What has Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis been up to? We’ve all been wondering since she said months ago that decisions from her office about its 2020 election interference probe were “imminent.” Well, we got an update this week.
Specifically, there may be some flipping among the so-called fake electors — the people who signed false slates of electors for Donald Trump during the 2020 election — and it’s leading Willis to try and get a state GOP-paid lawyer kicked off the matter.
That lawyer is Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, who’s been representing 10 of the Georgia Republicans who sought to push Trump into office despite him losing to Joe Biden. According to a filing from Willis on Tuesday, some of them have implicated another in criminal activity (though the filing didn’t specify which elector or what alleged crime or crimes). That led Willis to seek Debrow’s disqualification because, per Willis, her office interviewed some of those electors last week, which revealed not only that some of them are implicating another, but that the defense never conveyed immunity offers to the electors that were broached last year. (Debrow has denied Willis’ allegation.)
But wait, why is Willis, the prosecutor, getting involved with defense representation? Don’t people have a right to their chosen their lawyer if they’re informed about any potential conflict (and if they can afford the lawyer)?
Yes, but not without exception. A lawyer needs to keep their client’s best interests in mind, which can be complicated when a lawyer represents multiple clients. When clients’ interests conflict, that can make it close to impossible for a lawyer to act on one client’s interests without negatively impacting another’s. As Willis has framed the situation in her filing — which, again, Debrow contests — such a conflict appears to be a serious possibility here.
However the representation issue gets sorted out, the more important takeaway for now may…
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