While the court weighs whether she will be disqualified from the criminal case, it remains largely in limbo. On Friday, Willis’ team did not call her back to the stand. The testimony from Willis also reminded many of similar public questioning of Black women’s leadership, including the recent ouster of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay and the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.Īttorney Steve Sadow, former President Donald Trump’s lead attorney in the case, questions a witness during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Friday, Feb. But he took that in particular with a Black woman.” Of all the prosecutions that he has endured, this is not the approach he has taken. “What we should recognize is that across many indictments, this particular attack to disqualify through her personal activities is uniquely pointed. “Donald Trump knows that he can make an easy target for his base out of a Black woman,” said Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a racial equality activist and podcast host. But he reserves special, often coded rhetoric for his attacks on women and people of color. Trump has railed against individual prosecutors, judges and the legal system as a whole. He has been indicted four times in the last year, accused in Georgia and Washington, D.C., of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, in Florida of hoarding classified documents, and in Manhattan of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels on his behalf. Scrutiny of Willis’ personal life has diverted attention away from the allegations against Trump. the first thing to do is to disqualify the people that are holding them accountable,” especially when those people are Black women. “When white power, particularly white men, are being held to account. “So, what is this really about?” Brown added. LaTosha Brown, co-founder of voting rights group Black Voters Matter, despaired of the fact that Willis was having to answer questions about “whether she has money, whether she has cash or not and why she has cash, who she sleeps with, who is she flying on an airplane with.” Keir Bradford-Grey, a partner at the law firm Montgomery McCracken in Philadelphia, found the questions about Willis’ personal life “disgusting.” She also said the episode had disturbing implications for Black women in leadership roles: “I can’t imagine a world where we have to continue to be treated like this as we seek leadership roles, and we do them well.” I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”įor many Black women, the inquiries into Willis’ romantic and financial life were rife with tropes and accusations often unfairly levied at Black women. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. You think I’m on trial,” Willis testified. “You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. “It is a lie,” the district attorney said of allegations in court filings.
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