(LifeSiteNews) — Democrat Roy Barnes, a former Georgia governor who recently testified in defense of anti-Trump district attorney Fani Willis, is a Freemason, raising concerns about the validity of his testimony.

Barnes, an open Freemason and member of Latham Lodge No. 12 in Austell, testified Friday that he was Willis’ first choice for special prosecutor against Trump in a controversial indictment of the former president based on accusations that he “engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result.”

Critics of Willis’ prosecution argue that she is targeting Trump and co-defendants for the “lawful contesting of Georgia’s flawed 2020 election,” and that she possesses evidence that exonerates several defendants.

Willis came under fire in January for having appointed her then-boyfriend, Nathan Wade, as special prosecutor for the Trump racketeering indictment. One of the co-defendants in this indictment, Michael Roman, filed a motion on January 8 to dismiss the case as “fatally defective” since Willis had “failed to obtain the required approval to appoint” Wade, and because her relationship with him “created an impermissible and irreparable conflict of interest.”

According to the court filing, the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade was testified to by “sources close to” both of them and evidenced by their travel together on cruise lines and to places including Napa Valley, Florida, and the Caribbean.

On Friday, Barnes claimed that Willis is a “very qualified” woman and suggested that Willis had appointed Wade as special prosecutor because he is a “good organizer.”

According to Barnes, he himself was first asked by Willis to serve as special prosecutor for the Trump racketeering indictment, but he turned her down, explaining in court, “I have mouths to feed at a law office and … I would not do that. I’d lived with bodyguards for four years and I didn’t like it. I wasn’t going to live with bodyguards for the rest of my life.”

Barnes makes no secret of his Masonic membership, having had a photo of himself in a Masonic apron published in a 2019 story about a Masonic lodge cornerstone dedication at City Springs, the City Hall complex of Sandy Springs, Georgia. The secretive “brotherhood” proclaims to be merely a charitable organization, but evidence of frequent corrupt dealings among Freemasons spans across the globe and even across centuries until the present day.

For example, two in-depth investigations carried out in England involving the testimony of Freemasons, published in two works titled The Brotherhood, 1983, by Stephen Knight, and Inside the Brotherhood, 1989, by Martin Short, reveal both the organization and condoning of criminal activity by Freemasons.

Short asserts that the very structure of the secret society of Freemasonry lends itself to hiding designs “not moral, but malign, not social, but self-serving.” He adds that the blood oaths that constitute their rites of initiation and advancement “legitimize a certain malevolence towards outsiders.”

According to Short, James Anderson enshrined the practice of preference to fellow Freemasons when he rewrote the Constitutions for English Freemasonry in 1723: “You are not charged to do beyond your ability; only to prefer a poor brother (a fellow Mason) that is a good man before any other poor people in the same circumstances.”

Short points out that Anderson’s instructions about the “brotherly love” of Lodge members “appears to mean that while a Mason’s duty to a brother is limited so as not to damage his own interests, it is boundless in every other respect. Also, in obliging Masons to defend a brother’s interest, Anderson puts no limits on the damage or slander they may inflict on non-Masons.”

Stephen Knight has also chronicled example after example of Masonic preference and corruption, particularly within the British police. In 2014, the Independent told how according to a “bombshell Metropolitan Police report,” “secret networks of Freemasons have been used by organised crime gangs to corrupt the criminal justice system.”

Freemason corruption cases have also been made public in countries such as Italy, where according to one study, a “covert” Masonic network had developed “including hundreds of members of the Italian political and economic elite,” and Romania, where a former police chief and a suspended judge were “accused of using their Freemason connections to accept bribes and shield acquaintances from criminal investigations,” according to Balkan Insight.

Due to such reports of corruption among Freemasons, the Victory (“Niki”) Party in Greece has banned Freemasons from party membership.