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March 15, 2024 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:41:02
20240315_breaking-fani-willis-can-stay-but-nathan-wade-has-
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Wrong Standard for Conflict 00:12:59
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111, every weekday at least.
Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show in a special edition for you today.
We were supposed to be off, but a bombshell end to the week brought us back on the air.
It's here.
Judge Scott McAfee has made his ruling in the Fannie Willis disqualification case.
It's 23 pages and it's a split decision of sorts.
Either Fannie and her entire DA's office have to leave this case involving former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants, or the special prosecutor and former boyfriend to Fannie Willis, Nathan Wade, must go.
We'll get into all the angles.
This thing is not yet over.
We, of course, will have Dave Ehrenberg, Mike Davis, and Phil Holloway join me in just a bit, as well as Andy McCarthy.
But we begin today where we began yesterday, and that is with Professor Alan Dershowitz.
He wrote the book on the Trump trial craziness last year called Get Trump.
He also taught at Harvard Law School for some 50 years, and he also predicted this exact ruling when he joined us this time yesterday.
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Alan, welcome back to the show.
What do you make of the judge's decision?
Well, I think I deserve my title, the Nostradamus of the Law.
My wish was that he had disqualified the whole team and actually recommended criminal investigation of Willis and her boyfriend.
That's what I wanted.
But I predicted he would try to split the baby in half, and I think the baby died.
The opinion makes no sense at all.
It's not essentially an honest opinion in the end.
We all saw, we all saw the obvious conflict of interest.
We all saw that she lied on the witness stand about her relationship and when it started.
We all saw that she lied when she said she paid back every single penny, although I didn't keep any records of it.
There are no ATMs.
I didn't take a photograph of the money.
I know I have an obligation under the rules of Georgia to make sure that every penny is paid back, but I was just going to have my word be enough to defend that.
The judge applied the wrong standard, the wrong legal rule, but most importantly, he didn't tell us what we all know, that this is corrupt to the core and that it can't be solved by sacrificing Nathan Wade and saying, look, let's get rid of him.
We'll keep the rest of the office on.
I would expect and hope that the Trump team would appeal this.
Now, the rules vary all over about whether you can take an interlocutory appeal from an order, which is not a final order, but it's an order which is final insofar as it allows her to continue to remain on the case.
If they don't take that interlocutory order now, this will certainly be a major issue on appeal because the judge applied the wrong standard.
The judge basically said you had to prove the unprovable.
You had to prove by a high standard, you had to prove that the only reason this investigation and prosecution was commenced was in order to enrich Willis and her boyfriend.
No, that wasn't the argument.
The argument is that they were enriched.
They did have a conflict of interests and that the public all saw that.
And so I'm very disappointed in the judge.
I thought he would, I never believed he would have the courage to look Fonnie Willis in the eye and say, you can't be on this case.
He came close, but close isn't enough when you need to see justice.
So I don't think justice is being done in this case.
I see this as a judge who found a way to tell us he gets it.
He condemns her and Nathan Wade.
He doesn't trust them.
He thinks they're liars and unethical, but he saved his own hide.
He made sure that he can still run and potentially win reelection in Fulton County, which went 73% for Joe Biden.
He found a way to thread the needle to protect himself while throwing them under the bus as much as he felt comfortable.
I don't think he threaded the needle.
I think he tried to thread the needle, but it didn't work.
I think that when you read the opinion, the logic falls apart.
All the things he says about her, which are correct, should definitely lead to the conclusion that the defendants are entitled to a prosecutor who didn't commit this act of bad judgment, who didn't engage in all this professional misconduct.
A prosecutor is as important to the case as a judge.
Prosecutors have to make decisions, not only whether to prosecute, not to prosecute, but how to conduct the trial.
There are going to be issues that come up, and the public has the right not to trust this prosecutor to do anything.
I hope the public in Fulton County has enough wisdom to throw her out of office in her election bid, but I now think that they ought to throw the judge out of office too.
Judges need to show courage.
He showed some courage.
He showed some.
But in the end, the decision is not a just decision.
There was overwhelming evidence of a conflict of interest.
People are in prison on the basis of far less evidence than this.
When you listen to the evidence about the cell phone records, you know that she committed perjury when she said, oh, we started our relationship only after, only after he was, when she lies like that in front of this judge on the witness stand, that's disqualifying.
He focused in on the fact that I'm quoting here from the opinion.
He says this is the most important piece of him not finding an actual conflict of interest.
More important, the court finds, based largely on the district attorney's testimony, that the evidence demonstrated that the financial gain flowing from her relationship with Wade was not a motivating factor on the part of the district attorney to indict and prosecute this case.
He doesn't think it's the reason she brought it, pointing out that she was not financially destitute throughout this time or in any great need as she testified that her salary exceeds $200,000 per year and thus concluded the defendants have failed to demonstrate that the DA's conduct has impacted or influenced the case to the defendant's detriment.
You're saying his conclusion that she wasn't motivated by money in indicting this case is not the proper standard to be applying in figuring out whether there's an actual conflict of interest.
That's absolutely right.
Moreover, he never should have said that he based anything on her testimony.
Nobody should base any conclusion on her testimony.
We know she lied about when the affair began.
And there's a principle of law, when a witness lies about one fundamental fact, you don't believe the rest of their testimony.
So he did a disservice by suggesting that he based this decision somewhat on her testimony, but it's obviously the wrong standard.
Just to take an absurd case, let's assume that there was no motivation.
There's a perfect reason to prosecute him, but then she gets rich the more if she gets a conviction or gets rich if the case goes on for a long time and her boyfriend then can bill more hours.
It's not just how the prosecution began.
It's as the prosecution continues, is there a financial issue here?
And I think the public has the right to say that $720, whatever, thousand dollars that she may have gotten a kickback from in the form of American Express proof that she was taken at his expense on these elaborate trips.
And then she testifies that she paid him back in cash.
First of all, the court has applied the wrong standard there.
The burden of proof shifts back to her.
Once you can- He did not say that.
Yeah, this is important.
Keep going.
Once you can prove that her trips were paid for by American Express cards, once you can prove that, then that they have the burden of proving that.
Then the burden shifts to her to demonstrate she paid back every penny.
And she didn't satisfy that burden because all she said was, you know, it's a black thing.
We keep a lot of money around.
No, I didn't have any ATM receipts.
I didn't have any other records.
Under the law, under the rules, she has to pay back every penny.
You'd think any lawyer who'd pay back the money would take a photograph of the money being paid back, would keep records, even make a note of it.
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
So I just don't believe it.
And I don't think he believes it.
But, you know, he wanted, he had a result in mind, I think.
Judges often do.
And he figured out a way of splitting the baby, but it didn't work.
This doesn't work.
If I were teaching legal ethics, sign this opinion, the students would tear it apart.
He downplayed everything that would have led to the actual conflict of interest finding.
If it was going to lead him there, he just continued to downplay it.
I'll give you a couple of examples.
He talked about how she brought in Wade, that she had extended an offer to former Governor Roy Barnes, who declined, that the contract gave him $250 an hour, relatively low amount by Metro Atlanta standards for an attorney with Wade's years of service.
No evidence was introduced that indicates Wade ever received permission to exceed his monthly hour caps.
Okay, you could focus on that, or you could focus on the fact that every single one of his bills was rubber stamped by Fannie Willis with zero review and paid without question, even though some of them looked very sketchy, like billing 24 hours in an hour.
I mean, in a day.
So he focused on, okay, well, I didn't see any evidence showing he went over the monthly cap.
Well, that shouldn't determine this.
Then he went on to talk about their travels together.
Between October and May of 23, they traveled together on four occasions, Miami, Aruba, all the trips, Belize and so on, Napa.
And he shows you what Wade paid, including their numerous day trips around the Georgia area.
And he says, in total, defendants point to an aggregate documented benefit of at most $12,000 to $15,000 in the district attorney's favor.
Then he says the DA and Wade testify these expenditures were not meant as gifts and not designed to benefit the DA.
Both testified that the DA regularly reimbursed Wade in cash.
And if not reimbursed, the DA covered a comparable related expense.
For example, she testified she reimbursed him in cash for the Aruba trip, which she estimated cost around two grand, and that she, quote, gave him money for both cruises.
She further claimed she reimbursed him for the entirety of the Belize trip and that she paid for Napa Valley excursions.
Finally, while Wade could have bought meals in 2020 totaling more than 100 bucks, she would also regularly pay for his meals.
Then he says the following, Alan.
Such a reimbursement practice may be unusual and the lack of any documentary corroboration understandably concerning.
Yet the testimony, here we go, withstood direct contradiction, was corroborated by other evidence.
For example, her payment of airfare for two on the 2022 Miami trip and was not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable.
However, as the DA herself acknowledged, no ledger exists other than a best guesstimate.
There's no way to be certain that expenses were split completely evenly.
And the DA may well have received a net benefit of several hundred dollars.
Again, downplaying.
Despite this, after considering all the surrounding circumstances, the court finds the evidence did not establish the DA's receipt of a material financial benefit as a result of her decision to hire and engage in a romantic relationship with Wades.
The defendants have not presented sufficient evidence indicating that the expenses were not roughly divided evenly, to your point of who's got the burden, or that the DA was or currently remains greatly and pecuniarily interested in this prosecution.
Proof Beyond Doubt of Perjury 00:14:06
Look, I don't believe that.
And I have to tell you, I don't think the judge believes that.
I just think he found that.
You know, you talk about four hours a day billing.
I remember a lawyer who framed in his office a bill in which he charged for 27 hours in a day because he had traveled internationally and it had changed the time.
And, you know, yeah, it's possible, but I have to tell you, no jury would believe that.
And a judge should not believe that.
She would not, if she had been charged criminally with accepting money, she'd be convicted.
There are people in jail on far, far less evidence.
And when you know she's lied, lied, lied, lied about when her relationship began, why do you believe her on these issues of undocumented payments?
His decision is scandalous.
And it's not his naive take because I think he's smart.
I think he just did everything in his power to be able to say to an appellate court, look, I've evaluated all the evidence.
It raises questions, but there's not enough here to find that she materially benefited.
She materially benefited probably to the tune of thousands of dollars.
And she had an affair that started before she hired him and she committed perjury on the stand.
And when that happens, the prosecutor should be disqualified.
This is the wrong decision made for all the wrong reasons.
He goes on to say, I mean, the opinion is full of criticisms of her and Nathan Wade.
So he's trying to telegraph to us what you said, that he knows.
He knows what you and I know.
He just didn't have the stones to actually do what was right.
He says on page nine of the opinion, again, this is him denying that there's an actual conflict of interest.
And so the audience is clear.
He then went on to say, but notwithstanding the absence of evidence of an actual conflict of interest, the appearance of a conflict, the appearance of impropriety is enough for me to do something, but it's not enough for me to DQ them.
I'm going to give them the opportunity to cure.
They have the opportunity to cure their impropriety.
And that's how we got to the place where he said, either bounce Wade or bounce yourself.
But back on the first point of actual conflict.
Without sufficient evidence that the DA acquired a personal stake in the prosecution or that her financial arrangements had any impact on the case, the defendant's claims of an actual conflict must be denied.
Then he goes on to add, this finding is by no means an indication that the court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the district attorney's testimony during the evidentiary hearing.
Rather, it is the undersigned opinion that Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices, even repeatedly.
And it is this trial court's duty to confine itself to the relevant issues and applicable law.
And then quickly, Alan, he adds, this is important.
We're going to talk more about this as the hour goes on.
Other forums or sources of authority, such as the General Assembly, the Georgia State Ethics Commission, the State Bar of Georgia, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, or the voters of Fulton County, that's five at least, may offer feedback on any unanswered questions that linger.
But those are not the issues determinative to the defendant's motions alleging an actual conflict.
To me, this is him basically saying, I know these are dirtbags.
I get it.
Trust me.
But that's a matter for these five other agencies to now pursue and investigate vigorously.
For purposes of this case, the farthest I'll go is choose one, Fanny or Wade stays.
But he left out the most important agencies, and that is prosecutorial agencies.
There ought to be a criminal investigation.
There ought to be a criminal prosecution.
There is, in my mind, proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed a perjury.
He, in fact, says, unprofessionally as a witness, what does that mean?
Unprofessionally as a witness, she didn't act disrespectfully or anything like that.
She lied.
That's more than unprofessional.
That's perjury.
This is a clear, open and shut case of perjury and probably conspiracy to commit perjury and probably obstruction of justice, maybe witness tampering.
And if they don't open a criminal investigation, who will guard the guardians?
Who will prosecute the prosecutors?
We're all at risk when prosecutors can act the way she did without any possibility that they will be prosecuted for what seems obvious to have been perjury about so many different things.
As I said before, people that she has prosecuted and are in prison are imprisoned based on far, far less evidence than the evidence against her and Willis, against her and Wade.
And there ought to be investigations, and I believe prosecutions here.
He went on to say on page 17 of the opinion, this is where he's more focused on, was there an appearance of impropriety?
And he concludes, yes.
He says specifically, reasonable questions about whether the DA and her hand-selected lead special assistant DA, meaning Nathan Wade, testified untruthfully.
Reasonable questions remain about whether they both testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship, which further underpins the finding of an appearance of impropriety.
And then he adds, and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.
So this is, he uses their lies to say appearance of impropriety and someone has to go.
But he doesn't use their lies to get to, they were lying about the money and that proved there was an actual conflict of interest.
He chose to believe them on the one lane, but not on the other.
But the underlying lies are sort of the predicate for both findings.
Yeah.
Now, I've never quite read an opinion like this because it's so clear that he knows they're lying.
I mean, he almost says it, but he somehow believes that that's not enough to disqualify.
I've never seen an opinion that doesn't disqualify somebody after concluding that reasonable basis exists for believing they may have committed perjury.
I hope this case goes further.
This is not the end of it.
This is a great gift to Donald Trump and his defendants because this will hover over the entire trial.
Everything that the prosecution office does in this case will be suspected because this is not an office that now can be trusted.
You don't have to quote me on that.
Quote the judge.
It's an office that shows bad judgment, that shows unprofessional conduct.
Would anybody want to be prosecuted by an office that was so tainted in this very case?
I think here we have a real, real conflict of interest.
So what, I mean, the good news I see here for the defense is this case was rolling along and seemed very likely to cause some major problems for Trump, given the makeup of the likely jury pool in Fulton County.
And we know the DA is genuinely out to get him.
And now, thanks to her completely ridiculous decisions and behavior, the whole thing's been thrown into chaos.
She's lost her co-lead prosecutor.
She's been personally and professionally disgraced in the public eye, which includes the Fulton County jury pool.
And most importantly, in front of this judge, who now knows he's dealing with a dishonest broker who's going to try the case in front of him.
And your credibility as an attorney is everything.
It's everything for her in this case, and it's everything for her as an attorney before any judge forevermore.
They'll now know she's been called a liar by this judge.
So that's a win for the defense, not the one that they wanted, but it's at least better off than they were three months ago.
So, I mean, I have to give the defense plaudits because they found something.
They made the absolute most they could of with it.
She walked right into it.
She made it worse for herself.
And this judge, though he didn't have the stones to do the full what's right, he did cast aspersions on her that are they're going to last a long time.
Yeah, go ahead.
The only way this hurts the defense is that Nathan Wade won't be prosecuting them.
And that would be a gift because he's such an inadequate and incompetent lawyer with no experience.
They would have been much better off if Nathan Wade prosecuted them.
Well, she was no prize either.
And neither was her assistant district attorney at that hearing.
Yeah, but now they may get somebody much better to prosecute the case.
So it's a mixed victory for the Trump people.
But it's delay, which works to Trump's benefit, right?
I mean, this case was rolling along as of January 4th.
And then boom, here we are three months later.
All we've been talking about is Fannie Willis's ethical conflicts.
And as you know, if Trump can get this, you know, past November and he wins, we've never seen this before, but most people believe this prosecution goes away as a practical matter because he'd be the sitting president of the United States.
Is that what you think would happen?
Yeah.
Yeah, except, of course, it's a state case.
And so it's not that the state can't prosecute.
There's no Supreme Court decision on that.
It's part of federal policy not to prosecute a sitting president, but I imagine the state court could try and then that would be litigated.
I just also want to commend the lawyers for having brought this a lawsuit.
Look, according to CNN, there was never anything to it.
It was nonsense.
It was never getting anywhere.
It's all done for this and that and bad reasons.
But it turns out, you know, there were good reasons for it.
And I think they've been vindicated by the decision, even though it didn't go as far as it should have gone and maybe will go on appeal.
Look, I don't know whether they're going to appeal this or not.
If they can, under Georgia law, bring a collateral attack at this point, they ought to do it because they have a very good record on which to bring it.
So do you think, do you actually like their chances on appeal?
The audience should know you are, I mean, one of, if not the most famous appellate lawyer in America, this is what you would be brought in to do.
Do you see grounds for an appeal?
Because this is largely, largely factual, like the evidence didn't convince me that she had a financial benefit, but also legal, which is better for an appeal in did he apply the right standard?
Oh, I think I could win this appeal on the basis of the improper standard, improper burdens of proof, And also that, you know, even though it's credibility and even though it's factual, the judge basically made enough findings that I think an appellate court might say, it's enough that there's a reasonable basis for believing she may have lied.
That's enough.
You don't have to go beyond that in order to disqualify.
This isn't a criminal case in the sense that nobody is saying there's enough to prosecute.
I think there is.
But even under the judge's ruling, if he says there's a reasonable basis to question the credibility of the prosecutor, I would think an appellate court might look kindly on a mandamous petition seeking to review that and reverse it.
If not now, then if there is a conviction later on on appeal.
Yeah.
It's almost like Judge McAfee was telegraphing upward, help me, help me.
I'm running for, I realize it wasn't the right move, but it's almost like, hey, there's an opportunity here to help me out.
Look what a terrible person I'm dealing with.
We'll see.
I'm sure the Trump team will try to appeal this one way or another, if for no other reason than delay.
But I actually think on principle, they think they've got the better argument.
Alan, congratulations, Nostradamus.
Once again, you nailed it.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Always love being on your show.
Oh, likewise.
Okay, up next, Andy McCarthy, former federal prosecutor, who also not only tried cases, but did a lot of appellate work, weighs in on why he thinks this ruling is actually quite good for Trump.
Plus, we'll get into what this judge said about Nathan Wade, who other than Terrence Bradley, I think, took the biggest hit in this opinion.
Standby.
We'll be back with much, much more.
Joining me now with reaction to the breaking news that Judge Scott McAfee has not disqualified Fannie Wade, but says it's either Fannie or Nathan.
One of them has got to go is National Review's Andy McCarthy, former federal prosecutor.
Andy, thank you so much for being here.
So I haven't gotten to the headline that this judge on page 16, notwithstanding the fact that he didn't mandate they both go, said, quote, an odor of mendacity remains,
saying while he's under no obligation to ferret out every instance of potential dishonesty from each witness, meaning these two, he can note that there's a problem here that needs further investigation and saying there are reasonable questions about whether this DA and Nathan Wade testified untruthfully to this court.
So what's your reaction to the ruling?
Well, as a practical matter, I think it's the best thing that could have happened to Trump because and the co-defendants, because she's, I mean, she's just destroyed in terms of her reputation, which she deserves by the way she conducted herself, but she's still in the case.
And my thing with this from the beginning, Megan, has been I've tried to explain to people on the basis of this sprawling blunderbus indictment that she's incompetent, you know, that she's indicted a RICO case that's not a RICO.
She's tried to do an overarching conspiracy that's not a conspiracy.
And, you know, everybody sort of says, oh, okay, well, that's, and then we see this situation where you get an up-close view on how these guys operate.
And you have to ask yourself after watching this performance, do you really think these guys can run a RICO case, which is a sophisticated criminal prosecution?
So from Trump's perspective, it seems to me it's like a triple play for him because she's a tainted prosecutor.
Lingering Suspicions Remain 00:05:02
This is an issue that I believe you can appeal.
I heard you and Alan talking about this at the end.
I think you can appeal this under Georgia law.
So he also gets the delay that he's looking for, but he gets to keep her in the case and she'll screw the case up.
So I don't see how, you know, legally, I feel very differently about it.
Legally, I think the judge is off this rocker.
I've never heard of a thing where you have a conflict situation and the judge is oozing off every page is that there are lingering questions, continuing questions, the cloud over it, the scent of mendacity.
Those are the cases where you disqualify the person.
I mean, if you have a situation like the classic one that I saw many times in federal law, especially if you're doing like drug cases and racketeering cases where you get some dirty lawyers occasionally, is if you have a situation where the lawyer and the client are both under investigation by the same prosecutor's office, the lawyer has to get out of the case because he's got a motive to curry favor with the government that lingers throughout the proceedings.
So with every decision that the lawyer makes, you have to try to decide, is he serving his own interest or is he serving the client's interest?
And even though it's not as obvious, that works the same way for the prosecutor as it does for the defense lawyer.
She's got a lot of problems here.
She's got potential federal investigation.
She's got potential state investigation.
She's got professional investigation.
And she's got a lot of motives that are her personal motives that may collide with some of the things that would be best for the case and the best for Fulton County.
That's the kind of case where there's such an appearance of impropriety, the lawyer's got to go.
And you don't solve it by taking out half the problem.
Well, the reason he did that, the way he styled it, was it could be ongoing.
She testified that even though they allegedly stopped their romance last summer, that they're, quote, closer than ever.
And given that, a reasonable person could think, oh, the benefit to her or to him will be ongoing or could resume even their romantic relationship, which is like, what are you saying?
All the proof of the prior conflicted behavior is right here in front of you on a silver platter.
Whether it's ongoing or potentially likely to resume is not the standard for determining whether there's an actual conflict or the appearance of one.
Yeah, this is like with all due respect to Dr. Phil, this is a trial.
I'm not Dr. Phil, right?
So the judge's responsibility, believe it or not, is the case.
Nathan and Fanny are going to have to work their relationship out on their own, and they'll have to go to another forum for that, right?
But the judge is responsible for the integrity of the case, the public integrity of a judicial proceeding.
So, you know, I'm sure they very much appreciate his advice about how they can steer the future of their relationship and their prospects.
And, you know, we'll all be clutching our pearls over that.
But his job is the appearance of impropriety in a judicial proceeding, which can't be erased by taking out.
If you've now developed a record where you have two people in collusion who there's very powerful evidence that they misled the court, even if the judge shies away from drawing the conclusion of that, but like lays out every dot for everyone with an IQ of 11 to be able to connect that that's what they did, right?
It doesn't solve the problem by taking away one of the people who was colluding, leaving the other one in under circumstances where you, the judge, are admitting that there's a lingering problem here, that there are lingering suspicions, that there are lingering motives that she has to act in her own behalf as opposed to the state's behalf.
And again, that's a layup to remove the lawyer.
Yes, this reminds me of Jonathan Jurley was on Fox earlier this morning, and he has such a way of putting these things.
He's entertaining to listen to.
And listen to how he described the judge's decision here, Sat one.
It's like, you know, finding two people in a bank vault and taking one off to jail.
I mean, the question is, you know, the appearance problem that the judge identified with regard to Wade was directly related to his relationship with Willis.
Only one of them was disqualified.
And so that's going to lead to these questions.
I mean, well, why should Willis escape that same penalty?
The opinion leaves us feeling like the court went and shot the wounded.
I love that.
It's like two people in the bank vault and only one got arrested.
Finding Two People in a Vault 00:10:21
It's true because they were like, well, we won't keep stealing in this bank vault.
We're only just going to keep the money we already stole.
But, you know, if you just break up Bonnie and Clyde here, they can't do as much damage on a go-forward basis.
Yeah.
And your last couple of words there is the thing.
It's a go-forward basis, right?
This isn't like a snapshot that you can freeze in time.
This is a dynamic situation where she has a lingering conflict.
So I just, you know, I think as a practical matter, it works fine for the defense because, you know, she is who she is.
And this case is obviously way beyond her.
And I think that you see that not only from the sprawl of the indictment, but look at the pleas, the pleas she's taken so far.
Nobody's pled guilty to RICO.
She's taken four pleas.
If you combine the four defendants and all the things that they've pled guilty to, which are minor crimes compared to the histrionic she indicted this with, no one's going to do an hour in jail for a case where which she portrayed as our democracy hanging by a thread and they tried to steal the election and all the hot rhetoric that came out of this.
And the reason she's had to like do fire sale type pleas is she doesn't have a case.
You know, if she had to actually prove RICO against one of these people, they couldn't even go in.
She couldn't even get one of the people who pled to come in and say, yes, I'm guilty of RICO.
Here's what I did.
Here's what President Trump did.
Here's what the other people did.
That's like prosecution 101 when you have the first bunch of cooperators who come in the door.
You get them to plead to the main count so that now the public can understand and the court can understand that you actually have a case.
But she's given away the store because she doesn't have a case, at least not on the things that she's advertised.
Now, I've said from the beginning, Megan, that I'm not saying that nothing happened here.
What I'm saying is it's not a RICO.
It's not a big conspiracy because for a conspiracy, you have to agree to something that's a violation of law.
And what the people agreed to here to the extent they agreed at all, and I think most of these people probably don't even know each other, they wanted to keep Trump in office.
You may think as a policy matter or as a personal matter, that was a bad objective.
But as far as the law is concerned, it's not an illegal objective.
Every state in the country has a procedure by which you can challenge election results.
So conspiring to keep somebody in office is not a crime.
Now, it doesn't mean- Well, I remember you saying on another hit, you said it appears that most of these people don't even know each other.
And the only thing they're doing, quote, in concert or together is winding up getting sued by Fannie Willis, accused by Fanny Willis, and a couple of them copying pleas.
But there is no cooperation between any of these people in a way you'd see in a typical RICO case.
Let me just read this, Andy, because we just got an exclusive statement here from Ashley Merchant, defense attorney for Michael Roman, who started this whole thing.
And honestly, this woman is the heroine of this entire story.
She's the one who got this.
She's the one who filed the motion.
She's the one who led the hearings.
And she gives this to the Megan Kelly show.
We are evaluating what this ruling means for an appeal or any additional filings.
This, coupled with the court's ruling yesterday, meaning the dismissal of those six counts, the indictments, the counts against Trump and the others, are something we must consider together.
We also need to await the district attorney's decision on how she intends to cure the conflict that the judge so clearly found, meaning is she going or Nathan's going.
Earlier, Ashley had released the following statement.
While we believe the court should have disqualified Willis's office entirely, this opinion is a vindication that everything put forth by the defense was true, accurate, and relevant to the issues surrounding our client's right to a fair trial.
The judge clearly agreed with the defense that the actions of Willis are a result of her poor judgment and that there's a risk to the future of this case if she doesn't work quickly to cure her conflict.
While we don't agree that the courts, with the courts, suggested, oh, that his suggested cure is adequate in response to the egregious conduct by the DA, we look forward to the district attorney's response to the demands by the court.
We'll continue to fight for our client.
I continue to say it's a hugely huge win for Ashley Merchant and the defense here, even though they didn't get everything they wanted.
Yeah, I think that's right.
The tone of her statement is exactly right because you do have to go back and try whenever this case is going to happen, they are going to be in front of Judge McAfee.
So I think her tone was respectful, but making clear where she disagrees.
The one thing I would say about the end of the last statement you read is I think if I were they, I would be taking the position that her conflict can't be cured rather than that like it's on her to cure it.
I think, you know, they the consistent position, if I were they that I would take is that, you know, this is, we're beyond that.
She's got to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is stage five pancreatic, not curable.
Sorry.
It's it's this is the really bad diagnosis when the judge is calling you dishonest outright over and over and speaking about how he feels misled and the state bar might want to get involved.
I mean, this is just absolutely devastating.
So, okay, he's going to appeal.
They'll appeal.
The Trump defendants will appeal.
And you think the court, the Court of Appeals will likely take it?
Because normally, as we were talking about, if you go up on an interlocutory appeal, meaning well, the case is still pending before everything's been settled, then usually the Court of Appeals does not have to take it and they tell you to wait.
So do you think the court will have to take it?
I just don't know Georgia law well enough.
I think that if what the court was concerned about, you know, the problem, Megan, with a with a conflict situation is it it doesn't just go to the due process rights of the defendant, which is a profound problem.
It goes to the legitimacy of the tribunal and the public integrity of judicial proceedings.
And if the court decides, and I think this would be a sensible decision, that every day this goes on and continues, it's more of a debacle for the court, then I think they have to take it.
Because it's not just about at that point, can these people get a fair trial?
It's about do we want the national reputation of the courts of Georgia to be that we're a clown show?
And I think they have an interest in not being one.
Okay, can we just talk about the fact that the court wound up amazingly, he really didn't take on what became the core issue of whether they lied about when their relationship began.
They tried to claim it didn't begin until after she had hired Nathan Wade.
And there was testimony from Robin Yurty, her longtime friend, that that was a lie that had gone back to 2019.
Then there was Terrence Bradley, his former law partner and friend who had texted Ashley Merchant.
Everything.
They were having sex in the Robin Yurty condo.
This is the name of the friend.
Go subpoena Fanny's original security team from when she took office in 2020.
They're going to know where all the bodies are buried.
They saw it all.
I mean, it went on and on.
But the judge says his following, as follows.
First, he says, okay, hold on.
He's talking about whether they, you know, had this relationship.
I'm just going to go back far enough.
Okay.
An outsider in this case could reasonably think the DA is not exercising her independent professional judgment, totally free of any compromising influences.
As long as Wade remains on this case, this unnecessary perception will persist.
The testimony introduced, including that of the DA and Wade, did not put these concerns to rest.
During the argument, the defendant's focus largely pivoted from the financial concerns to disproving the testimony of the district attorney, namely that her romantic relationship actually predated the November 2021 hiring of Wade.
On that front, the court makes a few brief observations.
First, the court finds itself unable to place any stock in the testimony of Terrence Bradley.
Right on, Judge.
We agree.
The world agrees.
His inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions.
Then here's where he dismisses the impeachment with those prior texts.
While prior inconsistent statements can be considered as substantive evidence under Georgia law, Bradley's impeachment by text message did not establish the basis for which he claimed such sweeping knowledge of Wade's personal affairs.
He's not satisfied that Terrence Bradley had personal knowledge or whether he was just speculating in those texts to Ashley Merchant.
Then here he goes, Andy.
In addition, while the testimony of Robin Yurty raised doubts about the state's assertions, it ultimately lacked context and detail.
Even after considering the proffered cell phone testimony from Donald Trump, this is the text messages and all the cell phone tower evidence that Wade was overnight at Willis's house when they were allegedly not sleeping together.
Along with the entirety of other evidence, neither side was able to conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence that's only 51% more likely when the relationship evolved into a romantic one.
However, an odor of mendacity remains.
I'm sorry, Andy, but if this defense did not prove by a preponderance that this thing began before she hired him in 2022, then nothing's provable.
They had Yurty.
They had the Terrence Bradley texts.
They had the cell phone tower overnight stays, the thousands of text messages and calls when they were allegedly not having an affair, which nobody engages in to that extent unless they're 14.
And this is the part of the opinion where he just consciously made a decision to keep her upright, to keep her available on this case.
Yeah, well, he certainly didn't want to make a finding that she lied.
Odor of Mendacity Persists 00:03:59
As you, you know, when you're talking before about her, his failure of courage, I think that's it in a nutshell.
And now I'm otherwise, Megan, trying to figure out how to say this in a way that like my mother won't stop talking to me.
But I feel like we have the McAfee standard developed from this case, which is basically in order to prove this, you'd have to have had, they've had to had a threesome where somebody then came forward and said, yep, I saw the whole thing.
Otherwise, I don't see how you right.
But you need like, like somebody's got to be there.
And, you know, I understand why he doesn't like why he came up short of making a finding about the district attorney's credibility.
He didn't want to, that was a bridge too far for him.
But I got to say, in the criminal law, and you know this as well from the, from the civil law, we prove an awful lot of cases where we don't have like a film of the thing happening or like, you know, somebody who can come in and say, yeah, I saw the whole thing.
You know, you prove things the way you just described with these other witnesses and the corroboration.
And then you say, okay, well, here's their version of events.
This is what supports it.
And here's the opposite version.
And the stronger one is the one you go with.
And what he seems to be saying instead is that unless you caught them in flagrante delicto, then you're out of luck.
It's really absurd.
That's not the standard.
I think Alan's right about, you know, their chances of saying he used the wrong legal standard, although the appellate court won't want to get into the facts and their credibility of witnesses.
If he used the wrong legal standard, they have a shot.
So can you just speak to us as an attorney?
I mean, because I think there are a lot of people online just feeling very down on this opinion and down on the judge for understandable reasons.
But I really think there's a huge silver lining here for the defense in the absolute destruction of the DA's credibility.
Like this is the DA in the Trump prosecution, and this is the judge who will be hearing that case.
It matters that he doesn't trust her at all.
Yeah, it not only matters, and I heard you make this point with Alan, and when you were saying it, it occurred to me, it matters, but it really matters with the prosecutor.
You know, in a criminal case, juries and everyone else who's an observer is willing to cut defense lawyers some slack for playing fast and loose with things.
Not that it's good to play fast and loose with things, but your only obligation is to represent the client and make sure the client gets a fair trial.
And everybody knows that in most criminal cases, you're dealing with a Goliath in the government and that the only thing the defendant has is the defense lawyer.
So I think courts are willing to give the defense lawyers a little bit of rhythm to stretch things, especially because their job is to test the government's case.
They don't really have to prove anything.
Whereas with the prosecutor, if the judge loses confidence in the prosecutor, the case is almost over.
I mean, that is a catastrophe of a case.
And most good prosecutors will tell you that when they realize they've made a mistake or something has gone wrong, the first thing they want to do is get back to the judge and disclose it.
Because there's nothing that's more important in terms of how you are perceived by the court, which translates to how you are perceived by the jury, that you are an upright figure who exudes integrity.
That's what you're aiming for.
And you don't have to be the greatest lawyer on the planet as long as you have that going for you, because what ultimately has to happen in a criminal case for the government to succeed is the jury has to believe that the government's playing it straight.
Avoiding Fraud on the Court 00:15:01
And she's way behind the eight ball on that.
Yeah.
And the jury will be able to see that this judge does not believe in her.
It'll be obvious if it didn't hit their jury pool television sets.
There's just something people, human nature understands that.
But so last but not least, what is likely to happen to her now?
Because her problems are not over, as you know, Andy.
She's got a judge here saying there's an odor of mendacity about her conduct.
Reasonable questions about whether she testified untruthfully remain and saying.
Other forums, such as the General Assembly, the Georgia State Ethics Commission, the State BAR OF Georgia, the Fulton County Board OF Commissioners, the voters of Fulton County, may offer quote feedback on some of these issues.
So what is likely to happen to her next?
You know Megan, i've been so wrong on on this question.
Let me just like give you a comparison to Tish James right when I was a young lawyer in New York.
Um yeah, but she's the New York A, G.
But like when Bob Morgentha, who was in an electoral system which New York is on the state side, when he was the Da, if he ran for office, saying if you elect me, I will use the powers of my office to go after this guy, our political enemy, that would have been disqualifying.
Nobody would have run for office that way.
Tish James did that in New York and she won in a landslide.
And I would love to be able to say to you that with this record, this woman's career is over.
But for all I know, you know everything's so tribal now that as long as she's against Trump and she hates Trump and she's taken one for the team on for Trump and she's doing everything she can to get Trump for her side.
That may count for more than what the judge said about her.
I don't know.
That may be true with voters.
I can see that happening in a county that won 73 for Biden but the State BAR is the State BAR.
You know Andy, I don't.
I feel like I hope that's right.
This kind of finding by a judge.
This is absolutely devastating.
And, let's not forget, there's a Georgia State Senate investigation into her Andy, where they have subpoena power, and if they start subpoenaing the text messages between Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade prior to 2022, when he was hired, she's done, because we all know what's going to be in those I.
I really hope that's right, but i've seen so much lately that that people get away with that.
There's no way on god's green earth they ought to get away with it.
Um I, I hope I, I hope you're right.
I, I hope uh, I have less faith in it than you do, but I hope you're right.
Andy Mccarthy always a pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks so much, Megan.
Oh, we are still digesting uh, this entire opinion and awaiting reaction.
Um, from Fannie Willis.
We are now about four hours post the decision dropping and no word out of the da's office on what Fannie Willis's decision will be.
Is there any chance she will step aside and pull her office off this case as, believe it or not?
Even Andrew Weissman uh, trump hating former prosecutor Andrea Weissman is saying she should do this is an Msnbc star now who's saying you know what?
She should go?
Uh, for the good of this prosecution.
So if she doesn't, he clearly thinks there's a silver lining for Trump.
Um, this case is very complex and it's still unfolding.
We also have reaction from Trump's attorney, which we'll get to you and up next we will bring you our cast of all stars who have seen us through this case from the start, Phil Holloway uh, Mike Davis and Dave Ehrenberg.
Don't miss a moment.
And if you haven't yet subscribed to our YouTube channel where you can get all the breaking news, please do so.
Youtube.com slash MeganKelly and download the pod wherever you get yours for free.
We'll be right back.
So here we are, guys.
A couple months after I was told by the New York Times, The Daily that nobody really saw anything to this motion when it was first filed.
Like it just, we all just thought it was a joke.
Not true, New York Times.
Some of us saw a major potential problem here.
And today, that's been proven correct.
In fact, we've got that somebody.
If you'd like to hear it, listen.
If I'm remembering correctly, the feeling that a lot of people had when this motion was filed was that it was kind of a Hail Mary, right?
And there was not much evidence that it was necessarily even true.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it was a Hail Mary in the sense that Michael Roman's lawyer didn't include any evidence to back up her claim.
This very sena's claim.
So there was a moment there when nobody knew really what to make of it.
It was a very uncomfortable moment.
Really?
Actually, no, because we were talking about this right from the get-go.
Dave and Mike, you were on our show and we talked about these explosive allegations and where they could lead.
And ultimately today, we see that at least half of the prosecution team could be leaving this case.
I mean, will be leaving this case.
Nathan Wade's going or Fannie Willis and her entire office is going.
So it is a huge deal.
And it was obvious to any nonpartisan hack from the beginning that this is seriously problematic, if true.
And it wound up being 100% true.
I mean, that's the thing.
Phil, I'll start with you on it because the allegations against Fanny and Nathan were either admitted to by this pair or denied in part.
And this judge, while saying maybe they weren't proven, like that the affair began before 2022, I smell a rat.
There's the odor of mendacity.
Somebody else should really investigate.
I mean, everything the defense suggested, I think was accepted by this judge.
The only question was, what are the consequences going to be?
What do you make of the ruling, though?
Well, to me, Megan, it's kind of a mixed bag.
The order itself was, in fact, scathing in its description of the overall, you know, sort of bad judgment used, to put it lightly by the district attorney and others in this case.
I don't think, though, that this is really a big win per se for the defense because cutting Nathan Wade out of the case, and look, that's what's going to happen.
That's really not going to be that big of a deal.
It's not going to slow them down.
They won't miss a beat.
Nathan Wade, despite what they may have said, is not carrying the water for this prosecution team.
It's Onacross and some of the others that are really doing, I think, the heavy lifting here.
Wade was sort of involved in the periphery, but as far as doing the heavy lifting in court, it wasn't him.
So she's got to decide, is she going to go and take her whole office with her?
She can't leave Wade, by the way, because if she goes, you know, he's got to go because his authority comes from her.
So she's not going to get out of the case.
She's not going anywhere.
I think tossing Wade out is throwing a bone to the defense.
It ignores what I believe was perjury.
It avoids what I believe was the fraud perpetrated on the court.
He basically said Robin Yurty didn't move the needle.
Well, that can't possibly be true.
She's got personal knowledge.
She saw the affair taking place in 2019.
He just seemed to ignore that.
He ignored Terrence Bradley's text messages where Terrence Bradley confirmed that the affair started before they testified it did in 2022.
And strikingly to me, he doesn't want to even hear from Cindy Yeager, who is the chief assistant DA in Cobb County, who has personal knowledge that Fonnie Willis was influencing and tampering with witnesses back as early as September of 2023.
So, you know, if I'm the judge, I'm going to want to get to the bottom of this.
He, on the other hand, wants to just ignore it all, split the baby in half and move forward.
He took the easy way out.
But look, Megan, I want to share something with you.
I don't think it's going to be over.
I think these defendants are going to continue to pursue things.
And there is a Georgia law, and I'm going to read the necessary parts to you.
It's Georgia Code 151827.
It says that when any person makes an affidavit before a judge of the Superior Court, which alleges that the district attorney or a member of the staff of the district attorney has committed an indictable offense, and the court finds there's probable cause to believe of such, the judge, it says, has a duty, an affirmative duty to notify the attorney general and refer it to the attorney general.
So I wonder if we're going to see an appeal.
I think the parties absolutely can appeal this.
They're going to, I think, ask for what's called an affidavit or a certificate of immediate review, which is a discretionary thing, but it would allow them to do a pretrial appeal.
I suspect the judge would grant it.
I think Willis, by the way, is also going to be appealing the ruling that tossed six of the counts out the other day against Trump and some others.
So there's going to be some things, I think, going up on appeal anyway.
And I really think it's, I think it's a pretty good bet.
We're going to see some people asking the judge to refer this case to the attorney general for prosecuting what I think are the indictable offenses.
You got perjury, you got influencing the witness, you got violation of oath of office.
In my opinion, there's probable cause to believe those people have committed all those.
And those are all indictable offenses.
So yeah, this is not over.
Violation of oath of office is the, that's the, those are the six counts that got dismissed against Trump and his co-defendants just the other day by this judge.
Now it could be brought against her.
She's also accusing them of lying.
Now that charge could be brought against her.
And you're telling me that there's a Georgia statute that says it can happen if only there is an affidavit that the DA or her staff has committed an indictable offense and the judge sees probable cause that it's true, then he has an affirmative duty to refer it to the attorney general.
So that'll be the question.
Does the judge, I'm sure they'll produce the affidavit, does the judge see probable cause that Fannie Willis or a member of her staff has committed an indictable offense?
Either she or Nathan Wade, who would be, I think for these purposes, considered part of her staff, even though he's an independent contractor, he's there because of her.
All right, let me let me zoom back out and get overall reactions to the decision.
Mike Davis, start with you.
Well, I'm not surprised if this judge, you know, after these overwhelming facts and if he actually followed the law, he clearly should have disqualified Fulton County DA Fanny Willis in her office.
But I think he came to the politics.
He faces a Democrat challenger in November, and I think he tried to split the baby here.
And, you know, that's when he dismissed those six charges before this ruling, when he did a couple radio interviews before this ruling.
And just seeing his demeanor and that evidentiary hearing, I have always feared that he would not follow the facts and the law here and follow the politics.
And I think that's exactly what he's done.
Dave, what do you make of it?
Megan, you remember when Mike Davis got the Supreme Court decision right on absolute immunity and I was wrong?
Well, in this one, I want to take a bit of a victory lap because I called it at least part of the.
Do we have that?
Did we cut that, you guys?
I thought we may have cut a sound bite.
Oh, here.
Oh, actually, here, you know, we did all of you just because we like to keep the record.
Stand by.
This is how these are, this is how the predictions went.
What's the percentage odds, Phil, that it happens, that she and Nathan Wade and her office get booted?
I'm probably around 80 to 85%, I would say.
I think the odds are pretty good.
I do think the judge is going to do it.
If this judge does his job and follows the law, it should be 100%.
I think Nathan Wade, 80%, he gets bounced, 85%, 90%, he gets bounced.
But as far as Fonnie Willis, I think 50-50.
And you may be wondering, how does one get bounced, but not the other?
I think the judge could split that hair and actually say that for the appearances of impropriety, for all these reasons, he should not be part of the case, Fonnie Willis.
You need to remove him from the case.
But because I have not established that there has been an actual conflict involving you, I'm going to allow you to remain on the case.
But Nathan Wade has to go.
Dave Ehrenberg nailed it.
Wow.
I mean, in detail, nailed it.
Yes, champion.
You're right.
You did.
Well done.
Thank you.
That makes up for my wrong predictions everywhere else.
So thank you, Megan.
This is my issue is that I thought this would be the outcome, but I didn't know how the judge would get there because it is a bit of a confusing ruling when he says the judge says, well, I don't believe Nathan Wade.
I don't really even believe Robin Yurty.
I don't believe Terrence Bradley.
I'm not going to say anything about Fonnie Willis.
How can you say that Nathan Wade is not credible, but Fonnie Willis doesn't get tarred with that?
Remember, she adopted the affidavit.
That's to Phil's point.
So I think that the judge was able to get to the conclusion that he wanted to, that I wanted him to get to, but the reasoning is really tortured.
And because of that, I think there is grounds for appeal.
I still appreciate that this is a very difficult case.
And I think the end result is something that I agree with, but I admit that this could be ripe for some sort of appeal, or at least what Phil said about going to the attorney general, because this is not over.
Fascinating.
Very, very good analysis there, Dave.
And now we have five lawyers saying they think this actually has a decent chance of getting overturned on appeal in Trump's favor because the judge does not look like he applied the right legal standard.
I mean, it was really just kind of tortured to get to no actual conflict, but on the appearance of impropriety, yes, but it can be cured, but only one of the bank robbers has to go to use Jonathan Durley's analysis.
It's just one of you caught in the vault is off the case.
The other, as long as you don't continue stealing, it's fine.
No consequences for the past stealing.
A couple points on what you said, Phil.
Anna Cross, we still, Anna Cross is with Kate Middleton, as far as we know.
We have not seen Anna Cross, okay?
She's the other special ADA brought in.
And since Terrence Bradley got up there and spewed his lies, she's disappeared.
We don't know where she is.
So we'll see whether she's still a special prosecutor on this case, which leaves the other guy, Floyd, who really is a RICO specialist and also maintains his private practice.
So I don't know that he wants to go into the lead position on this case.
I think they're stuck with Fanny, which, you know, is not all bad news for Trump.
Dismissing Cell Phone Evidence 00:07:24
Robin Yurty, I want to talk about her, you guys.
So he gets to Robin Yurty and he says, I'm going to pull it up.
He says something that we all discussed on this show, the day it happened, that he didn't really believe her, that he said there wasn't enough there.
I'm trying to find it here in all my notes that she testified, yes, that the affair began before they admitted it.
Here it is.
While the testimony of Robin Yurty raised doubts about the state's assertions, it ultimately lacked context and detail.
Okay, actually, this one's for Mike.
Mike, even you and I, who believed strongly that Yurty was telling the truth, wanted more detail from Robin Yurty because it was one thing to have her say, they had an affair, Fanny told me, and I saw it.
Period.
Move on.
And it would have been another entirely for her to say, this is exactly what Fanny said to me.
This is exactly what I saw.
I saw them in bed together when I came to visit my condo.
And I don't know why to this moment that wasn't provided, but it was what the judge ultimately used to dismiss the critical witness in the case.
Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think if the judge followed the facts and followed the law, this would have been a very easy case.
But I think this judge has a big political problem this November with a Democrat challenger for this judgeship in an overwhelmingly Democrat district.
So I think he did legal gymnastics in this order to protect Fannie Willis in this case.
He did legal and some factual gymnastics, Phil, because to dismiss Robin Yurty like that, like, well, it lacked context.
Well, okay, but it's under oath testimony that is unchallenged other than the fact that she got bounced out of the office.
And Terrence Bradley, he completely dismissed his texts to Ashley Merchant saying, I didn't see anywhere a foundation that he had personal knowledge on any of it.
And he dismissed the cell phone evidence.
I don't know why.
That wasn't really explained why him going for overnights at Fanny's house before they claimed their relationship began was not persuasive to this judge.
Oh, I can explain it.
The explanation is that the judge is keenly aware that Willis has a very powerful political apparatus that she can weaponize against him at the drop of a hat.
And if he goes as far as tossing her and saying that she's lied in court, then that political apparatus immediately starts supporting the very far left opponent of Scott McAfee and boosts him and probably gets him to replace McAfee after the election in May.
So that's, I think, the actual explanation.
But purely legally, I don't know how you can dismiss the testimony of Yurty by simply saying, well, you know, it lacked context.
What more context do you want?
I mean, she was under oath.
She said she saw them hugging and kissing and she was at her apartment for crying out loud.
I mean, I guess we could have asked or the lawyers could have asked more questions that were, you know, maybe to satisfy somebody's prurian interest about whether or not they were actually in bed together having sex and things like that.
But it's just not necessary to go that far to make the point.
And like you said, it was unchallenged.
I can understand why he didn't put a whole lot of weight to what Terrence Bradley said in court, but Terrence Bradley's text messages I thought were very compelling.
The thing about the cell phone records, Megan, I agree with you.
He ignored that, but he never actually allowed them to have an evidentiary hearing to present all that stuff.
So I think that it was a mistake to rule against these defendants without hearing all of their proposed testimony.
I think it's a mistake for him to make this ruling without hearing from prosecutor Cindy Yeager, who has personal knowledge that Fonnie Witness was going so far as tampering with witnesses.
This is the kind of misconduct that clearly, clearly requires, it's not even optional at this point.
If you got the DA interfering with tampering with a witness, not only is it a crime, but it's the kind of thing you got to get her off the case immediately because it's just fundamentally unfair to all of the defendants to have their prosecutor engaging in this kind of extreme, in my opinion, misconduct.
And that's designed to get misconduct and dishonesty.
And Nathan Wade's dishonesty.
The fact that the judge would even leave it as an option for him to stay on this case is an outrage.
Nathan Wade, without question, lied repeatedly under oath, without question.
And the most we get from the judge about that is a passing reference to, quote, Wade's patently unpersuasive explanation for the inaccurate interrogatories he submitted in his pending divorce.
Inaccurate, oh my God, interrogatories he submitted in his pending divorce indicates a willingness on his part to wrongly conceal his relationship with the district attorney.
What you mean is he lied under oath.
He perjured himself in his divorce proceeding, and you admit it makes it more likely that he may have lied to you.
And then he goes on to, this is the most we hear about the cell phone tower evidence showing Nathan Wade and the teenage text messages levels we haven't seen since we were all immersed in acne and testosterone.
He dismisses all of that and the overnight stays with the following line.
Even after considering the proffered cell phone testimony from Donald Trump, that's what I'm referring to, along with the entirety of other evidence, neither side was able to conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the relationship evolved into a romantic one.
Dave Ehrenberg, that's just, that's just not true.
No, no reasonable person could say that there was not a preponderance of the evidence given Yurty, given the cell phone evidence.
And yes, I think Terrence Bradley too, that this thing didn't begin prior to when they alleged.
Megan, I do think the judge could have just said about Yurty that I don't find her credible because she has a reason to lie, but that's not what he said.
He said, what is he, the facts and circumstances, the context?
He said she raised doubts about their assertions, but her testimony ultimately lacked context and detail.
And I'm sorry to interrupt you, Dave.
Hold that thought because I'm just going to play you her soundbite because she did provide some detail.
Listen from everything that you saw, heard, witnessed, it's your understanding that they were in a romantic relationship beginning in 2019.
Yes.
You have no doubt that their romantic relationship was in effect from 2019 until the last time you spoke with her.
No doubt.
And did you observe them do things that are common among people having a romantic relationship?
Yes.
Such as, can you give us an example?
Hugging, kissing.
Shocking Protection of Fannie Willis 00:12:40
All before November 1st of 2021, correct?
Yes.
Dave?
Yeah, so I think what the judge did here is to say the standard is actual conflict.
And if you show lying, I am not going to accuse you for that.
That's going to be something the bar has to deal with.
And the authorities, we're just going to stick to actual conflict, even though he didn't really say that because after all, he got rid of Nathan Wade because of lying.
So that's why it's a convoluted decision.
And maybe this is a question for Phil, but when it comes to the appeal, although I'm not convinced it's going to get overturned on appeal, I wonder, does the defense even have a right to an immediate appeal under Georgia law?
Or do they have to wait till the case is over?
Because that's where it is in other states where you can't take what's called an interlocutory appeal.
If you're a defendant, you got to wait till after the case has been decided.
Go ahead, Phil.
Yeah, if you don't want to answer that, yeah, sure.
It's in Georgia, it's it's just some things are directly appealable.
I think this one is not.
I think they have to file an application for it's called a certificate of immediate review.
And then if the judge grants that, it is discretionary.
The court of appeals also has to decide in a discretionary fashion if they're going to take it.
However, you know, the statement that was read at the beginning of this segment from attorney Ashley Merchant saying she's going to have to wait and see, you know, what's Willis going to do about that other ruling.
If Willis appeals that other ruling, she doesn't have to ask for permission.
That's a directly appealable order.
The judge already gave it.
The judge yesterday dismissing those or the other day, those six counts of the indictment against Trump et al. gave it in the opinion saying if you want to take this up immediately, you can.
He did not include that line in this ruling.
That's right.
But if she, so Ashley's waiting to see if Willis does take it up on appeal, and I think she probably will, then I think the judge really should say, okay, let's just send all of it up.
Then if part of it's going, it makes sense for them to rule on all of this.
I know for a fact that the lawyers are going to be filing the applications for the certificate of immediate review in the coming days.
What the judge does with it, I don't know, but I do think it's likely that he will allow it to be done.
It's a very important case, but you're correct.
It's not something that we have an automatic right to do pre-trial.
And if the judge denies it, then you got to wait until a conviction happens if that does happen.
And then that becomes part of everything else that you appeal following a conviction.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Dave.
Yeah, I think that Fonnie Willis probably is less likely to appeal the dismissal of those six counts in part because of what Phil said, that it opens the door for the defense to appeal this.
Also, I don't think Fonnie Willis wants to delay this any further.
This is not going to trial before the election.
If she goes on appeal to appeal the dismissal of those six counts, this will delay everything so long.
I think she just moves on.
And that's what she should do.
And one more thing.
The part I do agree with the court on is when it comes to the actual conflict of interest, if she had a relationship with the judge, a witness, the defense, then it's clear there's an actual conflict of interest.
But I've never been convinced that having a relationship with the person who works with you is an actual conflict.
Where I had an issue is the potential for lying.
And the judge seemed to say, well, that's not going to be a consideration here to get rid of the prosecutor.
It's going to be about whether there's an actual conflict of interest.
Well, he said he did find that he didn't see any evidence that Fannie Willis was trying to delay the trial of Trump at all in order to run up Nathan Wade's bill.
Like he said, if anything, she's been putting pedal to the metal.
And it's been Team Trump that's been trying to delay.
So if she has some interest in extending Nathan Wade's contract and reaping more benefits from his salary, I haven't seen evidence of that because she wants this case resolved sooner rather than later.
But Mike, we haven't even talked about one of the most extraordinary pieces of the decision, which is this judge is trying to get us to believe that he bought the cash lie, that he accepted her nonsense about reimbursing him half of all the expenses in cash.
I mean, my God.
That's the part that is just so unbelievably laughable.
That's the actual conflict of interest.
If you are a prosecutor and you have a financial stake in that criminal prosecution that is absolutely illegal, that has an absolute conflict of interest.
You don't have to prove prejudice to the defendant.
You just get booted from the case and many other things.
And so what Fannie Willis is alleging or what Fanny Willis is saying is that, no, I didn't take illegal kickbacks from my unqualified secret boyfriend when I paid him $250 an hour to bring a RICO case against Trump and 18 others, something way above his pay grade.
I didn't take an illegal kickback.
I didn't, these lavish trips that he took me on, I paid him back in cash.
And the judge actually believed her Black Panther father story that her Black Panther father told her to keep six months of cash laying around the house like a prostitute or a drug dealer because you may need it someday.
But she never explained how she reimbursed that cash so she could have her six month stash in her house as she's spending thousands of dollars reimbursing her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, for these trips.
It's just complete.
The legal term is bullshit.
It's just complete bullshit.
And the judge bought this.
Yeah, the Fell, he said, simply put, the defendants have not presented sufficient evidence indicating that the expenses were not roughly divided evenly.
That's a quote from Nathan Wade's affidavit, or that the DA was or currently remains, quote, greatly and pecuniarily interested in this prosecution.
And he went back to say that he based that conclusion on the following.
The cash reimbursement practice she testified to may be unusual and the lack of any documentary corroboration, understandably concerning, yet the testimony withstood direct contradiction.
What does that mean?
Was corroborated by other evidence.
For example, her payment of airfare for two on the 2022 Miami trip and was not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable.
So notice like the complete pass he gives them on the nonsense around the cash, but on the Robin Yurty testimonial, the Terrence Bradley text, the cell phone tower data, you can't see conclusively past preponderance of the evidence.
And there you see the judge really putting his thumb on the scale to make sure Fannie Willis stays on this case and doesn't get disqualified.
It's obvious.
I guess he went to the same word salad school that Kamala Harris went to because that's just gobbledygook.
I have no idea what that even means.
He wanted to come to a certain conclusion here.
He wanted to make sure that he was scathing enough that some people who might see it sort of the way we seem to see it are kind of satisfied, but he didn't want to go so far as to force Fanny Willis to turn her political apparatus against him in this election.
It just defies rationality to believe the cash reimbursement business and to even consider Nathan Wade's affidavit, which is not evidence in the case.
It's not subject to cross-examination.
He already said he didn't really believe Nathan Wade's testimony from the actual witness stand.
So how can he buy into this whole thing that it was roughly equally shifted?
That just makes absolutely no legal or rational sense to me.
This whole ruling states this is a terrible ruling.
This is the kind of thing that further, in my opinion, adds to the unfortunate embarrassment of the legal community in Atlanta where I practice.
And I hate to see it.
If he's going to deny the motion, do it in a way that makes sense.
Don't say these kind of things like, you know, well, the cash may be unusual, but it's okay.
I'm going to go with it.
And oh, by the way, Robin Yurty, even though she said that they had an affair in 2019, that lacks context.
So we're going to ignore that.
Don't explain your ruling in ways that are just irrational and stupid.
Go ahead and it's James Comey-esque.
You know, it reminded me of James Comey.
Absolutely.
Like she did it.
She did all of it.
She's terrible.
Trust me.
She did all the nefarious things you think she did with the emails, but I'm not going to indict.
But no, right?
And you're left with, well, wait a minute, 90% of what you said leads to criminal conclusions, and yet you decided to jump off the, you know, a different way at the end.
And also, when I read it this morning, I couldn't help but think of John Roberts and Obamacare, you know, when we all thought when he found that there was no interstate commerce that would have justified the interference of Congress in this, the injection of Congress and regulating health care.
They said, you know what, you're right.
There is no interstate conference that would commerce that would have allowed this.
And everybody said, oh my God, he's overturning it.
He's pulling the individual mandate that the high court is.
And John Roberts said, but it could be justified under the tax clause.
He pulled a John Roberts.
Yeah, not only is there overwhelming evidence that she perjured herself in court, did this judge even address the fact that her office with 10 attorneys on this pleading submitted that false, knowingly false affidavit from Nathan Wade's divorce proceedings?
They submitted that affidavit in response to co-defendant Mike Roman's motion to dismiss in front of Judge McAfee.
Was that even addressed in here that 10 attorneys submitted that two attorneys, Nathan Wade and Fannie Willis had eight other attorneys in the Fulton County, the Fulton County DA's office submit a false affidavit?
I mean, it's just shocking to me that this judge went out of his way to protect Fannie Willis here, other than the fact that he's running for reelection.
So, Mike, I know you're going to jump, but before I let you go, what do you make of this?
Because Phil and I have a little disagreement on whether this is a good ruling for Trump, whether this wound up being sort of a relatively good day for Team Trump in the Atlanta case or not.
I agree he didn't get what he wanted.
Phil's right about that, and he should have, you know, the defense team, Team Trump.
But I still see this, and I use the term huge, I see it as a huge win for Team Trump because three months ago, it was full steam head against Trump and all the co-defendants.
Now, here we are three months later, you've gotten one of the chief prosecutors booted, and you've disgraced the Fulton County district attorney in a way that we did not have coming into this.
She was on the cover of magazines.
She was getting the vogue treatment, basically.
And now everybody knows she's been called a liar by the judge who's trying the case.
Anna Cross may or may not return to this case, the other chief prosecutor that they brought in.
The whole district attorney's office has been disgraced.
We saw their terrible performance in front of the nation at that hearing.
And so I just can't help but think they're a lot better off on what, yes, looked like a bit of a long shot from the beginning than they were a few months ago.
Yeah, I mean, I would say this.
I have mixed feelings about this.
From a legal perspective, I think it's very bad what happens here because there was so much misconduct in this case.
And Judge McAfee is putting his political career above the administration of justice in Fulton County.
And that's not good for the system.
It's also bad that this case should have been dismissed.
This prosecutor should have been disqualified at a minimum and a new prosecutor should have been brought in.
And I doubt a new prosecutor would have refiled these charges because, again, it's not a crime to object to a presidential election that's allowed by the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
That's why Democrats aren't in prison for objecting to Republican wins in 1968, 2000, 2004, and 2016.
But I would say to the Democrats with their lawfare, do you really want this beat up old car racing to the finish line now that Fannie Willis has completely destroyed her reputation, the reputation of her office and the credibility of this case?
It's just not a good look for Fannie Willis and these Democrats.
Political Backfire Imminent 00:03:10
And it's like Dave said, this case is not going to get to trial before the election.
So their whole goal of election interference is not going to happen.
And they've really, this is going to backfire politically.
And they've got their own questions on that same front.
I mentioned it earlier.
MSNBC's Andrew Weissman, who's a former federal prosecutor, for the good of this case, given the ethics issues, given that ethical issues will now abound as to Willis.
She should voluntarily recuse herself from the case and allow another prosecutor to oversee the Georgia Trump case.
Another MSNBCer, Joyce Aline.
The judge's ruling means Willis's entire office is not recused from the case, but the better path forward would be to let another prosecutor in that office take over.
We still don't have a decision from her, though I should be shocked if Fannie Willis actually stepped away.
I think she's about to pull the rug out from under Nathan Wade because a man is not a plan.
Mike goes away.
We love you, Mike.
Phil and Dave remain, and there's much more to go through, so don't go away.
We'll be right back.
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As he told me one time, the only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich.
We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal.
I don't need anything from a man.
A man is not a plan.
And Nathan Wade is about to learn that the hard way.
Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show.
Still with me, Phil Holloway and Dave Ehrenberg.
Dave, I could see you were itching to get in on that last point by Mike.
What did you want to say?
Well, it was on the tweets that you read from Andrew Weissman and Joyce Vance, who I respect, but I've got to say that I totally disagree with your thoughts that Fonnie Willis should recuse herself and a underling should take over because if she recuses herself, then the entire office needs to be recused.
You've got to then send it to a different office entirely because this is the situation, the Jussie Smolek case.
Remember, the DA there, the state's attorney disqualified herself and let an underling make the decision.
That looks terrible.
That is a conflict in itself.
And the National District Attorneys Association, of which I'm a board member, has said that you cannot just recuse yourself and let a deputy run the case.
It's either all or nothing.
Potential Perjury and Gag Orders 00:15:23
Where's Anna Cross?
Where?
Where is she, Dave?
She's over.
She's in Kensington Palace.
I'm telling you.
It's the weirdest thing.
Like, what happened to her?
You know, witness protection program, Kensington Palace.
I have no idea.
It's so bizarre.
Yeah.
It's very sketchy.
She disappeared just as the entire prosecution team appears to have decided to lie to the court, Phil.
Yeah, we saw the hubris, right?
that she marched into that courtroom with and essentially tried to take over the place and to in large measure she succeeded.
That same hubris is going to stop her.
She's not going to recuse herself.
She's going to dig her heels in.
She's going to claim this is a victory.
She's going to be talking about Fannie Willis.
Yeah, she's going to excuse.
And so that she's not going anywhere because this case is a matter, it's personal for her.
She campaigned to get Trump.
She's currently in the process of trying to get Trump and she's going to continue to do so.
She is not.
I mean, it's going to make it make the future dealings between the attorneys a little awkward.
Can you guys imagine?
Right.
Like Ashley Merchant is going to have to deal with Fannie Willis day in and day out.
Steve Sadow, same.
And it's going to be just even more fraught than normal.
It's always fraught, but it's going to be extra.
Now, we haven't gotten to the second piece of this case, which I actually thought was very interesting.
The judge did not appreciate Fannie Willis's in-church commentary.
And you guys had both been saying that he wouldn't because, you know, you're former DAs and, you know, it's not appropriate for a district attorney to speak out in the way that she did at that church.
And this judge absolutely agreed with you and didn't hold back on that.
He didn't use it to disqualify her.
But I did think it was interesting that that piece of the motion, which hadn't gotten as much play, upset the judge.
Here, as a reminder, is some of what Fanny said in the church right after Ashley Merchant filed the motion to disqualify Fanny.
She went off.
Take a listen.
Why does Commissioner Thorne and so many others question my decision in a special counsel?
I appointed three special counsel lists.
Is my right to do?
Paid them all the same hourly rate.
They only attacked one.
First thing they say, oh, she's going to play the race car now.
But no, God, isn't it them who's playing the race car when they only question one?
Why are they so surprised that a diverse team that I assembled, your child, can accomplish extraordinary things?
God, wasn't it them that attacked this lawyer of impeccable credentials?
How come God, the same black man I hired, was acceptable when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate?
Oh, y'all ain't hear me.
Why is the white male Republican's judgment good enough, but the black female Democrats not?
All right, so here's some of what the judge found there.
First, he notes that forensic misconduct is potentially a grounds for disqualification and comments out of court from a district attorney along these lines can potentially arise to, quote, forensic misconduct that would get you disqualified, though he noted there wasn't a lot of case law in Georgia on that front.
He said he mentioned her, quote, unorthodox decision to make on the record comments and authorize members of her staff to do so to authors intent on publishing a book about the special grand jury.
Such decisions may have ancillary prejudicial effects yet to be realized.
So again, more misconduct by her, but the comments do not rise to the level of disqualification.
The same cannot so easily be said of the district attorney's prepared speech delivered before the congregation of a local Atlanta church on January 14th, 2024, which we just played for you.
He goes on to say, okay, the state argues that speech was not aimed at any of the defendants in this case.
Maybe so, but maybe not.
Therein lies the danger of public comment by a prosecuting attorney.
By including a reference to so many others on the heels of defendants Roman's motion, which instigated the entire controversy, the DA left that question open for the public to consider.
The court finds, after considering the statement as a whole, under all the circumstances surrounding its issuance, that the DA's speech did include defendant Roman and his counsel within its ambit, whether intentional or not.
He goes on to say, more at issue, instead of attributing the criticism to a criminal accused general aversion to being convicted, the DA ascribed the effort as motivated by playing the race card.
She went on to frequently return to Nathan, refer to Nathan Wade as the black man, while her other unchallenged ADAs or special prosecutors were labeled one white woman and quote, one white man.
The effect of this speech was to cast racial aspersions on an indicted defendant's decision to file this pretrial motion.
I mean, he's crushing her here.
However, the speech did not specifically mention any defendant by name.
It also did not address the merits of the indicted offenses, nor did it disclose sensitive or confidential evidence yet to be revealed.
So this court cannot find the speech cross the line to the point where the defendants have been denied fundamentally the chance at a fair trial.
Then he ends with this, but it was still legally improper.
Providing this type of public comment creates dangerous waters for the district attorney to wade further into.
The time may well have arrived for an order preventing the state from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity.
But that is not the motion presently before the court.
And yet, Phil, it almost certainly will be within days to try to gag this district attorney from further endangering the defendant's right to a fair trial.
Well, how the hell does he think that toothpaste is going to get back in the tube if she's gone so far as to disparage Roman the way the judge has found that she did, you know, a gag order on her moving forward somehow solves that?
No, the remedy is disqualification.
In other words, that's a scathing opinion.
It really throws her out under the bus so badly that, you know, she ought to be ashamed and tuck her tail and just leave town.
It's so bad.
I'd be looking for a new job if the judge described my conduct that way.
But no, he's going to, he's going to say all these things and say, oh, but you know what?
It's still not anything that I'm going to do anything about.
I'm just going to issue a little warning, you know, don't do that again.
And let's all kind of move along.
It's just ridiculous.
It absolutely is ridiculous because that damage has already been done and no gag order by this judge can fix it.
It's the damage is, and it's not just Roman, by the way, it's all of them.
And if you think that she's not going to find a way to make additional public statements that disparage these defendants, then I got news for you because she's going to find a way to do it, whether it's directly or indirectly.
She's going to use surrogates to get her message out.
There is no doubt in my mind because she has a lot of hard feelings about this case.
It's personal to her.
It's emotional.
She's letting her judgment get clouded by her emotions.
We saw that type of behavior in court.
It's obvious that she wants to make this public message.
She wants to try these defendants, not only in the courtroom, but in the court of public opinion, because after all, it is an election year.
So I think that any gag order he does at this point is lipstick on a pig, to be honest with you.
I mean, Dave, what we've got here is an opinion referring to this DA as having engaged in a tremendous lapse in judgment, unprofessional manner.
Possibly the bar, the General Assembly, the Assembly, the State Ethics Commission, and others should be looking into her.
This all leaves the court with the odor of mendacity, which means lying.
mendacity is untruthfulness.
He's been left with an odor of mendacity, talking about how he had serious doubts about her truthfulness as well with the court.
And then we get to all of this talking about how inappropriate she be inappropriately she behaved.
It was legally improper that she cast racial aspersions on an indicted defendant.
This is absolutely devastating.
He, I think the judge is literally begging for an ethics investigation into Fannie Willis.
Am I wrong?
No, I think you're right.
I think he's saying that because I'm going to stick to whether there's an actual conflict, my job here is done, but you can continue this in front of the bar, in front of the legislature, in front of other entities.
And I'm going to leave it to them.
And I always expected her and Nathan Wade to get a tongue-lashing by this judge.
This went further than I thought.
And I thought like the judge acted properly here because what she said is improper for a sitting prosecutor to do that.
Now, I don't think the initial remedy is to disqualify her from the case from making those statements in the church, but it is to issue a gag order.
And then if she violates the gag order, then I think you remedy that with a disqualification.
But I do think the judge acted properly here.
I don't think you push the nuclear button right away.
Who would, if, Phil, if the defense does what you said and files an affidavit saying we have reason to believe the district attorney and or people in her office, including Nathan Wade, lied under oath to this court, committed an indictable offense, as you put it.
And Judge McAfee says, I agree that there is probable cause of that and refers this to the attorney general.
Then what happens?
The AG has to make an independent, and it's a Republican in Georgia, has to make an independent assessment about whether to pursue charges against them.
Yeah, that's basically it.
Yeah, the Attorney General could bring in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct a criminal investigation.
And, you know, criminal investigations sometimes can move quickly and sometimes they drag out.
But the state bar of Georgia, I mean, I can tell you, I know people who have already filed bar complaints on this.
I know they've got some.
I imagine they've got a lot of bar complaints about this case.
So those things are, they're not public.
We don't know what's going on or what the status of them is.
And sometimes they take, you know, years to resolve themselves.
So that's not going to be any kind of quick remedy that's going to solve any of this.
The legislature is not going to be able to get involved, at least in this case, to solve any of these or to resolve any of these problems.
All they can do is pass laws that would apply next time around, but it won't get involved in this case.
State Ethics Board, they do campaign finance violations and they can issue a small fine.
They can't really do anything meaningful the way that the Attorney General can do should the Attorney General's office pursue this matter and investigate any indictable crimes.
And for the record, I'll say it again, in my opinion, I think there's a handful.
I think there's potential perjury.
I think there's potential tampering or influencing witness, which is a felony.
I think that it's a felony to violate the oath of office.
Sponnie Willis knows that.
She's charged people with it, as you said, in this case.
So there's at least two or three things that I think need to be looked at by the proper criminal investigation agency.
And that would be, in my opinion, the Attorney General through the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Dave, you're a prosecutor.
Why do we need the judge to get involved in looking at whether Fanny committed perjury?
Can't the Attorney General of Georgia just do that right now?
I mean, he, I think it's a he, has all the information available to him that the three of us do.
Why does he need Judge McAfee to find there's probable cause?
I don't know how the rules are, the procedures are in Georgia, but usually the Attorney General could step in if there is a state attorney or in this case, a DA who has committed perjury.
What I found interesting, Megan, is that I did not notice that the judge directly said that Bonnie Willis is not credible.
Now, you said there in your comments that...
No, he didn't say it in those terms.
Right.
And I think that's going to help her a lot because the judge didn't explicitly find that.
Remember, the judge has a lot of deference as to fact finding, but the attorney general, if there's misconduct by a prosecutor, the attorney general can usually just step in and investigate and do some sanctions, but it would not be disqualifying someone from the case.
That would be up to the judge.
So the attorney general and the court.
And you can't get a district attorney pulled as a district attorney.
I mean, the voters put her in there.
Is there no governing board that can say you are being removed from your office for gross misconduct?
Well, I'll tell you this.
One of the benefits of being a state attorney or district attorney, at least here in Florida, is that we're all independently elected constitutional officers.
And I'll defer to Phil on how it is in Georgia, but that means that the governor, the attorney general, they're not our bosses.
The people are our bosses.
And if that's the same way in Georgia, then no, you can't remove them unless the judge removes that person from the case.
Yeah, it's so crazy, Phil.
So you're telling me that these further defendants in the state in the county of Fulton are going to have to get prosecuted by this woman who herself appears to have broken the law.
And as long as the Fulton County voters say, yep, she's our gal, they're stuck with her?
Yeah, right now that's more or less it.
The state of Georgia, though, does have currently, it's brand new, by the way, an entity that's designed to oversee prosecutors.
We've got one called the Judicial Qualifications Commission for judges.
They've got one now that oversees prosecutors, but it's just now getting started.
And I don't know that it has the power to necessarily remove a prosecutor.
But in any event, it's just getting underway.
And I think it's too soon for this new entity to get involved with respect to this case.
So yes, the bottom of the line is a constitutionally elected DA gets hired and fired by the voters.
And unless the judge boots her off the case or unless she loses her law license or unless the attorney general causes her to get arrested, she's going to be on this case for the duration.
I think that state Senate committee that's investigating her in this matter, before whom Ashley Merchant testified, which has subpoena power, should get her texts, hers and Nathan Wade's, the actual text messages, which will put the lie to what they said under oath and leave zero doubt about whether they perjured themselves before this court.
What he said, Dave, just pulling up the decision, that reasonable questions remain about whether Fanny and Nathan Wade testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship, and that those questions further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety.
This Case Is Not Over 00:00:52
So that's about as close as you could get to him saying, I think they lied to me.
Reasonable questions about whether they testified untruthfully.
And that leads me to feel that there was an appearance of impropriety, not to mention tremendous lapse in judgment, unprofessional manner.
Guys, thank you for your analysis on this from the beginning forward.
What a day.
We appreciate it.
We want to tell you that this is not over.
We have more coming next week.
And we are happy to tell you that though we are technically on vacation next week, we are going to be bombing in and bringing you a special Tuesday episode.
It will be an exclusive interview.
It will be her first with Ashley Merchant.
You're not going to want to miss that.
Thanks to all of you for tuning in.
Have a great week.
And if you'd like to give us your thoughts, email me, Megan at MeganKelly.com.
Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
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