So This Week!

Sometimes you gotta stay quiet when you win.

Winners and losers of 2024.

Killer Mike wins but ends up losing in the end.

Killer Mike addressed his arrest. He told the AP, that is was a misunderstanding and he will be vindicated once he heads to trial. Killer Mike is a rapper and activist. He was the person responsible for Gov. Brian Kemp's second term as Georgia governor and Nina Turner's failure to become an Ohio U.S. Representative.

Last week, Killer Mike was removed from the Crypto.com Arena after sweeping the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. He won three out of four Grammys. He said an “over-zealous” security guard contributed to the physical altercation that led to his arrest after the rapper and activist won three awards at the Grammys.

“As you can imagine, there was a lot going and there was some confusion around which door my team and I should enter,” Mike said in statement Tuesday. “We experienced an over-zealous security guard but my team and I have the upmost confidence that I will ultimately be cleared of all wrongdoing.”

Killer Mike [Michael Render] was escorted in handcuffs by Los Angeles police at Crypto.com Arena after joyous moments for him at the Grammys’ Premiere Ceremony, where he won his awards in quick succession. He had won his first Grammy in more than two decades.

He is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 29 in Los Angeles.

In his statement, Mike thanked the Grammys for recognizing his work. He also noted that he and his wife are “elated” after finding out Monday that their son — who was on a list for a kidney for years — found a match.

“We are incredibly proud and are basking in this moment,” he said. “I am also grateful that one of my prayers has been answered –- the day after my Grammy win.”

Mike’s first win came after he won for best rap performance for “Scientists & Engineers,” which also took home best rap song. The single features Andre 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane.

The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Fani Willis is a winner to Black America but a loser in public perception.

Black America right now.

Fani Willis facing heat over relationship with staffer. She fights back.

It is none of the Donald J. Trump defense team's business what Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis does in her personal life. However, the public perception of an improper relationship between her and her lead prosecutor does make this a spectacle.

Willis has two high profile cases going on. The election interference trial of former president Donald J. Trump and the RICO case against rapper Young Thug and members of his YSL rap label.

Trump is facing 20 state charges involving his attempts to subvert the will of the Georgia voters in Fulton County, the state's most populated and Democratic-leaning region.

Willis is getting grilled about her own personal conduct from the witness stand against the legal teams for defendants her office has accused of election interference, many Black women recognized a dispiriting scene.

“It absolutely feels familiar. There is no secret that the common sentiment among Black women in positions of power (is that they) must over-perform to be seen as equals to their counterparts,” said Jessica T. Ornsby, a family litigation attorney in the Washington, D.C., area.

“Here, Ms. Willis is being scrutinized for things that are not directly related to her job performance, in ways we see other Black women regularly picked apart,” Ornsby said.

“I love that she stood up for herself, but I hate the fact that she had to,” said Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. She said that when she saw video of the testimony she felt: “Why are you all treating her like SHE’S on trial?”

“Black women feel like we’re under attack. And that’s a fact,” Campbell said.

When questioned about Willis and her finances, they chose to make her the person under the radar and not the people who sought to overturn an election.

“It is a lie,” the district attorney said of allegations in court filings.

“You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial,” Willis testified. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

For many Black women, the inquiries into Willis’ romantic and financial life were rife with tropes and accusations often unfairly levied at Black women.

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.”

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.”

“So, what is this really about?” Brown added. “When white power, particularly white men, are being held to account ... the first thing to do is to disqualify the people that are holding them accountable,” especially when those people are Black women.

Scrutiny of Willis’ personal life has diverted attention away from the allegations against Trump.

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. Trump has railed against individual prosecutors, judges and the legal system as a whole. But he reserves special, often coded rhetoric for his attacks on women and people of color.

“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. “What we should recognize is that across many indictments, this particular attack to disqualify through her personal activities is uniquely pointed. Of all the prosecutions that he has endured, this is not the approach he has taken. But he took that in particular with a Black woman.”

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.

Willis, who has a reputation as an incisive trial attorney, was visibly upset when she took the stand Thursday to reject allegations that she improperly profited from the prosecution because of the relationship.

Willis testified during an extraordinary hearing that could result in her office being removed from the state’s election interference case against former President Donald Trump. She was questioned Thursday about her relationship with the attorney leading her office’s prosecution, Nathan Wade.

Willis acknowledged in a court filing on Friday having a “personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she hired for the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump but argued there are no grounds to dismiss the case or to remove her from the prosecution.

Willis hired special prosecutor Wade in November 2021 to assist her investigation into whether the Republican ex-president and others broke any laws as they tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Since Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, Wade has led the team of lawyers Willis assembled to prosecute the case.

Among the acts listed in the indictment was a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump urged fellow Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help “find” the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have said he was within his rights to challenge election results.

The feds arrest a loser who Republicans wanted as a winner.

Republicans still reaching.

FBI informant Alexander Smirnov lied and he will pay the price. As he arrived at Harry Reid International Airport in Paradise Las Vegas, Smirnov was arrested. He was the so-called "smoking gun" for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Sean "Softball" Hannity's neverending conspiracy theories.

Smirnov was arrested after his arrival in the U.S. from overseas.  

According to the indictment, Smirnov was a confidential human source (CHS) with the FBI.  As alleged in the indictment, despite repeated admonishments that he must provide truthful information to the FBI and that he must not fabricate evidence, Smirnov provided false derogatory information to the FBI about Public Official 1, and Businessperson 1, the son of Public Official 1, in 2020, after Public Official 1 became a presidential candidate. 

The indictment alleges that in March 2017, Smirnov reported to an FBI Agent that he had had a phone call with the owner of Ukrainian industrial conglomerate Burisma Holdings, Limited concerning Burisma’s interest in acquiring a U.S. company and making an initial public offering (IPO) on a U.S.-based stock exchange.  In reporting that conversation to the FBI Agent, Smirnov also noted that Businessperson 1, Public Official 1’s son, was a member of Burisma’s Board, a fact that was publicly known.  The indictment alleges that Smirnov provided no further information.

Three years later, in June 2020, the indictment alleges that Smirnov reported, for the first time, two meetings in 2015 and/or 2016.  As alleged in the indictment, Smirnov falsely claimed that during these meetings, executives associated with Burisma, admitted to him that they hired Businessperson 1 to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems,” and later that they had specifically paid $5 million each to Public Official 1 and Businessperson 1, when Public Official 1 was still in office, so that “[Businessperson 1] will take care of all those issues through his dad,” referring to a criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General into Burisma and to “deal with [the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General].” 

This guy needs to be gone yesterday.

As alleged in the indictment, the events that Smirnov first reported to the FBI Agent in June 2020 were fabrications.  In truth and fact, the defendant had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017, after the end of the administration when Public Official 1 had no ability to influence U.S. policy and after the Ukrainian Prosecutor General had been fired in February 2016. The indictment alleges that the defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against Public Official 1 after expressing bias against Public Official 1 and his presidential candidacy.

As further alleged in the indictment, when he was interviewed by FBI agents in September 2023, Smirnov repeated some of his false claims, changed his story as to other of his claims, and promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials.

If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.  Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.