Now that the anti-Trump, Democrat propaganda-promoting, biased and incompetent mainstream media has been forced to cover the unfolding Fani Willis ethics debacle that threatens to swallow her partisan “Get Trump!” prosecution, it is giving us blazing examples of just how untrustworthy its coverage can be. The headline above looms over CBS’s “news” story that is really a lame and transparent effort to try to spin the Fulton County DA out of the mess of her own making.

The focus of the report is that poor Fani just about had to hire her lover as one of the prosecutors in the high profile case against Donald Trump, because she was “unable to find someone in the DA’s office with the stature and credentials needed for the case,” and “turned to at least two other legal heavy hitters in Atlanta who turned the job down.” Then the article, while conceding that Nathan Wade had little relevant experience, tells us that Wade was Willis’s “friend and mentor” <cough!> and that she told colleagues he “had the toughness to handle the scorched-earth legal tactics that Trump’s lawyers and their co-counsel were likely to employ in the legal battle.” You know, because Trump is such an evil bastard.

Then the article explains that…

 “It was always anticipated that he would play a more behind-the-scenes role — organizing the sprawling investigation, running the grand jury process and hammering out immunity deals. He is always a presence in the courtroom, with natty attire that includes colorful pocket squares and occasionally ascots. But he generally defers to deputies for courtroom arguments.”

Gee, how can anyone complain about a stylish lawyer like that? The article goes on to quote Atlanta lawyers who were impressed with Wade’s competence when he was a judge and to quote jurors on how effectively he handled a grand jury (“Wade was ‘in command’ and ‘highly skilled'”). Then it relates an anecdote about how Willis reamed out her lover when she found fault with his work, “letting loose with a string of profanities.” “‘No, y’all aren’t even close,’ she told them. ‘This is f*** terrible. Get the f out of here!’ She then brusquely walked out of the office by herself, leaving Wade and the rest of his team shaken.” Message: See? She treated him like she treated everyone else! No favoritism! Move along, nothing to see here…

None of this—absolutely none—is relevant to the conflict of interest issue. The CBS piece (picked up by AOL and placed in its news feed to estimated 1.5 million paid users) is aimed at showing readers who are ignorant of the seriousness of the allegations against Willis—and that would be virtually all of them—how the whole matter is a conservative, Trump-aiding “nothingburger.” In an article of over 20 paragraphs, a single sentence in paragraph #8 touches on the conflict of interest issue, and inadequately at that: “The former director of the Trump campaign’s 2020 Election Day operations, Michael Roman, alleged in the motion that while Willis and Wade were carrying on an “improper, clandestine personal relationship,” she paid him more than $650,000 to work on the case and that some of that money was used for trips to Napa Valley, Florida and Caribbean cruises they took together.”

The article does not explain that government attorneys must avoid the “appearance of impropriety,” and how a DA hiring her lover for a major case, no matter how qualified he might be, automatically creates that appearance. Nor does it explain (or quote a qualified legal ethicist to explain) that prosecutors must maintain absolute independence, and that overseeing a case that is benefiting the career and bank account of a close friend or relative makes that independence virtually impossible. The article was obligated to point out that many conflicts of interest can be waived (in writing) to by a client or clients, but that a conflict on this scale is unwaivable, meaning that it will force Willis to hand over supervision of the case to another attorney.

In short, the article is constructed to minimize Willis’s unethical and possibly illegal conduct (if she is benefiting financially from Wade’s participation in the case) rather than to enlighten the public about the real and serious issues involved. That is because most of the news media, its editors, journalists, reporters and pundits, are rooting for Willis to bring Donald Trump down, ethically or not. If they think they can save the case and aid that objective by convincing the public that there is nothing wrong with Willis hiring her boyfriend, they’ll try to do that.

“Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!”

There is some good news. There are no comments on the article at the CBS site, but on AOL, almost no one was buying the CBS spin. This comment is typical: “You go, girl. Like all the others when they’re caught in illegal or unethical behavior at taxpayer expense, Fani predictably plays the race card. Sooooo lame. This entire affair (pun intended) stinks to high heaven. She should be taken off the case and put in jail.”