Stuck between a 20-ton rock and a Georgia hard place, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee attempted to split the baby in his ruling about District Attorney Fani Willis’s conduct of the election-related charges against President Donald Trump and others. McAfee will allow Willis to continue her unprecedented prosecution of Trump — but only if Willis fires Nathan Wade, the subordinate special prosecutor with whom she had an affair.

Rendering the ruling weirder and perhaps more flagrantly political are the countless concessions that Willis is incompetent and indeed corrupt that McAfee makes throughout his decision. McAfee admits that the Trump prosecution is “encumbered by an appearance of impropriety” not just because of the power imbalance between Wade and Willis, but also because Willis “chose to continue supervising and paying Wade” after she hired him and she “further allowed the regular and loose exchange of money between them without any exact or verifiable measure of reconciliation.”