ve been around criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors all of my adult life. With very, very rare exceptions, you are 100% correct when you state about prosecutors:
I hope Jack, Tish, and Fanni are in the tiny minority of sharp, fair, and hard-working prosecutors that I know exist.
hitchhiker
@Leto: This, exactly.
Everyone who is not them is by definition corrupt and vindictive, and will be called that no matter what.
I heard some commentators the other day suggesting that this business with Willis isn’t serious, because the motion put before the judge arrived with nothing to substantiate it. It’s just an accusation, designed to make the press talk about her bad judgment.
Seems to be working. I’ll wait for the hearing before I decide that she’s been a fool.
fairdinkum
Geminid
@Hoodie: The law regarding prosecutors that passed in Georgia last year creates two separate panels to consider allegations against prosecutors. There is 5-member investigatory panel that looks at the allegations and collects evidence on the serious ones. A three member “hearing” panel hears the evidence and judges the prosecutor’s fitness.
Governor Kemp got to appoint one person to each panel; I guess legislative leaders appointed the others. My Atlanta friend knows the one Kemp appointed to the 5-member panel: a very experienced retired judge from a circuit about 50 miles east of Atlanta.
fairdinkum
@$8 blue check mistermix:
at the risk of breaking some rule, …
6m ago
Some Further Thoughts on Jan 6th; The Merrick Garland Question
Member Newsletter
By Josh Marshall
I wrote this post over the weekend about the continuing importance of the January 6th insurrection and the attempted coup it was a part of. I wanted to follow up on that post with some additional thoughts. One TPM Reader wrote in to tell me that, while she agreed with all the points I made, it was still a major error that the Department of Justice took so long to really get the bit in its teeth over January 6th. This can seem a bit out of whack today since Jack Smith is clearly all in on both Trump prosecutions. But that reader is right.
It will probably be many years, if ever, before we know just what was happening at DOJ and what the top leadership was thinking and doing at the time. But to the best of my knowledge it was well into 2022 before we had any really clear evidence that the DOJ was seriously investigating the coup itself — as opposed to the violent incursion on January 6th — and the top decision-makers who lead it, including ex-President Trump. In other words, well over a year, probably as much as a year and a half after the events. (The first Jan. 6 committee public hearing was on June 9th, 2022; Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith on November 18th 2022.)
One rejoinder to this criticism is that just because we didn’t know what was happening doesn’t mean nothing was happening. Indeed, I made this point myself a number of times as these events were unfolding. But that answer doesn’t really add up, either as a justification or even a supposition that squares with the facts. It’s certainly true that the DOJ was in no position to roll out indictments in January or February of 2021. No one knew precisely what had happened. But a year or eighteen months isn’t remotely plausible as the amount of time it would take to generate evidence for indictments. Not even close. It may seem like an extreme example. But consider the time it took to bring major indictments tied to 9/11 or release the relevant findings, given that many of the key actors died in the attacks. More important to me there evidence that it took a long time for a serious investigation to get underway. We don’t need to infer it.
It’s only indicative but one point that has always struck home to me is how reliant DOJ seemed to be on the crowd source investigators who put together precisely who the various insurrectionists were and then handed that information over to the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. TPM alum Ryan Reilly actually has a new book out about this. This isn’t all a bad story. It’s a heroic one in many ways. What’s more the story illustrates the way in which the mix of ubiquitous photography and video, social media as well as an increasingly robust open source intelligence community is in some key ways more able to mobilize and sleuth out certain kinds of criminal activity than traditional law enforcement techniques. For good or ill there’s nothing quite like posting a photo on Twitter and asking people to respond if they recognize the face. But even with all of that, there’s no way that the reliance on the public sleuths didn’t trace back to a lack of urgency and focus within federal law enforcement.
There are other more tangible indicators.
During that roughly 18 months when Merrick Garland was frequently asked why there hadn’t been any law enforcement action targeting the authors of the Trump coup he had a two part answer. They were following where the evidence led rather than coming at it with any set of preconceptions and they were taking a bottom up approach. In other words, they would start with the crimes we saw on camera on January 6th and follow the trail.
There is a certain “just the facts, ma’am” logic to this. But it doesn’t cut it as any kind of explanation or proper approach. Scientists don’t blindly pull levers and combine chemicals and see what happens. They develop theories and then they test them. Similarly, prosecutors see evidence of a crime or indications of a crime and start investigating. You need only look in the virtual pages of TPM to know that there was abundant evidence of criminal conduct tied to the Trump coup before January 6th even happened. Much of the “fake electors” part of the conspiracy was reported in real time. Indeed, our team reported days after January 6th that the fake electors scheme was likely to be a key part of any eventual prosecution.
Another story I would still love to hear is just how much the January 6th committee investigators dug up on their own and handed over to DOJ, thus forcing their hand in some way and how much they reduplicated DOJ findings but pushed those findings into the public realm. It’s certainly not that we didn’t learn a lot from the January 6th committee. But the outlines were there and visible for the eye to see in real time.
The simplest and I think best explanation of what happened is that Merrick Garland was extremely concerned about any appearance that the Biden administration was persecuting its predecessor or, more specifically, that it came into office convinced that a crime had been committed rather than waiting for an accumulation of facts which made the decision to prosecute inevitable and beyond question. That caution is well founded. But it always had to weigh against other critical equities. That weighing was off. Behind the scenes I’m sure the coup was being investigated from day one but almost certainly with an investigation on a tight leash and with a very high standard required to expand the probe.
Yet the investigation did kick into high gear. So does it matter? Yes. It does. The most obvious way it matters is that prosecutors are now in a mad dash to bring their prosecutions before the 2024 election. That’s the obvious problem. Justice delayed is justice denied. Only in this case the delay may mean it literally never comes at all. But that is not the biggest problem. This bigger problem is one that cuts at the shortcomings of the technocratic attitude toward governance that Democrats are always prone to.
Criminal justice is never just about adding up quanta of evidence and securing conviction and punishment of the individuals who violated the law. The criminal justice system is the way society talks to itself about what is right and wrong and the limits of acceptable behavior. Hopefully we all know murder is wrong. But if there’s any question we are reminded because we see that murderers are arrested and incarcerated. If they’re not we know that the guilty must hide or at least be hiding their tracks for years or forever. If murderers can operate with impunity they bring the law in contempt. The story we are telling ourselves is unclear.
Murder has always been the cardinal crime. The need for society to communicate with itself in this way is in some ways even more important with crimes of greater ambiguity or ones in which powerful social actors argue for their acceptability. While rape statutes have been revised and toughened in recent decades one clear way society used to tell itself that rape wasn’t a serious crime or wasn’t always a crime was that it was rarely prosecuted. Drunk driving is even clearer case. By waiting so long to bring the machinery of prosecution onto the stage Garland’s Justice Department told the country in actions that the line separating ordinary politics from criminal conduct in this case was at best unclear. The biggest driver of the normalization of the January 6th coup was the Republican party’s after-the-fact decision to support it. But in large part the public decided that the actions were acceptable – or at least acceptable enough – because federal law enforcement told them, through their lack of action, that it was. The GOP’s ability to rally behind it was assisted by that inaction.
There’s an ancillary part of the equation which deserves mention. The professionalized and technocratic practice of federal law enforcement puts a high priority on confidentiality and secrecy. That’s for good reason. Prosecutors have vast powers to probe into people’s private affairs with only very limited checks. That information should remain secret unless prosecutors assemble strong evidence of criminal conduct. But frequently this fetish of secrecy comes into conflict with the inherently public and in key respects political (in the broad sense of the word) work of prosecutors. A good example of this came up during the Mueller investigation. During the wrestling over the disclosure of the findings of the investigation we heard again and again that key findings simply weren’t the public’s business. It was as though an investigation into matters of the highest public importance were no different from a probe into a doctor’s tax evasion or family sex abuse case.
The good news of course is that a serious investigation did get underway. It wasn’t to be a replay of the aftermath of the global financial crisis – though the facts and equities involved were and are dramatically different. Those decisions came under Merrick Garland too. So it’s a mixed verdict. We’ll learn a lot more over the next year just how much that delay mattered. But it mattered and it was a mistake.
AlaskaReader
Google translate thinks ‘Deus Ab Accusatore’ is “God from the accuser”.
Old School
UncleEbeneezer
@New Deal democrat: Marshall notably never mentions that he has no experience in Federal Prosecutions, Investigations or building large conspiracy cases. He also doesn’t even bother to mention:
1.) the effect Covid had on shutting down courts and causing staffing issues across the entire legal system,
2.) reports of Trump loyalists in the FBI refusing to expand investigations, sign-off on warrants and even include Garland in meetings,
3.) Congressional Republicans stalling on allowing Garland to hire his own US Attorneys (a part of the equation Marshall should be quite knowledgable about, considering he rose to prominence, in part, by reporting on George W. Bush’s US Attorney scandal)
4.) how long it takes to access the data from seized devices,
or any other of multiple factors that we KNOW contributed to substantial delays that Garland had no control over. Funny how these pieces conveniently always seem to omit all this stuff…
KrackenJack
I can get behind this. No TV news however. Maybe some Big Band or old school Jazz.
Nothing to add to the rest of the discussion.
catclub
You may be right, but I see that as the clearest case, with the clearest laws and clearest repeated obstruction before and after.
ETA: The Ga Rico case looks like it has the most expansive rico law – usually NOT used to nab white businessmen. But it took along time to get juries to convict for drunk driving when they knew they had done something similar. The jury could see the expansive law — applied to white people somewhat like themselves — as too much.
dnfree
Personally I wasn’t too fond of the fact that Willis didn’t respond to the allegations in a public forum, but by giving a speech in church, in which she admitted to nothing more than being a fallible human being and seemed to me to be casting herself on the mercy of God or something like that, as if no one else would then have a right to be critical or questioning of her behavior?
TriassicSands
It feels like you are missing the point here. The purpose of ethical codes and nepotism restrictions is to prevent even the hint of the appearance of favoritism or unfairness.
Willis hired her boyfriend. Reasonable people could believe or suspect that their relationship might affect his conduct. Will he make decisions independently or do so in a way that either curries favor with Willis or at least doesn’t displease her? Would those decisions be different if no relationship existed?
Personal relationships can and do change behavior and criminal prosecutions should be free of concerns, to the greatest extent possible, that a personal relationship will have any effect on the hiree’s conduct. While it is true that there are people who would carry out their duties without worrying about how that affected the relationship, we have no way of knowing who those people are.
I dare say that there may be people here who would react very differently if these events and actions involved Trump supporters. Yes, we know that by definition that those people are corrupt, but the intent is not simply to prevent corrupt or unfair behavior, but to prevent even the appearance of such behavior. Willis’ boyfriend may be, professionally speaking, the absolute best person for the job, but because he is her boyfriend those qualifications are canceled out. In the past, highly qualified people have been passed over in order to prevent this kind of situation. Today, we are talking about this and it is being covered by the media. It is an unnecessary distraction. She could and should have hired someone else.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: Exactly. Bill Clinton talked to someone he’s known for years, so now she has to recuse? Horseshit. Is this dude the top guy for this kind of gig? Was he hired at the going rate? If yes, then fuck it.
At the same time, the OP is right that prosecutors get lazy and arrogant. In this case, I doubt that it means more than fuck all in the grand scheme of the case.
jonas
One recalls the saga of Eric Schneiderman, the promising NY AG who was an early Trump antagonist, but resigned after allegations of physical and sexual abuse by several women he dated were detailed by Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker. Republicans jumped all over that with much schadenfreude.
He was replaced by Laetitia James, and we all know how well that’s worked out for Trump.
Careful what you wish for, MAGAworld.
stacib
@teezyskeezy: THE MOST IMPORTANT CASE IN LEGAL HISTORY??? Hyperbolic much?
AlaskaReader
@UncleEbeneezer: Yo, …birds aren’t real.
(maybe not the most apt metaphor, but what you said is so true and so galling, I’ll never understand the willingness of normally sensible people who will jump to erroneous conclusions before practicing some skepticism or doubt, especially after the evident reality of the propaganda efforts we all know are rampant, no one seems to want to wait and see before joining the fray. It kills me that so many are so quick to be so judgmental before having any actual basis for it other than the latest headline.)
Consider the source, who has been motivated and why….
New Deal democrat
@fairdinkum: Thanks for saving me the trouble
ETA: Now I can do something important instead … making myself a bourbon absinthe old fashioned.
sab
@Geminid: Interesting that Kemp, although a RW Republican, tends to appoint competents rather than hacks to positions created for hacks.
stacib
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank you!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@AlaskaReader: To be fair, those of us who are apt to keep a cool head in situations like this are bound to be less noisy than the panickers.
eclare
@sab:
See my comment #90 in the thread downstairs. He is positioning himself very well if he chooses to run for pres in 2028.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@sab: I’m reserving judgment, but Kemp may be that rare animal; a Republican who actually adheres to the values he states.
gene108
@JaySinWA:
Thats the fraud case against Trump Org brought by NYS AG.
Referring to the below case from NYC AG:
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/manhattan-da-court-filing-opposes-trumps-bid-dismiss/story?id=104949450
Wyatt Salamanca
511etc
Marmot
Oh damn! You mean slavishly following the drop of every last shoe could end in disappointment? And maybe knowing who filed/said/objected to whatever, whenever — that doesn’t actually tell us much about what’s going to happen?
Sorry to be sarcastic. But I continue to think legal news is useless, maybe worse than useless.
$8 blue check mistermix
@UncleEbeneezer: As the J6 prosecutions went forward, slowly, and only the capitol attackers were being prosecuted, I wasn’t one who wanted to criticize Garland. Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) was someone I read regularly and she had a number of good reasons why the prosecutions were taking time.
That all said, and taking your reasons into account, it seemed pretty odd to me that as soon as Jack Smith was named special prosecutor, things got moving pretty quickly. Why didn’t that happen earlier?
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: …perhaps when the noise serves the wrong purpose, those who are not making the noise should be quicker to speak up.
Leto
@jonas: you’re comparing NY and GA here. Willis was the only one to take this on, as it’s been reported that basically every other GA prosecutor has declined to do it. If she’s forced out, which white GOP dude are they going to stick in there that will be willing to do this?
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/p/we-need-to-talk-about-fani
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Republicans have proven time after time they don’t deserve any benefit of the doubt.
Kemp is still a loyal member giving aid and comfort to the foundational ‘ism’ of present day Republican Party ideology.
What do they say about blind people who are experiencing an elephant for the first time?
$8 blue check mistermix
@Jay: I read that piece. Consider the last few graphs:
$8 blue check mistermix
@AlaskaReader: “Accusatore” is what Google Translate provides for prosecutor, too….so “God from the Prosecutor”
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@AlaskaReader: I have spoken up. Unless a way is shown that this hiring had some corrupt bearing on the case itself, a condition I don’t even see how it could be true, this looks like a nothingburger to me.
People have pointed out, accurately, that not everyone will assess this rationally. Still, I expect courtroom processes to mitigate the scandal’s ability to harm the case
ETA: But I can’t come back and argue this every time there’s a discrete instance of panic. Panic has a way of perpetuating and propagating itself.
Marmot
@geg6:
I wish I could disagree with the first part. The past few years have made me feel that at the higher end of income and power, the law is essentially arbitrary. I’m happy to be convinced otherwise, but that’s where I’m at now.
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Agreed, you have. I was speaking to those who, as you characterized them, ‘those keeping their cool’. We need more of them to speak up to temper the noise. More signal, less noise.
Leto
@$8 blue check mistermix: are they actually in a relationship? Is that a documented thing?
Old School
@$8 blue check mistermix:
Have you considered that DOJ was laying the groundwork so that Jack Smith could hit the ground running?
Omnes Omnibus
@$8 blue check mistermix: Because things were ready to move at that point and that’s why someone was hired?
cmorenc
Most crucially, historically important, most publicly prominent of the century and Fanni Willis fucks it up (literally) with screamingly obvious unethical conflict of interest every law student recognizes even before the first day of any legal ethics case. WTF did she think “special counsel” appointment means – someone of independent, unconflicted judgment to investigate/evaluate a case. Fuck her.
AlaskaReader
@$8 blue check mistermix: I got it, …other than Google Translate’s frequent, (and often humorous), limitations, …I’m an appreciator of words having specific definitions and their origins so I, personally, was at once struck with just wondering whose God was getting the referral. There have been so many iterations of ‘God’ since the words were originally coined.
Leto
@Old School: don’t let facts get in the way of a good “Garland is too timid” whine. Also he’s read this but still wants to say the above.
AlaskaReader
@cmorenc: uh, …as far as I know Fani is not a ‘special counsel’. One should perhaps not let the drama of suppositional fanfare carry one away.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Omnes Omnibus: Nah, that makes too much sense. What the savvy know to be reeeaaallllyyy true is convoluted and falls apart under logical scrutiny.
Omnes Omnibus
@AlaskaReader: They are saying that she hired a special counsel not that she is one.
We can all admit that this was not her finest hour without becoming chicken littles.
teezyskeezy
@stacib: At least quote me correctly. I said “one of the most important” and yes, I think a former President being charged in a RICO case for election interference is pretty fucking important, and if you don’t…well, nothing nice to say about that.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Every time this subject comes up people in the legal profession point out the dozens and dozens of things built into the system that cause delays. I know in some cases some of those things were placed there by criminal justice advocates who want the process slowed down so that people have more time to defend themselves. In my opinion, it is now too slow. I want some of the speed bumps removed. Justice delayed absolutely can be justice denied. It can mean MANY people lose faith in the system or are re-traumatized by it. I want more limits placed on the number of and length of time allowed for continuances, appeals, and other delays. I want a higher bar for you to qualify for them. For instance, if you have a public defender who can testify under oath they have spent all of 5 minutes on your case, then that meets the bar. If you have a slew of well funded excellent defense attorneys, it doesn’t meet the bar for a continuance or even to delay when something comes to trial.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Agreed. To me, though, it’s a matter for the voters. Whatever bearing it is has on the case should be tied to discrete actions involving the case, if any exist.
David_C
@$8 blue check mistermix: How much do we know about what happened before Smith was appointed? Teri Kanefield brings her experience to bear.
https://terikanefield.com/all-new-doj-investigation-faqs/
gene108
Couple of points:
1. Republicans have weaponized the idea of avoiding an appearance of impropriety to make it meaningless to most people. On the one hand, as brought up earlier in the thread, there’s President Clinton talking to the US AG, which wasn’t much, but there’s also Clarence Thomas vacationing with billionaires that have cases before the court.
Neither instance proves undue influence from concerned parties actually affected official decisions, but by giving up on the standard we’ve ended up with a lot more Clarence Thomas’s than we should have in charge.
2. It’s fair to criticize Democrats, if those criticisms can be based on something reality based. I don’t know why there’s an instinctive rush to defend Garland’s actions regarding J6. I understand Republicans in Congress delayed his confirmation and those of several U.S. Attorneys, but why holding the higher ups in J6 accountable should be questioned.
Since members of Congress, who had knowledge of some or all of Trump’s plans on J6, aren’t in legal jeopardy there’s nothing preventing a more sophisticated attempt in the future.
Theres a lot riding on Trump being convicted and serving prison time than just the 2024 election. It will impact future elections.
TBone
@NotMax: thank you, where/what solid evidence goes toward prosecutorial misconduct? All I smell is a whiff of impropriety in her personal life – it’s not a crime to pay counsel.
teezyskeezy
@UncleEbeneezer: We are just talking here amongst each other on a blog. Yeah, it has *some* traffic, but this idea that we can’t even just talk about a bad decision by “our side” honestly or we are comparable to Foxnews is just silly.
TBone
@Peke Daddy: my ass.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@teezyskeezy: It is better that we talk about it honestly. We all have interactions outside this site as well, our interactions here may well inform those.
TBone
@Art: well said.
Chief Oshkosh
@Leto:
There are non-white, non-male prosecutors in other GA counties. Dekalb and Cobb come to mind
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: 1. Different things should be treated differently. 2. Complicated things take time to get right.
Mallard Filmore
@$8 blue check mistermix:
As if Wade was a dirt poor country lawyer, barely able to afford his next meal before Willis hired him.
UncleEbeneezer
Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Michael Popok have a good discussion of the Willis situation here. As they note, if anything, it is an HR issue not anything that has any effect on the trial or the Defendants’ Rights. There’s no evidence that Wade is not/less-qualified for the job and frankly, he took a major pay cut in order to take the job. $250/hour for an attorney is commonly referred to as a “Low Bono” rate, in the legal community. Also, the Indictments were the recommendation of TWO Grand Juries, not Fani Willis just going ahead on a lark. If you watch the whole clip they also discuss earlier on how this is all part of a racist double-standard used to chase Women-Of-Color out of positions of power. Those who are taking the bait and clutching-pearls over this are helping contribute to that by giving it legitimacy.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Mallard Filmore: Squid ink propagates as it will. No possibility of making sense of it.
Jay
@$8 blue check mistermix:
It is alleged that they are in a relationship. So far, the only evidence is that they know each other.
As for the tickets, back in the day, I paid for a bunch of peoples tickets, because I had hundreds of thousands of air miles racked up as a frequent flyer and could fly people for $48, where if they had to buy the ticket, it would have been $387.
So far, it’s all smoke, no flames.
Geminid
@Jay:
“All ink, no squid.”
teezyskeezy
@TBone: These two things can both be true: 1. It should not derail the trial and it is not criminal. 2. It was a genuinely dumb decision give the scrutiny she should expect in this case. If normies question her judgment there, then she’s hurt herself in the public eye and possibly has a less sympathetic jury. Hope not, but it should have been expected when you have every right wing psychopath with resources looking for every little misstep.
lowtechcyclist
@TriassicSands:
He’s working for Willis, right? He’s helping to build her case. ISTM that any bad decision on his part for whatever reason – favoritism or whatever – would just weaken the case that Willis will bring. That would be advantageous to Trump’s legal team. How could this sort of potential favoritism be unfair to or prejudicial against Trump?
I don’t get it.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@teezyskeezy: On point.
Chief Oshkosh
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Ah…no.
A lot of Democrats I know from GA feel he (actually) stole his first gubernatorial election. I agree with them.
He’s one of the scary ones. He’s just as much a rabid nutball, white supremacist/nationalist as the worst of them, but he presents well.
UncleEbeneezer
Since the accusation that DOJ was sitting on their hands with regards to 1/6 Investigations comes up fairly regularly, I took Asha Rangappa’s excellent chart of the Insurrection and highlighted everything that we now know (from court filings) that DOJ was investigating, looking into and asking questions about by the end of 2021. I don’t know how anyone looks at this and concludes that DOJ wasn’t investigating the Coup, seeing the obvious connections to Trump and effectively circling in on him. I think you’d have to be extremely naive to think DOJ is that clueless.
teezyskeezy
@Jay: Yes, it is still alleged, so let’s all qualify the things we’ve said with a big “IF” (emphasize the IF very strongly, not like OJ’s publisher who made the ‘if’ very tiny…).
So, granted, IF it’s true, I think it was a bad decision. It should not derail the trial and it is being brought out disingenuously by Team Trump and the dude’s estranged wife for their own interests, but it is a little different than most of the other mud they’ve slung at her because this one might be true and if so it was kind of an uncool move. I’m just trying to imagine if I had a boss who hired a girlfriend or boyfriend to an important role. Even if they were qualified, it would rub a team the wrong way I think. I don’t even think normies have heard any of the other bullshit they’ve thrown at her because it was all newsmax/truth social fever swamp stuff, but this…this one is going to stick in people’s minds, true or not.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Chief Oshkosh: I didn’t say his principles were any good. I said he adheres to them.
Yes, I agree he stole his election. He did so technically legally. No mistake, what he did was still wrong.
He stands up for reality wrt 2020. Georgia isn’t great for queer folk, but I don’t exactly see Kemp at the head of the anti-trans charge. I’m not saying he’s good, but he doesn’t seem to be down with the Calvinball turn his party has taken.
Chief Oshkosh
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Not to be an asshole, but I think you just proved the point of my concern
ETA: But hey, I truly hope I’m wrong.
UncleEbeneezer
@David_C: Right. We also recently found out that investigations had gotten far enough along that DOJ was already considering Obstruction charges for Trump, months before Smith was appointed Special Counsel.
Geminid
@sab: Another aspect of Kemp’s appointments was that he fairly low-key about it. Last December, when my friend told me who it was, I looked for news of the appointment I found it in an end-of-year press release from Kemp’s office. It listed 77 appointments to various professional regulatory boards, the Stone Mountain Park Foundation* etc. Kemp’s appointments to the two prosecutor review panels were #75 and #77.
* Kemp appointed former Senator David Perdue to the board that oversees Stone Mountain Park. I guess that might have been a peace offering; Kemp was tossing Perdue an olive branch after kicking his ass into the Okenfenokee Swamp during the 2022 Governor primary.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Chief Oshkosh: Don’t get me wrong. I would never vote for him. We also need to continue to work to ensure the legal means he used to steal the election are no longer available to people like him.
Kathleen
@David_C: She’s the best on this topic. Also I think her admonition that the courts can’t fix political problems is on point and rarely discussed.
Kathleen
@Old School:
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s always made sense to me.
sab
Interesting to me re Fani Willis is that our jackal lawyers see no there there, and the rest of us are frothing at the mouth and furious with her.
This is why Trump has never been held accountable before. His folks are very good at weaponizing insinuations, and nobody in public or private life is so squeaky clean that hey cannot be falsly smeared. It just has never been worth the personal risk to take on people like him. We cannot all be E. Jean Carroll. It would be nice if we were a little more supportive of others as brave as she is.
Also too. I do not want to live in a country where indictments are easy to obtain and always successfully prosecuted. I don’t have a problem with Garland and crew taking the time to do it right.
TBone
@teezyskeezy: yes but that’s exact why I’m not buying it (yet).
TBone
@sab: agree
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: 1,000% agree.
AlaskaReader
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: With that, I’m happy I’ll never be a defendant in your version of the courts.
AlaskaReader
@teezyskeezy: …except deprecatory and contemptuous pronouncements of final judgement aren’t just ‘talk’.
AlaskaReader
@Mallard Filmore: Agreed. Yeah, ….Nope, Wade may have paid for tickets, Fani may have sprung for another share of the costs.
Wade buying tickets, in and of itself, means nothing.
AlaskaReader
@teezyskeezy: Without factual evidence, your #2 would necessitate little to no action could ever be taken for fear not matter how circumspect one thinks they’ve prepared themself false accusations should rule the day?
Something has the ‘appearance’ of impropriety? That should take precedence before all else?
Someone may grab onto a mirage…So,…reasons to not act?
cmorenc
@AlaskaReader: The problem is that the independent “special counsel” Willis appointed was her not-yet-divorced romantic lover. Legal ethics/conflicts on so many levels a first-week 1L (first year law student) could spot them obvious as a kleig light equipped with a siren.
TriassicSands
@lowtechcyclist:The point is it doesn’t have to be disadvantageous, it just has to be something that people, sincere or not, can claim might be disadvantageous or unfair. It is not about what actually happens, but what might or could happen. That is the point of ethics codes — not just to prevent unfairness, but to preclude the possibility that doubt can be cast. Regardless of whether Wade does or ever would do anything questionable, people can and will claim that. When Trump is in the equation, it is all the more likely.Willis could and should have hired someone else. If she had, and there was no personal connection, then this wouldn’t be an issue. And, no, I don’t rule out the possibility or even probability that if this weren’t an issue, something else would be, because we are dealing with corrupt people. But the corrupt people aren’t the ones who will decide if anything improper was done. The point is to avoid whatever you can that could become an issue. This was a glaring oversight on Willis’ part.
Now, she’s being called as a witness in Wade’s divorce.
ETA:
I thought I addressed that in my original comment. A personal relationship could conceivably cause a person to make or not make decisions based on pleasing or displeasing the person with whom they are involved, and some of those decisions might not be proper.
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: When Kemp renounces his party membership, …then I might consider if it isn’t just a false flag move.
AlaskaReader
@cmorenc: …if you don’t mind, I’ll wait for it to play out once there is something factual other than accusations put forth by a defense attorney trying to defend a likely guilty Trumper.
teezyskeezy
@AlaskaReader: Allegedly, she hired her boyfriend to an important job. That’s not just a tan suit or an arugula moment (‘member those?), it is kind of an uncool move. Maybe it’s not even true though. It doesn’t matter to me…I still want her to nail Trump for his crimes. And no one’s listening to *me*, and if they are, they know I don’t think it should affect the case, I’m just irritated about giving the Right free fodder. Make them work for it, at least.
E.
@Chief Oshkosh: Look at the failed Malheur Refuge/Ammon Buddy prosecutions, or for that matter Ruby Ridge.
Wapiti
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Mm. iirc, he was pretty vigorous in scrubbing the voter rolls when he was GA SecState running for GA Governor.
He seems to be a normal voter suppression of Black folks Republican, but not a pro-Trump Republican.
horatius
@UncleEbeneezer: Look at the language that Ken Starr used when prosecuting Clinton for a non-crime.
Garland should have been all fire-and-brimstone as soon as he got appointed as the Attorney General. He waited too long after the Jan 6 hearing before appointing a special prosecutor. Most AGs started investing for a lot less. If Trump gets elected again, it’s mainly because the Democratic party doesn’t wield power effectively when addressing threats to Democracy.
horatius
@Old School: Most of the work was done by the Jan 6 committee.
Omnes Omnibus
@horatius: Ken Starr is a terrible role model. Just no.
davecb
When you are attacking someone moral, you claim every action they take is immoral and unethical. Especially anything good: you want that turned into bad. Especially anything irrelevant. Your task is to destroy that person. Good, bad or indifferent, you need to call that action immoral.
Your aim is to get people thinking and talking about your enemy as evil.
The Lodger
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: So… lawful evil transitions to chaotic evil?
Art
Did her relationship effect the legality of the prosecution is the only question. You would need be shown this to have biased the prosecution in some disallowed way.
Finger shaving over people getting laid doesn’t even come close. Even the claims of misuse of public funds is sketchy, at best. The clue is where the claims of dirt are originating coming from, Roman. Fair odds this blows up in his face.
This is, of course, a standard go-to attack against any woman. Dig up the sordid details of her love life so while the impressionable and naive are acting out the horrors of their failed toilet training the accuser can slip out the back.
America needs therapy.
Anyone with a lick of experience knows to wait for the other, often a third and forth, shoe to drop before taking anything as presented or drawing firm conclusions. Particularly when the accusation have this provenience.
the whole appearance of impropriety bit is BS. That’s mostly for judges and that, Clarence, is a dead issue. Prosecutors often have to skirt the law. How do you think RICO cases work? Down and dirty. Selective prosecution, who goes ‘states evidence’ first gets the best deal is the order of the day.
Going after the most corrupt family this side of the Markos regime and people are antsy because the prosecutor isn’t virginal enough. Strap in, or strap-on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
AlaskaReader
@teezyskeezy: …we all know one actually doesn’t have to commit an act to be smeared in the public by bad faith actors.
The damage is done long before any reality filters back to those members of the public who chose to react to the smear. Lot’s of time, that initial reaction is the last point of contact some too many of the public ever have.
In today’s public, where illusion and myth rule many people’s consciousness, believing whatever their first impression is never going to be replaced even should the evidence slap them upside the head.
Used to be, people understood ‘guilty’ doesn’t kick in until accusations become something more than just an accusation. Not so much with vast numbers of the public today. Innocent until proven guilty is just a quaint adage that they may have heard of, but certainly they don’t and won’t practice it.
AlaskaReader
@horatius: …just not any of the necessary legal work needed for a prosecution outside of Congress. The one is not an equivalence of the other.
EngineerScotty
@cmorenc: Without responding to the rest of your comment, Wade and his wife separated in 2017, and reportedly did not finalize their divorce for family reasons. There is no evidence that Wade committed adultery with Willis–once a separation agreement is in place, the divorcing spouses are both free to start new relationships without it affecting the divorce proceedings.
Indeed, the accusation seems to be that Mrs. Wade committed adultery, though she may have disputed that; and as the divorce is proceeding on no-fault grounds, there is no allegation of adultery by either party.
Rather, the stated grounds for the subpoena of Willis is an accusation/suggestion that Mr. Wade is concealing assets from his soon-to-be-ex wife, and that Willis may know something about that. Willis’s response is that Wade’s compensation in the election interference case is a matter of public record, and that she has no other relevant knowledge. Subpoenaing your ex-husband’s subsequent girlfriend to grill her about his finances is normally outside the scope of divorce proceedings, at least without evidence that she has actual knowledge he is concealing assets.
David_C
@Kathleen: Exactly! The courts aren’t going to save us. I like her admonition that we should keep our heads while others are losing theirs. News and online media live on clicks, and the more strident a site or article, the more clicks. Kanefield (and a few others*) ask us to think about what’s involved in building a case and how much work has to be done under the surface, out of view.
I’m a scientist working in the public sector to develop drugs. I find myself trying to explain why we don’t have a cure for (fill in the blank), so I’m receptive to listening to someone who has been a defense lawyer explain due process in terms I understand.
* Many of whom happen to be women.
@UncleEbeneezer: Thanks. 🙂
Chris Johnson
@cmorenc: They are on THE SAME TEAM. Not like one’s the prosecutor and the other is the judge’s assistant.
I’m not a lawyer but to me the whole thing feels super duper racist, and I’ll tell you why: this expectation that lawyers have to be ultra insulated from everyone is WASPy. It’s white anglo-saxons who live lives isolated from their neighbors and expect everyone to interact on at best an individualist level and at worst, as competition.
I can’t imagine black folks looking for help and thinking ‘Time to not look towards anybody I know and trust. Time for a total stranger I have no connection to whatsoever!’. It feels like white people logic. I think the expectation is racist, UNLESS we’re talking the lines between counsel and the judge. It’s the judge that needs to be impartial. And I daresay having the prosecution and defense in bed together gives rise to weird results.
This ain’t that.
Paul in KY
@Yarrow: I agree. I know there are other lawyers in GA that are as competent as the fellow she hired, Have to be.
I wonder why her paramour/lawyer didn’t counsel against this or abstain if she kept pushing it? Guess there were dollar signs in the eyes…
Paul in KY
@Chris Johnson: If she did/does have an intimate relationship with the dude (and wanted someone black), surely to God there’s at least one or two other attorneys that would fit the bill?!?!
He may be the greatest at what he’s hired to do, but IF he & she are shagging, he cannot be on the team. Period.