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by WILL FOLKS
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South Carolina saw several seismic developments occur this week… and that’s not even counting the as-yet-unexplained sonic boom that rocked the Midlands region of the state on Thursday afternoon.
The most significant reverberations emanated from the Palmetto State House, where the Republican-controlled Senate made a shocking about-face and rejected U.S. president Donald Trump‘s proposed congressional maps. The Senate’s 180-degree turn came just two days after the chamber approved the White House’s preferred political boundaries – seemingly delivering the administration a critical victory in its bid to shore up a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In this episode, I explain what really happened in the redistricting fight… and its implications on upcoming partisan primary elections in South Carolina.
Research director Jenn Wood and I also dove into the latest news out of Clemson University, where the school’s unconstitutional governing board made a curious choice for its next president amid a major financial crisis.
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The big news, though, was the ongoing fallout from the S.C. supreme court’s historic reversal of accused killer Alex Murdaugh‘s double homicide convictions. As our audience is well aware, the last two editions of this show featured extended sit-down interviews with arguably the four most consequential figures in the current saga – lead prosecutors Alan Wilson and Creighton Waters and lead defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin.
This week, Jenn and I sort through those interviews – and talk about where the case currently stands.
Jenn also teased some of the finer points from her interview with Murdaugh attorney Phil Barber – as well as her conversation with author James Lasdun, who recently published a new book about the Murdaugh saga as well as widely read article in The New Yorker.
Count on FITSNews to continue leading the way in covering the Murdaugh case – as we have from the beginning.
Once again, a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who watches and subscribes to the show – as your support drives everything we do at FITSNews. The lights, the cameras, the accountability… all of it is a direct result of your views and your subscriptions. So, if you value the sort of independent, unapologetic coverage we’ve been providing – subscribe today!
And if you’re already a subscriber, grab some of our cool merch!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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SOUND OFF…
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3 comments
And here is my reply to a rare polite and open-minded commenter on Jen Wood’s interview with Phil Barber:
@DayandBayNana08 , I will only answer 3 and 5 for you because there is OBJECTIVE evidence to give you.
Blanca testified that Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) wore long kaki pants and a blue shirt under some sport coat when he left for work around noon on 7 June 2021.
We know FOR SURE that each of RAM and Paul returned to Moselle from their different work locations around 7:00 pm and rode together around Moselle for an hour or so.
Paul made a video of himself laughing at his father standing before a sapling he had planted but failed to support; so that sapling was falling. RAM is wearing a blue shirt and long kaki pants in that sapling video.
Also, Blanca testified that she found long kaki pants on the floor of the bathroom the morning of 8 June 2021 and laundered them.
Problem of RAM’s day outfit solved.
The next outfit in which we see RAM on video consists of a white T-shirt and green shorts. He wore them to Almeda, according to RAM’s mother’s night caregiver. We see them on the bodycams of the officers who responded to RAM’s 911 call upon his return from Almeda. RAM gave the T-shirt and shorts to those officers who gave them to SLED who analyzed them and testified about them at trial.
Problem of RAM’s night outfit solved.
I do not know what is missing unless someone has evidence of a missing outfit in between.
As to your question (5), the clothes Maggie wore to the kennels went with her body to the autopsy which, according to the officers searching the Moselle house started THAT NIGHT or early the next morning.
What Blanca SAYS she saw on the floor the next morning are some CLEAN pajamas and underwear of Maggie’s PROBABLY laid there by some of the Murdaugh family members and some of the lawyers’ wives who HURRIEDLY descended on Moselle after they heard the news and thought they might spend the night there to comfort and protect RAM. Except that RAM, Buster, and Brooklyn (Buster’s then girlfriend, now wife and mother of RAM’s first grandchild, also called RAM) could not stand to spend the night at Moselle and went to Almeda.
I cannot help you with the cleaners because I do not believe there were any cleaners other than the REAL shooters who lay in waiting until RAM left for Almeda at 9:07 pm. I believe the real shooters went armed with previously-stolen family guns to scare some confession and/or some settlement out of Paul and Maggie; and when things got out of hand, they shot them very unprofessionally.
You asked politely and this is a civil response SUPPORTED BY THE ACTUAL TESTIMONY AT TRIAL; and I hope you take it in that spirit.
? Another commenter re-opened the Mushelle Smith nonsense. Here is my reply:
@janepipkin8139 , first, you’re assuming every Prosecution witness told and the absolute truth and could not have been mistaken or misunderstood things in any way.
Next, that whole Mushelle Smith testimony was one more red herring by the Prosecution. It has no importance whatsoever because the EXACT times of Alex’s departure from Moselle to Almeda and return back are known TO THE SECOND from the phone and vehicle On-Star data; and Alex knew it, too; so, it would have been stupid AND USELESS for him to ask Mushelle to say something different.
Third, someone interested in getting Alex convicted started a Go-Fund-Me page for Mushelle WHILE SHE WAS TESTIFYING.
If that is your “overwhelming evidence,” it is overwhelming of a thoroughly corrupt trial.
I’ve kept silent during the Chow trial mainly because I am a committed pacifist who believes in gun control.
Before MAGA hates on me more, remember I believe life begins at fertilization and that same-gender lifestyle is a choice, not inborn.
Before the faux liberals hate on me more, remember I am unexceptionally opposed to the death penalty and I now alert defense lawyers, who have much to learn from me, that they now have the right to put an anti-death penalty on the jury if that juror is Catholic.
Or okay; everybody hate on me more. I know God loves me and that is what matters to me.
Long introduction because what I have to say will shock all.
I am disillusioned in Byron Gibson, though I defended him against impeachment.
It turns out he is not anti-racist; he is just a xenophobe who happens to be black. He called a Chinese IT professor with a lawful concealed weapon “a gun carrying thug.”
And I am also a law purist. That white Creighton-Waters-channeling prosecutor with Sharpie marks on his white shirt is a Z-list theater producer, not a a lawyer. NOTHING he said in closing, from his being a child of divorced parents to his first prom date was in evidence; and lawyers should not testify in asking questions or in opening or closing arguments. But no one objected, probably because they wanted to leave some ineffective-assistance of counsel points in case of a conviction.
The important thing I want to say is that the idea that, if the Chows had not followed Cyrus Carmack-Belton out of that store, he would have lived to be a grandfather dispensing wisdom to his grandchildren is STATISTICALLY false.
Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword, said Jesus Christ.
Had Chow the father not shot Cyrus dead, some competing gang member would have at some point.
Where did Cyrus get that gun to begin with?
He ran because he was afraid for the gun; and not only or mainly for the penalty of unlawful gun carrying, but for what the owner of that gun would have done to Cyrus had that gun been seized and confiscated, or worse yet, traced to links in the chain that ended in Cyrus’ pants under his red hoodie.
Parents, oh parents! Illegal gun at 14 is NOT a tick your child will outgrow and laugh about decades later.
That gun might even kill you by mistake or kill your child by suicide.
And before you accuse me of racism, I had written in opposition to the sexting extortion law pushed by a white Freedom Caucus member whose son shot himself. I challenged that father on where his teen-age son got the gun with which he suicided.
“Don’t want your children to shoot themselves if sex-torted? Don’t give them guns. It’s that simple.” I wrote then.
So, Cyrus’ family should look inward instead of wrongful-death-suing outward.
Cyrus’ life would matter, not if you got some money in return for it, but if you caused other parents to stop giving guns to their children or to be vigilant about their children having guns.
I also need to note the extreme pro-prosecution bent of Judge Heath Taylor or whoever denied Mr. Chow bond for three years.
Judges who respect the Eighth Amendments ban on excessive bail and on cruel and unusual punishment get branded “a let-them-loose Bruce” and eaten alive.
The testimony about the prevalence of 14-year-olds carrying guns around Columbia “for coolness and protection” is really frightening.
Black lives DO matter. Don’t squander them by letting 14-year-olds have guns.
An BTW, no 911 dispatcher would have responded to a merchant reporting that a kid may have left with a bottle of water without paying the dollar for it. I had a whole vintage truck stolen from my land in broad daylight; and the City of Columbia, one Sergeant Moody, did not even bother canvassing the cameras in the surrounding buildings.