The Megyn Kelly Show - 20240319_exclusive-ashleigh-merchant-responds-to-fani-willi

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March 19, 2024 - The Megyn Kelly Show

01:43:25

20240319_exclusive-ashleigh-merchant-responds-to-fani-willi

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Welcome to the Show 00:14:57
	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 live from the Caribbean today.
	We're on the spring break of the Kelly Brunt family.
	And as you guys know, we've done a couple of special episodes that I wasn't exactly planning on doing.
	I thought we'd be spring breaking with the kids, but I'm thrilled to bring you today's episode as a special release because we have an exclusive today with defense attorney Ashley Merchant, who's become a superstar, not only in the United States, but here with Megan Kelly Show, viewers, and listeners, since we've been following her amazing behavior as an attorney since the beginning of January.
	Well, prior to that as well, but really she became a star starting then.
	She is a partner at the merchant law firm.
	She's been in practice for over 20 plus years.
	And we all saw what she did.
	She's the person who took down Nathan Wade in this case against Trump and almost took down Fannie Willis.
	And honestly, Fanny's troubles are not over.
	So she has Ashley Merchant and eventually the other defense attorneys to thank for that.
	She's our guest exclusively today.
	Ashley, so nice to meet you.
	Thanks.
	It's nice to meet you.
	It's been so fun watching you.
	Can I just tell you for a couple of reasons?
	The audience knows whenever we have a, in particular, a woman behaving badly in the public eye, I'm not shy about calling them out because sometimes I feel like womankind takes a hit when a woman has high expectations and falls down in the job.
	You're the opposite of that.
	I've been watching you.
	You've made me so proud.
	You're smart.
	You're confident.
	You lived up to everything you promised this judge you would deliver.
	If I got to the point, not knowing you at all, but I got to the point where if you said it in court, I believed you.
	I knew you were going to deliver on it.
	And exactly the opposite with your opponent.
	So thank you for representing and congrats on while I know it didn't work out perfectly the way you wanted it to.
	You can't deny this whole effort was pretty successful for you and the defense.
	Yes, definitely.
	And I appreciate that.
	That's sort of my goal.
	If I say it in court, I have to back it up.
	And you know, I want to make sure that when I walk into court, judges, the public, opposing counsel knows if I say something, it's the truth.
	And it's going to, I'm going to be able to back it up and prove it.
	So I appreciate that.
	Yes.
	Credibility is everything for a lawyer.
	And that's one of the reasons why this effort against Fannie Willis was so successful, in my judgment, because while she's still on the case, I mean, we have a court order.
	I actually tweeted this out the other day.
	Absolutely devastating saying the following about her.
	This order, while it keeps her on, it's not good news for Fanny or any other lawyer looking at this.
	Here's for those of you who missed it, what the judge said in his order that made her choose between herself and Nathan Wade staying on the case.
	Describing her behavior as concerning a tremendous lapse in judgment, unprofessional finding she made bad choices, repeatedly created an odor of mendacity and the appearance of impropriety.
	As for Nathan Wade, who's now been forced out, he found he indicated a willingness to wrongly conceal his relationship with the Da, that questions remain about whether the Da and Wade testify, testified untruthfully and he found Da Willis's public statements attacking the defendants in her church cast racial aspersions that were legally improper, created dangerous waters and may have ancillary prejudicial effects yet to be realized, underscoring the danger of public comment by a prosecuting attorney.
	Last but not least, he noted the reasonable belief that the Da is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences, and encouraged at least five different ethical boards and groups to consider the many unanswered questions in this case.
	My god, so what was your takeaway after reading all that?
	But the judge not bouncing her?
	I was shocked.
	I was very surprised um, but reading that order that you just read, I mean if, as a lawyer, if someone wrote those words about you that's, it's not a good thing um, so that would, that would very much upset me if that order had been written about me.
	But you know, I was surprised that the judge did not go all the way.
	Um, he sort of played it down the middle, you know, split the baby, very Solomonesque of him um, so that was a little bit surprising, but I do appreciate that he made those factual findings.
	Um, obviously we think that it was an actual conflict of interest.
	We think that it just the appearance is enough.
	Um, but I don't think that the fight is over.
	We're going to file an appeal and we're going to continue to pursue this and hopefully hopefully, get what we sought in the beginning, and that is a neutral prosecutor to actually look at this case from a neutral non-political, non-biased lens.
	We're going to get into that because she's still talking, even though the judge threatened to gag her.
	She's still out there talking in a way that sounds very pointed against Trump and the other defendants and very political.
	She's running for reelection, but that doesn't allow you to make anyone's individual case political or to comment on it over and over.
	She can't stop herself.
	Ashley, it's amazing how she seems to sort of own her bias.
	Have you seen the latest remarks she made at this women's event?
	No, I haven't, but i'm still.
	I still haven't gotten over the church remarks and you know yeah Megan, when someone says that Jesus himself told them to prosecute this case, how do you defend against that?
	I mean literally, that's.
	When I hear these, i'm like how, how do you get into court and say okay well well, she's got Jesus on her side.
	He literally, she's saying, told her to bring these charges against my client?
	That's, that's insane.
	I've never dealt with that, you know.
	And we're in court and they're talking about, oh well, there's no case that guides us.
	Of course there's not.
	Nobody says this.
	This doesn't happen.
	People don't take to the pulpit and, you know, say that that Jesus has told them to prosecute, to bring these charges, that she's doing God's work, that she's following his playbook um, you know, asking for guidance since she is following his plan.
	I mean, that's just, that's a very interesting take and a very tough thing to to guard against.
	But no, I haven't heard the most recent remarks at the at the Women's Day event.
	I'd love to hear.
	I'll give you, i'll give you a little sample.
	Um she, this was an event.
	It was held on march 10th, so it was before the ruling, but she knew she was in hot water and might get bounced and was not showing a lot of discretion in the way she spoke about herself, her role and so on.
	You tell me who she's talking about here in sot.
	Three Productive rights.
	Okay.
	Sexually assaulting politicians.
	I don't know.
	That sounds like somebody who's been in the news.
	And then once again, she decided to raise color, her race as an issue in discussing her detractors.
	By the way, she specifically mentioned conservatives, but here's a bit of it in SOP4.
	I hope every day they call her name.
	And understand for a black woman, prints and lies will never deter our work.
	I hope they know I don't care what they say or do.
	I'm going to still be standing here doing what is right for my community.
	So is she always like this?
	Making everything about race and getting personal on the defendants she prosecutes?
	Yes, but I mean, she has been like that most of her career.
	I've got to say that this did surprise me.
	She's known me for 20 years.
	She knows I'm not racist.
	She knows that I'm not all of those things.
	So it did surprise me that she had those personal attacks.
	You know, when the church speech, you know, Martin Luther King weekend came out, we have a family chat as a lot of people do.
	I'm sure, you know, a family chat where your kids are chatting, you know, texting.
	And my 14-year-old daughter literally texted the family chat and said, this lady is on TV calling mom and dad racists.
	Like, does she know them?
	And that was the first thing, you know, the conversation in our family.
	We're the last people that you would call racist.
	And so, you know, I had a lot of community outreach from that.
	A lot of people from the community said, you know, I can't believe that.
	That's just, that's not who you are.
	You know, that's such a far stretch from the truth.
	So that was surprising.
	You know, there's folks out there that maybe could be called racist, but we're not one of them.
	So that was really surprising, particularly since she knows me and she's known me for so long.
	We have a little bit of those church remarks.
	Let's take a listen.
	Why does Commissioner Thorne and so many others question my decision in a special counsel?
	I appointed three special counselors.
	Is my right to do?
	Paid them all the same hourly rate.
	They only attack one.
	First thing they say, oh, she's going to play the race card now.
	But no, God, isn't it them who's playing the race card 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 hearing me.
	Why is the white male Republican's judgment good enough, but the black female Democrats not?
	So those are the remarks to which you were referring, impugning not only you, but your client too.
	I mean, that's that's what the judge really had a problem with.
	And this guy's freedom is potentially in her hands, and she's making it a personal beef with him about race because you filed a motion to disqualify her.
	Right.
	There's so much there in that clip that you just played.
	There's so many different issues.
	The one that, you know, when I first heard it, I said, well, she's lying.
	And you would think if you're going on a church pulpit that you know is going to be broadcast, I mean, this is essentially her first public remarks after my motion was filed.
	And she doesn't tell the truth.
	The third person on this case did not make the same rate as the others.
	And, you know, that's the first thing that stuck out to me.
	I mean, the, you know, facts matter, words matter, the truth matters.
	And that was patently false.
	So, you know, especially since I was, you know, called a liar so many times and things that I said was patently false.
	If I'm going to get on national TV and talk in a church to God, I'm going to make sure that I've got the facts right.
	And John Floyd, the third prosecutor on this case, is not paid the same rate as the others.
	Plus, the work is very different.
	And I've analyzed this.
	I've lived with this for almost six months.
	So I know these records like the back of my hand.
	You've got three different prosecutors billing very different amounts, doing very different work.
	Nathan Wade bills sitting there.
	So he's Bill's sitting in. court watching John Floyd or Anna Cross do work.
	They don't bill sitting watching him do work.
	So that was one big distinction.
	Second, they're not sleeping with her.
	So that's a big distinction.
	Third, they're not all being paid the same rate.
	And fourth, their qualifications are extremely different.
	I have known all three of them for the better part of 20 years.
	And so, you know, race doesn't play into any of those factors.
	And so all of those things were left out of it.
	So that was the first takeaway I got from that church speech.
	There are a lot of people watching this right now who are feeling incensed.
	They see how political she is.
	She tried to play the race card.
	We expect this to keep going as this prosecution keeps on.
	And they're feeling kind of bummed out, Ashley.
	I've heard from a lot of them since the judge's ruling.
	I'm sure you are too.
	But how do you see the import of what happened here?
	You know, you finding this story, moving to disqualify the evidentiary hearing.
	Like, where are we today versus January 1st before you'd filed any of this?
	I love that question because that's what I think about often.
	Before we filed this, none of this was known to the world.
	So there was a small group of us that knew this, but the world didn't know this.
	And so, you know, there was a very different image of this prosecution and a very different image of the DA's office.
	And, you know, one of the things that Ms. Willis has always run on is transparency.
	And that is one of the guiding principles that I practice by is transparency.
	I'm very transparent, which is, you know, I'm a defense lawyer, so I don't have to be transparent, but I am and I believe in transparency.
	And so, you know, bringing this to the public and bringing this to the court was very important to me.
	So if you look at where we were at the beginning of January, nobody knew when I filed this that they were actually having an affair and that he had taken her on all of these lavish vacations.
	When we filed the motion, everybody said, oh, well, she doesn't have proof.
	She didn't put proof in the motion, you know, which is typical.
	And it was hard because the motion's pending.
	So I can't really speak publicly about it.
	But, you know, that's how we file motions.
	You know, proof comes in the actual evidentiary hearing.
	So we have to allege enough to get an evidentiary hearing.
	And then we actually put the facts up.
	So, you know, that was difficult.
	Then when she gave this church speech, I didn't know how she was going to respond.
	Is she going to admit to it?
	Is she going to deny it?
	Is she going to step aside?
	What's going to happen?
	But then she admitted to it.
	And so then it became an issue of when it started, which before I filed the motion, you know, that wasn't even an issue.
	It's sort of like we switched the focus from all of the conduct to when it started.
	And I still, I go back to the original motion.
	I don't know that it necessarily matters when it started.
	I still think that it reaches the standard of impropriety that requires her to disqualify.
	I don't know.
	I mean, we spent a lot of time fighting over when the actual affair started, but I've never thought that that was a big issue.
	I mean, you know, definitely it's more damning if it started before she hired him, but they renewed the contracts three times.
	So, you know, they were definitely undisputed in a relationship when she renewed these contracts.
	And the contracts kept getting from more and more money.
	I also think that if you hide things you're doing, that usually is an indication that they're not something you should be doing.
	You know, and people hide things for different reasons, but when you're a public official and you know that your life is going to be scrutinized, you have to be extra cautious.
The Office Conflict 00:06:30
	You know, I've never been a public official.
	don't have a desire to be a public official, but if you are a public official, you've got to keep records of things.
	Why you would pay cash to a man that you are sleeping with and you are also paying in what is undisputedly one of the largest criminal cases in our legal history is beyond me.
	And so I think the public is right to question how this is allowed to go on.
	It's absolutely reckless at a minimum.
	We know she did that.
	So why doesn't bouncing him off of the case cure it?
	That was never what I imagined happening because there is law in Georgia that says if one person in the case is bad, the whole case is bad.
	So, you know, and we saw that with pre-indictment with Burt Jones, who is our lieutenant governor in Georgia.
	And Ms. Willis and her whole office had a conflict.
	She had the conflict, but the judge in that case, a different judge, Judge McBurney, kicked the entire office.
	And the law that he followed said, if she's got a conflict, the whole office has a conflict.
	So in my opinion, that's what the law says.
	It says if Mr. Wade has a conflict, the whole office has a conflict.
	And I do think the judge in his order was telling her you should step aside.
	But obviously that's not going to happen.
	He just wasn't willing to take that next step and say you have to step aside.
	But I don't think that you can split the baby like this.
	I've never thought that you could split the baby.
	I thought it was all or nothing.
	I know you're in a tough position because you now have a criminal case in front of Judge McAfee that you have to try, presumably all the way to conclusion.
	So he's your judge and you have to be respectful.
	And I get it.
	I've been there.
	However, what do you think his motivation was in ruling the way he did?
	Because we've had a lot of people, our audience, and we've had experts come on the show to say, this was political.
	He's running for reelection.
	The district went 73% for Joe Biden.
	And there was no world in which this judge was going to get re-elected if he bounced Fannie Willis off this case.
	What do you think?
	You know, I don't even have to answer that just to this judge.
	I can answer that to judges in general.
	If they have the choice of not deciding, that's what they do.
	And that just tends to be what happens.
	If they can push it back on the parties to make the decision, that's commonly what happens.
	And I think that's what we saw here.
	We saw the safe play.
	We saw, okay, well, it's bad, but I'm putting it back on you to do.
	I'm putting it back on you, Ms. Willis, to make the tough decision.
	Either you go, he goes, or I invite you both to go is how I read the order, hoping that she would do the right thing.
	And we see that a lot.
	We see that with judges a lot.
	That's the safest route to take to split the baby.
	And that's very common.
	And it's, you know, most of the time that is justice to be able to make the parties figure it out on their own.
	But as we've seen in this case, that's not going to happen.
	She, for some reason, very, very much wants to continue on this case, you know, which is surprising.
	I can tell you in 20 years of practice, I've never once seen a DA who had a motion to disqualify not voluntarily disqualify if there were any grounds.
	Never.
	Never.
	And I've had it happen a couple of times, which is how I know the process, you know, for another district attorney to be appointed.
	Anytime someone has said you've got a conflict and you need to be disqualified, the prosecutor's office is like, okay, bye.
	Like, you know, because it's less work for them.
	And why, why be fighting that the entire prosecution?
	Why be trying to force it?
	You answer the question because, I mean, to me, it seems clear.
	She wants to be a star.
	She's using this case to make herself a celebrity.
	100%.
	I mean, her office found, and this was one of the things, one of the details that kind of got lost in the mix because it didn't have a ton of relevancy to our motion.
	So we couldn't focus on it.
	But she used $10,000 of taxpayer money to hire a media monitoring company.
	It's called Critical Mention.
	I mean, that's that.
	When I saw that, I was, and the emails that are attached to it, they're clearly looking to put a dollar value on her publicity.
	And there's only one reason for that.
	She wants to do something further politically.
	I mean, that was just so obvious to me.
	And if I, I don't live in Fulton County.
	I live in an adjoining county, thank goodness, because if 10,000 of my tax dollars went to a district attorney paying to monitor her own media, I would be absolutely livid, particularly in Fulton County, where it is a third world country in that jail.
	It is awful.
	It's, there's just so many problems in that county.
	And I used to look at- You know what else?
	It's like there's a, there's a simple way of monitoring your media mentions and you just put a Google alert on yourself.
	I don't recommend it.
	It's very depressing.
	But if she really wants to see the coverage of her name out there, she can do that.
	You don't need to spend taxpayer, you know, $10,000 in order to find out what people are saying about you.
	She clearly is using it.
	And those comments that we just played just show it.
	I mean, she went to that women's event thing and got a heroine's welcome.
	And then they replayed, I'll show you on Friday after Judge McAfee's ruling, which allowed her to remain on the case.
	That same group put out this video celebrating her like she's the second coming.
	Here, let's watch some of it.
	You can see they're celebrating her.
	They're playing Beyonce.
	Like, look, Fulton County elected her.
	And I don't know, is there, she keeps playing the race card.
	So I'll ask you whether it's relevant.
	Is it a racial thing?
	I imagine Fulton County is predominantly minority.
	Is she trying to tap into some sort of racial grievance there by continuously bringing this up?
	I think so.
	And, you know, I think it's important to look at the history of her office.
	You know, she's, she's a new prosecutor, but she, her first big case was the YSL case, which is the, it's a, it's a racketeering case against a rapper named Young Thug.
	That case is still pending.
	That case actually divided the community in Fulton County a lot because she used rap lyrics and is still using rap lyrics and took the stance of using rap lyrics against those gentlemen who were charged in that case.
	And that was a very controversial decision in the Black community in Atlanta.
	And so I feel like part of this is her politically trying to regain that community that might have not been happy about what happened in the YSL case.
	So I do, I definitely think it's political.
	And I think she's got higher political ambitions, which, you know, surprised me.
Political Ambitions Revealed 00:08:36
	I knew her when I was a public defender and she was a line DA.
	And, you know, it surprised me because you know how there's moments that you remember in your career where someone says something to you and it's sort of profound and it sticks with you.
	I have one of those with her.
	We were, this is probably 15 years ago.
	We were, I was a young public defender.
	She was a young prosecutor and I had filed a motion on a double jeopardy and I won on appeal.
	You know, and I was still kind of unsure of myself and, you know, felt bad shaking things up.
	And she said, don't ever feel bad about defending your client because if you don't defend your client, you don't do everything that you need to do, my convictions won't stand and I can't do my job.
	And I said, you know, that's a really good perspective.
	And I've always viewed it that way.
	So, you know, being attacked, and these attacks have been personal, being attacked was sort of surprising to me because all I'm doing is defending my client and she knows me and knows that I'm not racially motivated, knows that I'm not, you know, biased against women or anything like that.
	So it is kind of surprising.
	And you're not biased against Nathan Wade.
	I mean, they pointed out in their opposition to your motion that you campaigned for him, I guess, when he was what, running for judge, but you had supported him.
	Obviously, if his race or status as a man were a problem for you, you wouldn't have done that.
	I didn't think that inured against you.
	I thought it was the opposite.
	But of course, she's enjoying trying to lead people to believe that because it helps her.
	It's a low blow.
	And we've watched it.
	All right.
	I want to ask you some questions about the hearing, if you don't mind, because we all watched it.
	Apparently, I only watch your hearing and your case from the Caribbean because I was actually, I was sent on different vacations over President's Day.
	Yeah, actually, it's been a very nice tough turn for us this past couple of months.
	It was freezing in Connecticut.
	Anyway, there we sat in the Bahamas and I listened to this whole thing and I watched every minute of it.
	And I had a couple of quick key questions.
	I'm amazed that the judge completely dismissed Robin Yurty, who didn't want to be there.
	If I wanted to sink Fannie Willis because she forced me out of the DA's office, as the, as Fanny alleged, I would have come running to your courtroom.
	I would have said, Ms. Merchant, how can I help you?
	I can't wait to sink her.
	She's terrible.
	But you had to subpoena her.
	You pointed out she was terrified to get up there.
	When she actually was forced to testify, she was very laconic, very short answer.
	She was not volunteering anything.
	And I found her very credible.
	The judge said, I'm paraphrasing, but like it wasn't filled out.
	Like it wasn't, her testimony wasn't filled out.
	I can understand that criticism because I too wanted her to offer more detail.
	I wanted to hear like a narrative answer.
	So what are your thoughts on his him dismissing her testimony and how her testimony went?
	I was surprised that he dismissed her because I thought she was by far the most credible witness that took the stand.
	And I was disappointed because I could have made it more flowery, you know, gone into salacious details about what she had seen them with.
	That's what we wanted.
	Great.
	And it's crazy because I was under attack for doing that.
	So, you know, I'm getting right to the facts.
	I'm bringing a witness.
	And that's, you know, that's just kind of my style in court.
	I'm one of those people where I don't, and it's, it's from trying jury cases.
	I try not to waste jurors' time, you know, so I get to the meat of it and then I get out.
	And that's just my style.
	But with Robin, you know, she was, she was very hesitant to come forward.
	She had a lawyer.
	I think, I think all of this context is important.
	She had a lawyer who filed a motion to quash and relitigated that right before she testified.
	That lawyer, who is a very pleasant and wonderful person, is a Fannie Willis supporter.
	So, you know, you've got someone, all of the lawyers that did these motions to quash, you see their names on her campaign flyers regularly.
	So, you know, she's Robin Yurty hired a lawyer who is literally on Fonnie Willis's campaign flyers as a supporter, trying to keep Robin Yurty off the stand.
	You know, Robin didn't have a beef to come.
	She didn't want to be a part of it.
	You know, she always said, I'll tell the truth.
	But the other thing that I think a lot of people don't understand is that hesitant witnesses will not talk to the defense out of court.
	So, you know, my interactions with her were through her lawyer and, you know, somewhat limited.
	So I don't have the ability when someone doesn't want to come and testify for me to get all of these flowery details.
	You know, I got what I needed from her and she was unequivocal.
	You know, she, there was no doubt in her mind and she was her best friend.
	She said no doubt.
	Okay.
	He said it ultimately.
	In addition, while the testimony of Robin Yurty raised doubts about the state's assertions, raised doubts, it ultimately lacked context and detail.
	And then he went on to say, but even after considering the proffered cell phone testimony from defendant Trump, along with the entirety of the other evidence, neither side was able to conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the relationship evolved into a romantic one.
	I mean, that's just, I mean, with respect to the judge, that's the biggest lie in this opinion.
	That's the biggest lie that he wrote.
	That's just not true.
	Neither side was able to conclusively establish.
	And there's a little trick there.
	There's a trick, like a sleight of hand, conclusively established by a preponderance of the evidence, which is it.
	That's almost holding you to two different standards there.
	The correct one is preponderance, 51% more likely than not.
	And he wants conclusive 51%.
	You absolutely got there.
	This is the only mention of Yurty or the cell phone records, which show him at her house overnight.
	What was he doing there?
	Right, right and and Yurty, you know, there wasn't really any motive to lie, so she didn't work for the DA'S office anymore.
	She has her own career.
	This wasn't, you know, this wasn't like a.
	She'd been there 20 years and was fired.
	I mean, she had literally come on to work for her best friend, to help her with media, and then they just had a disagreement and she was demoted and so she left.
	It wasn't like this.
	Was this this huge um, you know, blowout between them?
	Everyone say disgruntled, the left-wing media you saw, disgruntled disgruntled, disgruntled.
	She wasn't disgruntled, she didn't look disgruntled, she didn't want to be there.
	But you know, a lot of that was, she doesn't like my client and doesn't like our side, you know.
	So she told me she's like I don't want to help you um, you know, and a lot of the witnesses like that, a lot of them did not want to help me, did not want to help my side um, and so you know, I have to talk to them and say, but the truth is the truth, you know, you have to you, you have to tell the truth.
	That's what you've got to do and that's what I kept telling her, despite her not wanting to help my side.
	Um, you know, she said i'll tell the truth.
	That's amazing.
	I, I see your point that you did get hit and Fanny Willis hit you for, you know, probing the details of her personal life, and yet here you decide discretion is the better part of valor, like there's no reason to get into the really salacious details and it gets held against you.
	I wondered if, in the moment, you know, since she was a hostile witness to you, she was there under protest.
	You know, sometimes as the lawyer you're like, i've got my admission, i'm just going to move on because I actually don't know what i'm going to get if I push more.
	I, I don't want to screw up my record.
	Right, that's true, and you know there was a lot, there's a lot more that Robin Yurty wants to say.
	Um, that was not relevant to this case and so I was trying very hard to not.
	You know it's ironic I was trying very hard to not turn it into a circus because she's got different issues with, with Miss Willis's office and her prosecution of other cases.
	Um yeah, is she a whistleblower and something else she has?
	Um somewhat, you know she's not one of.
	As far as I know she's not one of the named whistleblowers that's actually, you know, testifying or anything like that but she is to a certain extent, and you know that stuff wasn't relevant to my case and so I was trying very hard to just stay focused on the relevant issues in my case um, which is why we didn't go into all the flowery details and things like that.
	Do you think at some point Robin Yurty might sit down with somebody let's hope it's me, um and actually just tell the story?
	I mean, there's nothing prohibiting her from telling the story, other than what?
	The threat of Fannie Willis or the threat of helping Trump.
	I think it's funny.
	Willis is very um, powerful in the Atlanta area and I think, just from talking to a lot of witnesses, they did not want the scrutiny um, they didn't want what happened to me to happen to them.
	Um, you know, they just don't want that and, as you see, it's very easy to charge someone in a criminal case, you know and i'm not commenting on this case in particular, but everybody knows, you know you can indict a heme sandwich, and so the person that you don't want to get in crosshairs with is arguably the you know, the highest ranking law enforcement officer.
A Disappointing Privilege 00:15:09
	As an attorney, you know, in the state, past the attorney general I mean, Fulton County is the largest jurisdiction we have.
	So I think it's reasonable that people don't want to get in her crosshairs.
	You know, and I think there's a lot of that going on.
	Yeah, that's scary.
	Well, of course, that that's the perfect lead into Terrence Bradley.
	OMG.
	What?
	I mean, okay, let's start at the beginning.
	I didn't realize until the hearing that he was the tip off to you on the fact that this affair began.
	The way I had read your motion filed, I think, January 6th, was it led me to believe somehow that maybe it was Nathan Wade's ex-wife, Joycelyn, or her lawyer who maybe gave you the heads up.
	But it turns out it was Terrence Bradley, Nathan's former law partner.
	And we've seen from those full text messages between you and Terrence Bradley how helpful he wanted to be, how much he knew about the affair, how many leads he wanted you to follow.
	And then it was a 180 when he got on the stand.
	So tell us your experience with Terrence Bradley.
	You know, I'm still shocked when I look back at it, you know, looking at him, but I could tell from his testimony, you know, when he, by his eyes and when he looked at me and said, I'm trying to save my law license.
	That was one of the only times he directly looked at me during his testimony.
	And I think that was him telling me like, I'm sorry, but I'm trying to save my law license here.
	And, you know, but it was disappointing because he came to me and he knew, you know, my role in the case.
	He knew that I represented one of the defendants in this case.
	He knew I represented Mr. Roman.
	And so he came to me and initiated this contact.
	You know, and I, but I know Terrence and I knew Terrence.
	And, you know, I very much like Terrence as a colleague, a professional colleague and a friend.
	You know, our kids have gone to school together.
	Like, you know, it's, it disappoints me greatly.
	I am surprised.
	I'm still surprised because I thought that he would tell the truth on the stand.
	And, you know, we had many conversations.
	Those texts are just sort of a small snippet of it, you know, a timeline, but there's many conversations.
	And I went and I pulled back my phone records.
	You know, I'm like, am I crazy?
	Did I, you know, did I, did I dream up all these phone calls?
	And so I pulled all my phone records and I'm like, nope, it follows exactly my timeline of all the times we talked about it.
	And, you know, I'm not the only person that he told about it.
	He told another lawyer in the case who represented Mr. Chesborough, told him about it and told some other folks.
	As we've seen from some subsequent filings, a district attorney in Cobb County told her about it.
	So, you know, I was very surprised by the privilege argument because I had never heard that.
	I never heard that until Mr. Wade and his friend called, you know, a friend of Mr. Bradley.
	So that was the first time I had heard the word privilege.
	Just to clarify for the audience, meaning that when Terrence Bradley got on the stand, he claimed everything he knew about Nathan Wade's affair with Fannie Willis was privileged.
	And meanwhile, he'd been talking, he was like the town crier about it prior to the moment he actually took the stand.
	So there was a, there was a divergence there between his behavior and what he was claiming when he hit the stand.
	Keep going.
	Right.
	And, you know, not surprising because if it's, if it's privileged, then you know about it, you know?
	So he's saying, oh, well, I didn't know it's speculation.
	Oh, but it's privilege.
	It's like when the privilege didn't work, we switched over to speculation.
	You know, which is it?
	It's, it's confusing.
	But the thing with this privilege term, where it first came about was when Nathan Wade actually called Terrence's best friend and, you know, said, hey, remind him about his privilege.
	And so that was the first time that this whole, oh, wait, it's privilege sort of came in.
	And I think that's when he had that threat almost that, hey, I'm coming after your law license.
	And when Terrence took the stand and said, I'm trying to protect my law license, that told me everything I needed.
	You know, at that point, I said, okay, I've got to switch.
	And I think you could even see my demeanor switch at that point from, hey, Terrence is my friend to Terrence is someone who lied to me and is lying on the stand.
	It was clear.
	I mean, it was clear to everybody that he was lying on the stand, including the judge.
	The judge put absolutely no weight on his testimony.
	And so he got what he wanted.
	Nathan Wade got what he wanted and getting him to shut up when it mattered.
	But the text messaging I thought was very damning, very damning.
	Why would he?
	I mean, he said absolutely that he knew when it had begun, that it had begun prior to when they had testified to on the stand, and that it had begun after she left the DA's office, as you point out, a line.
	I just want to line, not L-Y-I-N D-A, a line, L-I-N-E-D-A.
	She later, I would submit, became a lion DA.
	But in any event, so that was back in 19.
	So one of my audience members, I read their emails, Ashley, and they, one of them wanted me to ask you whether you wish in those text messages, you had established the foundation for his personal knowledge, since that was what the judge said.
	He didn't see any foundation for, like, this could have been speculation by him.
	It could have just been like, yeah, I think they did.
	And we don't know how he knew or if he really knew at all.
	Right.
	And I wish I had because I talked to him about that in person and on the phone.
	You know, when I filed the response, the second, not the first filing, but then they responded and said, okay, we were in a relationship, but it didn't start until after he was hired.
	Then I called Terrence, literally sitting at my desk in the same office and said, okay, this is what they filed.
	I need to respond.
	Let's talk about it.
	And that's when he told me about like the garage door opener and things like that.
	And he explained things with sensory details, you know, like I saw this and he told me about this.
	And that, you know, those details I wish I had captured in text, but at the time I didn't know that I needed to because I didn't think that Terrence would ever, you know, clam up and claim this, this privilege theory.
	So, you know, yeah, going back, I wish I had gotten a lot more details, but I didn't know I needed to.
	So he gave them to you in person.
	Like, do you sitting here today, do you have any doubt that he knows as a fact?
	He knows that they did begin the affair prior to when they claimed.
	No doubt.
	I have no doubt that, I mean, he told me details.
	And, you know, as lawyers, we learn to get sensory details.
	You know, one of our jobs, it's like we become sort of a lie detector test almost, you know, that we can tell when people have sensory details when they don't, you know, and he was just telling me certain details.
	And, you know, part of what we do is we try to match up facts.
	So he's telling me things early on, you know, telling me about the Yurty apartment, for example.
	He's explaining it in detail.
	And then when I finally find Ms. Yurty and I confirm the apartment, I'm like, okay, well, you know, Terrence was telling the truth.
	You know, all of those details match up.
	The same thing with when they met.
	Terrence told me about when they met at this conference.
	And then I went and subpoenaed the records from the conference and verified that he was speaking at that conference and she was in attendance at that conference.
	So, you know, all of those details matched up from what he told me, which led me to believe he was credible.
	Do you think your friendship with him is over?
	I don't know.
	I haven't seen him since.
	You know, I don't, one of the, one thing that's very important to me is to tell the truth.
	And so that's hard to get over, you know, tell the truth.
	And I feel also like I was sort of put in an uncomfortable position where I'm on essentially national TV being called a liar, you know, by the state, and he's letting that happen.
	And so that's, that's kind of hard to get over because my credibility is what as a lawyer is the most important thing to me.
	If I'm not sure or I don't, you know, have credible basis for something, I'm not going to open my mouth or I'm not going to allege it.
	There's a reason I waited so long to file this.
	I wanted to triple check things.
	You know, so that's kind of disappointing.
	But there were a lot of people that said things in this case that were disappointing to me that I'm surprised by.
	And I think my friendships with them will forever be tarnished.
	Well, that leads me to Nathan Wade and Fannie Willis.
	Do you believe they lied on the stand?
	Yes, I definitely believe they lied on the stand.
	And I think about a material fact.
	Right.
	I think about a material fact.
	I think they had motivation.
	I mean, Nathan's testimony was just, I know it wasn't as salacious, but it was, it was incredible.
	You know, long pause.
	It was literally incredible.
	The long pauses.
	And, you know, I went back and I reviewed it and a lot of it was he would not answer the question.
	And so I would ask again and he still wouldn't answer the question.
	He was very vague.
	And I, you know, reading it, I'm like, oh, well, he's trying to make sure he doesn't lie on the stand.
	So, you know, I'm not sure if he lied or just avoided the question, but there was a lot of avoiding the question.
	And then I'd have to ask it a third time.
	And they would argue, asked and answered.
	And I would get, you know, that would be sustained and I'd have to move on.
	So there's a lot of questions that I actually didn't get an answer to.
	And that to me is very, it was very frustrating.
	Do you feel the judge was protecting them?
	You know, it's one of those things when where you're in it, you just get frustrated because how many times are you going to ask the same question and they're not going to give an answer?
	So, you know, I was frustrated.
	I don't think I got an answer, but I don't think I was going to get an answer.
	And I think that's why the judge said, you need to move along, you know, because when you ask something three times and they keep deflecting, you're clearly not going to get an answer.
	I think we would have been there.
	I mean, Chris trying to nail down the answer.
	But these were material questions and material matters that go right to the heart of disqualification.
	I can't believe that he let them get away with it.
	And my only thought at the time was he knows, like he knows what the truth is.
	So he's not really letting them get away with it.
	This isn't a jury trial.
	The judge gets to make the decisions.
	And yet in the end, he seemed to run cover for them.
	That's, I mean, look, I think he's a good judge.
	I like the guy, but I completely think he protected his own hide in this decision.
	He wants to remain a judge and he was afraid, this is my judgment, of ticking off the voters in Fulton County.
	And so he found a way to, he could telegraph to all of us that he does know.
	He knows they lied.
	He knows this all is corrupt.
	And yet he gets to stay on the bench and he wants this to be the problem of these five other entities.
	And I don't know whether that's going to happen or not.
	That's one of the questions I want to ask you.
	But before I get to that, let's talk about Nathan Wade's resignation because, you know, you're saying you believe he lied on the stand.
	I do too.
	And Fanny Willis too.
	And here's, so after the judge's order, one of them was forced to step down.
	And to no one's surprise, it was Nathan Wade.
	I wasn't surprised at least that she made him leave instead of herself.
	And he says in his letter in part, okay, as directed by the order today, I hereby offer my resignation effective immediately.
	Although the court found that the defendants failed to meet their burden of proving that the district attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest, I am offering my resignation in the interest of democracy in dedication to the American public and to move this case forward as quickly as possible.
	Amazing to me, Ashley.
	He makes it sound like this is just, they won, but he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart.
	It's another lie.
	He's forced off.
	He or she were forced off this case.
	It is not, quote, in the interests of democracy.
	It's pursuant to court order.
	I know, I know.
	And it goes along with this theme that you saw when they were testifying on the stand, particularly Ms. Willis, about, you know, my client's interests are contrary to democracy.
	You know, these are the, these are extra, extrajudicial statements that are prejudicial.
	You know, your, your interests and mine should not, they're not in controversy.
	You know, we all want justice.
	And so him saying that that it's contrary to democracy is just yet another dig against my client's right to a fair trial.
	Yeah.
	And not, and once again, a failure to acknowledge it was his own behavior that led to this decision.
	No responsibility has been taken whatsoever at all.
	I mean, even to this moment, he was forced off and he doesn't even issue an apology for his terrible behavior or acknowledge the, you know, the criticisms of the judge that he just outlined in that long, you know, tweet that I reread that after I posted it.
	Nothing.
	Can you believe there's absolutely no responsibility taken by these two?
	I mean, there still have been.
	And it's shocking because the testimony didn't take any responsibility.
	All it did was try to flip it back on you're the bad person, you know, you're the liar.
	And I'm sitting there thinking, wait, you've hid this.
	You've gone to great lengths to hide this from the public and from the court and from the county and from the taxpayers.
	You know, you lied on your campaign disclosures or your, you know, financial disclosures.
	There's county disclosures that say any gift over $100.
	And it doesn't say it has to be like an actual, you know, money transaction.
	It can be something for a benefit, you know, going on vacation, going out to dinner, getting a ride, whatever.
	You have to disclose it.
	You didn't disclose it.
	You know, you clearly hid this.
	You didn't go to the county attorney.
	You didn't go to the board of county commissioners and say, hey, I'm going to pay him a million dollars.
	And I just want you guys to be okay with that.
	Or I want to let you know.
	Didn't do any of that.
	You know, you're hiding it.
	You're hiding it because it's wrong.
	And then you turn around and say that I'm the liar when you've admitted to 90% of what I've said.
	So clearly I'm not the liar here.
	I just think it's just deflection, not taking personal responsibility.
	It's very upsetting.
	It's very unfortunate.
	I think the public deserves better.
	The taxpayers in Fulton County deserve better.
	I mean, this is taxpayer money.
	This is not their money.
	And, you know, lawyers don't get to bill like this.
	This is not something that's normal.
	Normally we have a client that would say, hey, this bill is ridiculous.
	Yeah.
	I lived that life too.
	I practiced for 10 years.
	Every phone call, it has to be down to the second.
	You don't bill for 10 minutes if the phone call was six.
	Otherwise, somebody usually in my law firm would come back to me and say, hey, make sure we don't round up.
	You know, we've got to be really super careful.
	But as you pointed out at the hearing, she was rubber stamping every one of his submissions.
	Another fact the judge ignored in his ruling.
	Right.
	And it is a lot of money.
	You know, they argued, oh, well, he made more money in another county.
	That's not, this is a lot of money for a public official to be paid on a case where there's arguably no need.
	And so, you know, I think it's also important to understand how rare this is.
	This does not happen.
	DAs regularly, if they need outside help, they get it from this organization called PAC, which is Georgia's prosecuting attorney's counsel.
	They have staff attorneys that are there to help if you need help that are paid government salaries.
	You know, paying some, paying an outside prosecutor doesn't make sense.
	And it's not typical.
	The attorney general's office does it in civil cases, but that is very specialized.
	And that's for very specialized types of law, you know, healthcare law, things that are specialized in the attorney general doesn't have actual staff that can handle.
	But a prosecuting counsel like this, they don't ever hire outside lawyers and pay them hourly.
	He was essentially working full time for the DA's office, but he was able to have an outside practice, which, you know, if you were an employee of the DA, you wouldn't be able to have.
	He couldn't be an employee of the DA because of their relationship.
	So, you know, she couldn't have hired him as an actual employee.
	She had to hire him under this contract basis because they couldn't have an affair if he was an employee.
	So, you know, they're doing all of this stuff to circumvent the law.
Search Warrant Details 00:15:10
	And then when they get caught, their answer is to claim that, you know, I'm racist and a liar.
	It's just, it's incredible to me.
	And right, exactly.
	And a liar.
	That's what she said as soon as she took the stand, going after you as having absolutely no foundation for even bringing this motion.
	And then we, of course, saw the Terrence Bradley text, which told a very different story and heard from Robin Yurty and saw the cell phone records and so on.
	On the subject of Nathan Wade, so he goes on in this letter saying, seeking justice for the people of Georgia and the United States and being part of the effort to ensure that the rule of law and democracy are preserved has been the honor of a lifetime.
	I mean, I have to tell you, Nathan Wade, making sure that the rule of law has been upheld doesn't sit right with me.
	Not a lawyer who clearly lied under oath in his interrogatories and then in that affidavit submitted in your case and then on the stand.
	I got him for at least three times committing perjury, which our audience knows at this point, Ashley, you can't do as a civilian, but you really can't do as an officer of the court.
	It's a double sin and it happens to be a crime.
	And as for the first lie, the first lie, answering the interrogatories, that's not Megan Kelly's opinion or Ashley Merchant's opinion.
	That's a fact.
	He lied in his divorce interrogatory.
	So what could happen to him now?
	Because that's one lie we know for sure he told under oath.
	So what happens now?
	Nothing?
	You know, unfortunately, I think practically probably nothing, but there are lots of people that are investigating.
	I know that, you know, that the judge put in his order several different organizations.
	You know, the state bar, a lot of people are like, oh, is the state bar going to do something?
	The thing that I think is unique about the state bar is they only act if someone files a complaint and follows through on the complaint.
	So they don't do their own like independent work early on in a case.
	If it goes to a trial, which is way later on a case, then they would do some independent work, but they don't investigate.
	That's not their job.
	They just review things that are filed.
	So, you know, someone else would have to do all the work for them to actually pursue it.
	And that's unlikely.
	Most people don't do that.
	The other bodies that could investigate, they don't have a whole lot of power over Nathan Wade.
	So, you know, the attorney general in Georgia could investigate.
	That would be wonderful if they would decide to investigate because this is public money.
	I think that the taxpayers probably want to know why so much money was spent on someone who could just send a resignation letter.
	And now the case can move on and it can go forward with publicly funded prosecutors who actually take a salary.
	You know, there was never an answer to why you needed outside counsel for this.
	And that's, you know, if I was a taxpayer, that's what I would want to know.
	Why did you need Nathan Wade?
	Why could you not hire someone to be a Fulton County government employee and make, you know, $150,000 a year, which is what most of the prosecutors on this case make?
	Why do you need to hire someone else and pay them these exorbitant amounts?
	Because she really wanted to see the world.
	She wanted to go to Aruba.
	She wanted to go to Napa.
	And I mean, hey, I'm in the Caribbean now.
	I highly recommend it.
	I'm sure she really loved her trips here.
	Except I paid for it with my own money.
	Yeah.
	And wanted to work with her boyfriend.
	You know, it's like I work with my husband, but I'm in private practice.
	I love working with my husband, but we are in private practice.
	You know, if you want to work with your loved one, you can't do it in public practice.
	Like you just can't do it when you work for the government.
	There's rules against that.
	There are ethical rules against it.
	He goes on or she goes on to respond to his resignation letter saying, okay, I accept it effective immediately.
	I compliment you for the professionalism and dignity you have shown over the last 865 days as you have endured threats against you and your family, as well as unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation as a lawyer.
	You know, I think that's another veiled reference to you, Ashley.
	What do you make of, you know, Fanny Willis and to some extent Nathan Wade here actually playing the victim of this unfair witch hunt?
	Oh, well, that was, that was what they played the entire time.
	You know, they played the victim the entire time and tried to make me out to be the villain, which is disingenuous.
	If they wanted to try to prove these allegations were false, they had the mechanisms to do that.
	They have all the products.
	Produced the total produce their phone.
	Produce their phones.
	We couldn't subpoena her phone data because she's got some government, you know, control over all of her phone data.
	Give us the data.
	Put it under seal.
	You know, if you want, it doesn't have to go out to the public.
	Put it under seal.
	So, you know, it's just unfortunate that they had the ability to disprove all of these allegations, but instead pulled the race card, pulled the victim card, all of those things.
	That's right.
	They didn't for a reason.
	Honestly, it's like I'm sure you and Steve Sadow, attorney for Trump, text often.
	You've got co-defendants in a big case.
	If somebody alleged you were having an improper affair, you would just produce all those text messages.
	Have a look.
	Go ahead.
	Yeah.
	They've always had the ability, even to just have them reviewed in camera.
	Even if you don't want them to go out to the world, you could produce them in camera.
	They refused.
	And there's a question about whether there's any way we can still get those.
	I'll pick that up when we come back from a quick break.
	Don't go away.
	Ashley Merchant stays with us.
	So, Ashley, the question of the substance of their texts, if we could see the substance of those text messages that you guys know happened, you had the number, the frequency, thanks to Nathan's records, but you didn't have the actual content.
	And I can't help but think they're deleting right now like mad because there's no pending proceeding exactly, although there is an appeal filed, so I'm not sure if they could delete at the moment.
	But if you could see them, that would put to bed this thing once and for all.
	How, who could get them?
	The attorney general?
	If he opens up in a criminal investigation, what about the state senate, which we watched you testify in front of?
	Do they have subpoena power where they could subpoena the actual text messages so that we could see if we have a lying, a perjuring felon as the DA of Fulton County?
	So I think just in case these texts were deleted, I think a search warrant would be the safest bet.
	I mean, some people could get them with a subpoena, but a search warrant is how they get them against my client.
	I mean, I'm a defense lawyer, so they, you know, they get texts against my clients all the time.
	So I know exactly how they do it.
	They subpoena their cell phones or subpoena their records.
	If you have the phone, the easiest way to do it is to take the cell phone and hook it up to a machine called Celebrate.
	And they have it in the DA's office.
	I've got the purchase order for them.
	They have it at the City of Atlanta Police Department.
	They use it regularly.
	I have cases pending right now where they have hooked my client's phone up to a Celebrate machine.
	And that, you know, it essentially makes a forensic copy of the entire phone.
	So it makes a copy of all the texts, makes a copy of photos, makes a copy of things like that.
	You can set parameters.
	So they could hook it to this machine and say, we want copies of all the texts from this date to this date.
	So let's say they wanted to just prove that, you know, the relationship didn't start until when they said, you know, March 2021, whatever it is, you know, whatever date they came out.
	22.
	Right.
	So let's, so get all the text before that.
	You know, we don't need all your salacious texts while you are dating, you know, that you have alleged you're dating.
	How about we get all the text before that?
	Hook it up to that machine and give us those texts.
	What are you hiding?
	What is it that you don't want people to see?
	And you can do it under seal.
	So that's easy.
	They've got the machine.
	They've got the equipment.
	They, even if they're deleted, they can hook it right up to that machine.
	A search warrant would get it.
	So if the AG wanted to investigate, they could do a search warrant for the phones and do the same thing.
	They have the same equipment, same access.
	They use it all the time.
	This is the same type of data that was used in the January 6th prosecutions.
	Same thing that's being used in the YSL case pending here in Atlanta.
	Same type of thing that the Attorney General in Georgia is using to prosecute what we call the Cop City protesters.
	It's another racketeering case that's going on locally.
	So this is something that's used regularly and it's easy to do.
	It doesn't cost any money.
	Yes, it's an intrusion into privacy, but I can tell you if someone is telling the world that I did something that I didn't do, I'm going to hook my phone up.
	And absolutely, you know, you can, you can see that in my texts.
	You know, I was unfortunately didn't know how to do it at first.
	And I didn't know, quite frankly, I would need to, but I figured it out.
	You know, I was able to turn over everything.
	Yeah, no, you turned over everything with Terrence Bradley and we're under no obligation to do all that.
	And that showed your sides of the texts as well.
	Why wouldn't they?
	Honestly, somebody said I had an affair and I didn't have the affair and I was in this kind of a situation where my job and a case and my reputation depended on it.
	I say, Judge, here you go.
	You can see my dumbass text with Nathan Wade where we just talked about the legal system or going to the movies as platonic friends.
	There's only one reason that they wouldn't show the ones from 2021.
	And we know what it is.
	So what is the story with the Attorney General?
	It's a Republican, but Georgia's getting more and more blue.
	That's why Stacey Abrams still thinks she's governor.
	So is this person likely to pick up this investigation?
	Is there, you know, because the left is thrilled.
	The left is thrilled she lived to fight another day.
	So there'll be pressure on him not to do it from the considerable blue voters in Georgia.
	Right.
	You know, it's, it's hard for me to guess on that because I live in this moderate world.
	You know, I'm kind of in the middle and I just want, I just want justice.
	I just want due process.
	I want transparency.
	So I hope that the attorney general will, but I don't know, you know, the political outcome of that.
	I'm not sure if they will investigate it or not.
	I hope that they will.
	And I think a lot of people.
	What about filing the motion?
	Because Phil Holloway was on the show last Friday and he was saying there's a way for you guys to file a motion before Judge McAfee saying we believe that two officers of the court perjured themselves, committed felonies in your courtroom.
	And as officers of the court, we're bringing this to your attention.
	And, but only if he finds that there is probable cause, what I can't remember what the standard was before which he could refer it to the AG.
	It was a considerable standard, though.
	Yes, and I'm still investigating.
	You know, some of the subpoenas that I sent for the evidentiary hearing, some of the business records are still coming in.
	So, you know, we've recently got new records, you know, from another travel agent.
	And so I'm digesting all of those.
	You know, another thing other than the phone records is the credit card statements.
	Ms. Willis could have given credit card statements.
	You know, she gave one, which to me says there was only one, you know, one time that she actually paid for travel with a credit card, which, you know, anyone that travels knows you kind of have to have a credit card.
	You can't really book hotels.
	You can't do any of that stuff without a credit card.
	So that's sort of surprising.
	So if, you know, if I was being accused of something and I had credit card statements to show that I wasn't on trips with Mr. Wade or that I had paid for things, I wouldn't be producing those credit card statements.
	So I think it's surprising we haven't seen those, but that's something that can be subpoena as well.
	But Ms. Willis has this protection on her.
	And so whenever we try to subpoena any of her records, all of these red lights go off and everything is shut down.
	So we only were able to subpoena Mr. Wade's records because of her position.
	She's got certain protections up.
	And so when we subpoena the records, they're saying, no, we're not giving you these records.
	And so we would have to.
	Well, what about what about the Georgia state Senate?
	Because they can subpoena Nathan Wade's substantive text messages with her.
	Oh, and I hope they do.
	I hope they subpoena those and I hope that they subpoena them and question them about all of these, you know, create a timeline because, you know, I was working with limited ability as a defense lawyer.
	You know, all I have is the right to subpoena, but they've got much broader power and mine had to be relevant to my case.
	So, you know, at the beginning, mine was not relevant to perjury.
	Mine was relevant to the allegations in my first motion.
	So now, if they've got subpoena power, they can subpoena anything that's relevant to a perjury inquiry, which are the texts, which are the, you know, the records from the credit cards, things like that, travel records.
	They can subpoena all that.
	So I hope that they do.
	You know, and I know that there's some investigations at the federal level.
	They've got subpoena power.
	So, if they want to, they can subpoena all of those records.
	And I think it'll paint a much better picture of what was going on here.
	They need to do it.
	We're going to call Jim Jordan's office this week and find out because he's been investigating what she's been doing with federal money that we've given to her and whether it's being used properly, not in connection with this case, but in a sort of different lane.
	But it's related.
	I mean, do we have a felon running the Fulton County DA, the DA's office?
	Do we or don't we?
	I mean, this is what she says.
	She says she's the greatest DA ever.
	She's the best thing to ever happen to Fulton County.
	Here she was at that woman's event.
	I'll give you another sound bite.
	Let's watch.
	When he saw me with sincerity, he asked, Pauli, are you okay?
	And I said, I'm good.
	And then he asked what I believe to be a genuine concern.
	He said, Do you regret running for DA?
	I was literally shocked at the cut question.
	I am sure I looked at him like he was crazy.
	I said, Are you kidding?
	I'm investigating this county level.
	Let me tell you how much I don't regret it.
	Wednesday, I'll win Maria.
	I'm on Falls, four more years.
	Do you think she's the best DA Fulton County's ever seen?
	You know, it's all in perspective.
	She ran against Paul Howard.
	And, you know, I supported her against Paul Howard.
	And there were a lot of issues with Paul Howard.
	So, you know, that is sometimes elections are the lesser of two evils.
	Low bar is what you're saying, at least in the recent past when it comes to the DAs there.
	Okay, so what about the appeal?
	Because I know now you guys have tried to get an immediate appeal of the judge's order refusing to disqualify her.
	He did not, in his order denying your motion to DQ, give you that permission slip the way he did when he struck six counts of her indictment the day or two before.
	And in that order, he said, I'm going to give your permission slip if you want to take this up right away.
	Interlocutory appeal, meaning before there's been a trial, before there's been a final judgment.
	So you need a permission slip for this too.
	Do you think you're likely to get it?
	I'm not sure, you know, because he did give the hint in the prior order that he was going to give that.
	I think he probably will give us permission, but how it works in Georgia is we now then have to get permission from the Court of Appeals also.
	So I'm not positive if we'll get that, but hopefully he will.
	And if it gets denied and you have to try this case to completion, you'll raise it again, I imagine, as an appellate issue.
	I mean, this isn't something that you're going to drop.
	Right.
	No, we would definitely, if my client was to get convicted, we would definitely raise it as an appellate issue, but I don't think it'll get that far.
	You don't?
	Why?
	I don't.
	I don't think my client will get convicted.
	I think he's innocent.
	And I think that the case against him is weak at best.
	And so I doubt that a little.
Jeopardizing a Fair Trial 00:12:03
	I think most people don't even know who Michael Roman is.
	I mean, we've studied up a little bit on him because of this case, and he's gotten very interesting.
	And there have been some on the left who have been trying to malign him.
	Oh, he's a Democrat.
	I mean, he's a Republican operative.
	He engages in dirty tricks for a living.
	Of course, that's what's really happening here.
	More dirty tricks against poor Fanny.
	Explain a little bit about who Michael Roman is and why he's been dragged into this case.
	So two things.
	The first thing is, you know, that you pointed out, a lot of people did speculate that he, you know, was behind all of this.
	And it's ironic because he wasn't at all.
	So, you know, that was kind of surprising to hear that.
	People say, oh, well, he's the one investigating this.
	And he's not, you know, he has no ties to Georgia.
	The other thing is he, his role, just to answer your question, he was the Election Day campaign chair.
	So the National Election Day campaign chair.
	So sort of coordinated efforts around the country on Election Day.
	That was his job in the campaign.
	And so he's more of a logistics person than anything.
	You know, works with a lot of the lawyers, the campaign lawyers, funneling, you know, hey, do this, do that, get this here, get this from point A to point B. That's really his job.
	His job was not, you know, like any of the lawyers to review anything, to analyze it, to, you know, draft anything.
	It was really just logistics.
	So, I mean, so far, we've seen many people take pleas in this Georgia prosecution from Sidney Powell to Jenna Ellis and others.
	Is there any chance Michael Roman will take a plea?
	We were offered a misdemeanor probation early on, and essentially any misdemeanor he wanted to pick and rejected that.
	So I think, you know, that's about as good as it can get.
	So I think it's very unlikely that he'll take a plea.
	And it doesn't surprise me that the others took a plea, quite frankly.
	You know, it's a very large expense and it's very stressful to stand trial.
	I think most people could not.
	I mean, if you think about it, if someone said, you know, you, you know, you're almost retirement age, you can spend your retirement funds paying a lawyer and sitting in a two-year trial, or you can go see your grandkids.
	I think most of us would cut our losses and go see our grandkids.
	You know, even on principle's sake, you know, the 20-year-old me would probably fight on principle.
	The 50-year-old me would say, I want to go play with my grandkids and enjoy the money I've amassed, you know, versus paying a lawyer to do a case like this.
	And you got to understand, RICO cases take forever.
	So, you know, this case, you could easily be in court for a year.
	And I think it's completely reasonable that these lawyers didn't want to have to spend all of their money and all of their time fighting a case like this in court.
	So, you know, pleas are oftentimes cutting your losses.
	And I think that's what we saw with the pleas that we've had so far.
	Well, so now, thanks to this motion, we've delayed this trial by three months at least.
	And, you know, her pursuit of Donald Trump and Michael Roman and the others.
	And that, I mean, is there any chance whatsoever this case now gets tried before the election in November?
	No, but I never thought there was a chance for that anyway.
	You know, it's just too big.
	And that's on the state.
	You know, they're the ones that chose to make this case really large and have not agreed to sever anybody out.
	If they really wanted to try people, they could have narrowed it down.
	When you make it this large and you've got this many defense lawyers and defendants that you've got to get into a courtroom together, there's no way to try it quickly.
	There's just no way.
	And that's part of the strategy behind these racketeering charges.
	You know, the bigger you bring it, the harder it is to get lawyers who will take these cases because, you know, imagine not being able to take any other case for two years because you're in trial, you know, to wear people down.
	And so the logistics of the case made it impractical that it would ever be tried before November anyway.
	I know that Ms. Willis keeps saying in court, you know, we want to, you know, we want, don't want delay.
	We want to push this.
	You know, if they didn't want delay, they would have had the discovery ready the day that the case was indicted.
	They would have handed over the complete discovery that day and they would have, you know, worked to separate the cases out into a manageable group.
	You know, let's try this group, let's try this group, and then let's try this group.
	If they had really wanted to push the case, it could have been done that way.
	And it wasn't.
	None of that has happened.
	So what do you have you given any thought to what happens as a practical matter if Trump wins?
	And what happens with the Georgia case?
	It's not like the federal case where cases where he can just pull the Department of Justice off of the cases and they go away.
	This case doesn't go away necessarily, especially against your client.
	Like maybe she's going to have to pause before going after the sitting president of the United States, you know, if he wins, but she doesn't have to pause going after Michael Roman, right?
	So it's, have you given any thought to what happens?
	Like, let's say she does get a trial date of, I don't know, December 2024 or February 25, and Donald Trump is the sitting president.
	What do you think that means?
	I mean, just, you know, taking out my role in the case, just thinking of that as just a normal human, that's impossible.
	You can't have the leader of our country in trial for two years.
	I mean, that's just, you know, to me, just as a citizen, that makes absolutely no sense.
	It just doesn't seem practical.
	So legally, though, putting my lawyer hat back on, the governor, obviously, in the state of Georgia could have some control over that.
	You know, our governor and we have certain clemency powers and things like that.
	So there are some things that could happen behind the scenes.
	It's unprecedented, though.
	I mean, it's definitely unprecedented.
	I can't even imagine how the Secret Service could secure the Fulton County Courthouse.
	I mean, it's just, it's a nightmare.
	It's a nightmare.
	I mean, it literally makes my brain almost explode even thinking about it.
	I know.
	Okay.
	I have two other follow-up questions on the hearing and all that.
	Where is Anna Cross?
	What happened to Anna Cross?
	My position is she's with Kate Middleton somewhere.
	I'm not sure we're ever going to see them again.
	I'm not either.
	And, you know, I've known Anna for a very long time and have an immense amount of respect for Anna.
	Being in court with her when she was slinging those allegations, the mudslinging, it was surprising because it's not Anna and we have respected each other for many years.
	So when she disappeared, it did not surprise me either.
	Sorry, I should have pointed out to my audience.
	I think they know, but she was one of the other special prosecutors brought in with Nathan Wade.
	It was this other guy, Floyd, the RICO specialist, Anna Cross, who handled most of the hearing, and then Nathan Wade.
	But after Terrence Bradley took the stand and we clearly believe lied and the judge believe lied, she disappeared.
	And as a lawyer in the court, you're not allowed to suborn perjury.
	You can't put a witness on the stand.
	She, he was her witness.
	She disappeared.
	She suddenly had a professional conflict in her private practice rather than spending her time on the biggest case in the nation, or at least one of the four.
	And, you know, we all believe we, me and my guests, but we believe that she flew the coupe because she realized she was part of something that was unlawful.
	But that's a, that's speculative.
	So keep going.
	We have conflict rules.
	So, you know, the rules dictate where you go when.
	And an evidentiary hearing takes precedent over other things.
	So, you know, if she wanted to be there, I would imagine that she could have filed a conflict.
	I did that.
	I had conflicts with other cases and I filed a conflict letter and made sure that I was at this case.
	You know, so I feel like she disappeared by the time Terrence Bradley got back up there.
	Yes.
	Which, and, you know, that's very rare.
	You don't split up witnesses.
	So, you know, she had questioned Terrence Bradley to begin with, and then Adam Abate took over and finished.
	And that's, that, that doesn't happen.
	You know, they had to get special permission to do that.
	It's all very sketchy.
	Okay.
	And also I want to ask, the judge said in his order, it may very well be time to gag Fanny Willis.
	He made that clear, given her out of court statements about racism and so on.
	And now she doubles down on March 10th at this women's forum going on about these sexist, racist politicians and others.
	So do you expect that the defense will move to gag her?
	I think it's a possibility.
	You know, I hate gag orders personally.
	Just, you know, I believe in transparency, but at this point, she has, she is jeopardizing my client's right to a fair trial.
	And, you know, by making statements, you know, some of the statements I referenced earlier that, you know, God has told her to do this and she's making every move based on, you know, what he's telling her, you know, that my client's interest is contrary to democracy.
	Those are things that are not allowed, you know, and so I had hoped that she would stop making those, but I think we may get to a point where we have to do a gag order if it continues.
	The one thing that the law says is if she makes those statements, then we're permitted to make statements to counter them.
	So, you know, what we end up getting into is we get into a public, you know, contest of, you know, oh, you're racist.
	Oh, I'm not racist, you know, and that's not really what we should be doing.
	That's not where we should be trying this case, but that's unfortunately where we are trying it right now.
	And so that then puts the burden on the defense lawyers to publicly go against what she said.
	The cleaner thing would be to do a gag order, you know, which again, I'm hesitant.
	I hate doing those, but it is definitely the cleaner thing.
	I hope that she would just keep it fair and not continue to comment on my client's guilt, not continue to comment on, you know, her motivations in doing this.
	It's unfortunate to see.
	When you filed this motion, you filed it alone.
	And then slowly but surely, as it became clear you were onto something, the other defendants joined in.
	I have to tell you, I thought that was very interesting as a former, you know, as a recovering female lawyer myself, not to make it all about gender, but I don't know.
	To me, I thought she's a whipper snapper.
	It's not like you're 20, you know, you're, I think, 46 years old, but you, you dragged them to the to the water.
	And sure enough, they started drinking it.
	The defense attorneys, I feel Ashley may have looked on you a little skeptically.
	And sure enough, it ultimately, forgive the way I'm putting it, but you got a scalp that never would have been gotten had it not been for you.
	So can you just talk about that process?
	Like you were the one who found this and what was the reaction of the defendants, the other defendants and the lawyers?
	Yeah, and you know, you can see that in the responses.
	I think that the week after I filed this, the judge had a hearing and he asked the other defense lawyers if they were joining it.
	And they said they weren't sure.
	You know, they were still looking, investigating it.
	So I think it's, you know, I think it's pretty common public knowledge that they weren't, you know, joining from the beginning.
	And I thought a lot about that.
	And filing motions like this are hard.
	The repercussions are difficult.
	The repercussions professionally, the repercussions with other clients, with other cases, we have to factor that in.
	I am of the mind frame that, you know, I'm sort of like a method actor.
	You know, I like, this is my case and this is my client.
	And I'm going to do whatever I have to do in this case to protect my client's right to a fair trial.
	So I am able to sort of block all of that out on purpose and block out the professional and personal ramifications of filing a motion like this.
	But it is a difficult thing to do.
	And so, you know, I never fault any lawyer who is skeptical of joining in something that is so potentially damaging to them because I'll tell you exactly what happened.
	They were like, look at, I don't know, she's doing some weird motion.
	She's going to bring their personal lives into it.
	We don't want anything to do with this.
	And then they got up and tried to look like the big boys at the hearing, like, oh, no, I'm going to handle it.
	It's like, no, this wasn't your idea.
	You shat on it publicly.
	Everything that's happening is due to Ashley Merchant.
	That's what happened.
	Okay, that's my take.
	With all due respect, they did a good job when they ultimately got interested.
	But let that be a lesson to you, boys.
	She knew what she was talking about and you should have had more faith in her right from the start because that's the biggest progress anybody's made on the defense side in this entire case.
	And Fannie Willis has been disgraced as a result of this motion and the hearing and her own behavior, her own choice is what she did.
	All right, before I let you go, can we just spend a minute on you?
	I'd love to know just a little bit more about you.
Law School Confidence 00:05:00
	Are you from Georgia?
	Where'd you grow up?
	No, I'm actually from Florida.
	So I grew up on the Beach and Mo Beach Girl, grew up in Clearwater Beach, and then I went to the University of Florida and I met my husband in law school.
	And so he had taken a job here in Atlanta and we ended up here.
	Why'd you go to law school?
	I went to law school because I really believe in standing by anybody, you know, in their time of need, you know, helping someone who needs help.
	And I'm not a math person.
	So, you know, I certainly wasn't going to be in the medical field or anything like that.
	And I love, I was a political science major.
	I love the Constitution.
	I love the rule of law.
	I love ethics.
	I know that sounds crazy, but I just, I love the transparency of ethics.
	So that's something that was really important to me.
	You know, in college, I did senate and government and rule of ethics, um, things like that.
	So, you know, that was always important to me.
	And I love law school.
	I love the constitution.
	I love fighting for the constitution.
	And that's one of the things that I liked about being a defense lawyer is, you know, I'm, it all goes back to the constitution for me.
	And so that's sort of my moral compass.
	You know, I love the history of our legal system in this country.
	And that sort of backs it up.
	And I have daughters now.
	You know, I want them to see me fighting for what's right.
	I want them to see me fighting for people who, you know, sometimes I'm not as lucky as defending Michael Roman, you know, a person who I believe completely is innocent of these charges.
	Sometimes I represent people who are guilty and I am there defending them and helping them in their weakest moment.
	And I believe firmly that people are more than the worst thing they've ever done or the worst thing they're ever accused of doing.
	And so, you know, that sort of guides me.
	And I want my kids to see that.
	How old are your daughters?
	I have a 14 and a 16-year-old, two girls.
	So they know that's exciting.
	Yeah.
	So they're really actually able to watch the coverage and see what you're doing, which is which is great.
	But I'm curious as to, I'm kind of always curious when I see a strong, articulate, fierce woman out there, not somebody who's saying it about themselves all the time, like Fanny, but somebody like you.
	How did you get to be like this?
	Like, what are your parents like?
	What were you like as a kid?
	What, what, were you straight A student?
	What, what gave you your confidence?
	You know, I think I've actually built the confidence as an attorney.
	And it's, it's, it's crazy because you get beat down so much in court.
	And I, you know, you know, you practice law.
	Like the judges are mean.
	They're brutal.
	Opposing counsel are brutal.
	You just get treated like crap so much that you stop caring about being treated like crap.
	I know that sounds awful, but you know, I regularly, and I mentor a lot.
	I'm blessed and honored.
	You know, one of the biggest honors of my career is I'm the president.
	I just became the president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which is huge to me because it's, you know, it's kind of lonely being a defense lawyer because you're not in a big law firm.
	You know, you're not in a DA's office.
	So I love that.
	But one of the things I regularly tell people is, you know, we get treated like crap anyway.
	So you might as well fight, you know, like I'm not going to get treated any differently.
	But, you know, I think that that gave me a lot of confidence.
	And I'm an only child.
	So, you know, I got a lot of attention.
	And you did MOOC court in law school.
	That was a favorite of mine too.
	And I do think that's that's big.
	I did.
	And that's, you know, that's how I met my husband.
	We actually competed together.
	Oh, no way.
	Is that right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	No, that's good.
	It's very good for a young woman in particular.
	That's why I love law school for most people if you could afford it.
	You know, it's so expensive now, but it's such a confidence builder and it develops skills that you could use for a lifetime, even if you don't wind up practicing law.
	It gets you on your feet.
	Not in the way Joe Biden is now lying about having done when he was in life.
	There was something from the her transcript, H-U-R, where he alleged he was called on in torts class, Ashley, and he didn't know the case.
	He hadn't done the homework.
	And yet there he was for 20 minutes on his feet, basically holding court as MOOC court laws.
	I'm like, oh my God.
	Okay, that's it.
	None of that happened.
	But in general, torts, contracts, MOOC court, law school, I do think it's a confidence builder, even if you're not good at it.
	It is, you know, and Megan, that's my dad always told me, you know, go to law school.
	You're a woman.
	I mean, that's one of the things he always said.
	If you go to law school, you're always going to have that.
	If you decide to get married, have kids, and you don't want to practice, you will always have a job if you have a law degree.
	And that was one of the things he said, you know, if you want to do that, that's great.
	Go stay at home, you know, but that way, if everything falls out from under you, you always can go get a job if you've got a law degree.
	So I said, my mom said the same thing to me about typing.
	So I think our parents had different standards.
	Well, hold on.
	I actually, you know, my parents were big on typing.
	And I'm not going to lie, I've been big on that with my kids too, because I took a typing class and I think that was by far the most valuable class I took in all of high school.
	It does help, honestly, to be in the past typist is actually quite valuable.
	All right, so let's jump forward to, let's say, we're in March of 24 right now.
	Let's go to June of 25.
Honest Services Fraud 00:06:55
	I'm trying to pick a date far out enough that maybe the case will actually have been tried.
	At that point, if the case is ongoing or has just been wrapped up, is Fanny Willis, the district attorney, trying the case or was she the district attorney recently trying the case?
	I would be shocked.
	I'd be shocked if it goes that far.
	If she is still the district attorney and it still happens, it's just, you know, look at all the issues that this case has been fraught with from the beginning.
	You know, we've got several charges that were just dismissed last week against one of the defendants.
	We've got a couple other motions to dismiss pending that we still haven't had rulings on.
	There's a lot that can happen between now and then.
	You know, so I just, I'll believe it when I see it if we actually get to trial.
	And I, you know, I'd love to try the case.
	Like I'd love to try this case.
	But if we do try it, I don't want to try 20 other cases at the same time.
	That's one of the things that's frustrating about racketeering charges, you know, cases.
	So she should, she should not get too comfortable in that DA's seat.
	I don't think so.
	I mean, she's got two challengers, which, you know, that was surprising.
	And, you know, the thing with this job is I don't know that there's a ton of people that were lining up to qualify.
	It's a difficult, it's a difficult position.
	And that office has had controversy after controversy, you know, with her predecessor.
	Now there's issues with the jail.
	There's issues with backlog.
	There's issues in Fulton County with mismanagement.
	You know, I used to work for Fulton County, used to live in Fulton County, so I feel comfortable saying that.
	My husband does civil rights litigation.
	We've settled a number of cases against Fulton County.
	So the issues with that county are very widespread.
	So you said you believe she and Nathan Wade committed perjury, which is a felony in Georgia.
	Should they be prosecuted?
	Oh, I think they should be prosecuted.
	I think it should be investigated.
	You know, lying to the court is, if someone lies to the court and that's allowed, it undermines our entire system of justice.
	And when you've got someone who is trying to put somebody in jail for essentially lying, and that's what my client's charged with essentially, and you're lying, that is a red flag.
	But one of the things that we do as a defense bar, and I think a lot of people miss this, if you're going to prosecute my client and you're going to put them in jail, you have to follow the law to do it.
	And that's my job, to make sure that you've followed every single step, because the only way that we can have any faith in the outcome and any faith in the process is if the law was followed the entire time.
	And it wasn't in this case from the get-go.
	It was not followed.
	And so that's a problem.
	You know, the entire process is tainted because of that.
	Are there any other potential crimes here?
	We've had some speculation that she admitted to a few of them when she took the stand.
	What's your take on that?
	Oh, I definitely think so.
	I think, so there's a federal statute called honest services fraud.
	And, you know, the appellate courts, the district courts, the federal courts have sort of diced that statute up a lot, but that's the typical kickback, you know, crime, the honest services.
	And the premise is basically that the public is entitled to honest services by their elected officials.
	And so by her paying her boyfriend these exorbitant amount of money, was she giving the public the honest services that they're entitled to?
	So I think that the federal government could investigate that definitely.
	I still think that there were issues in Fulton County, you know, with their statutes.
	Her defense is that I don't have to follow any Fulton County laws because I'm a constitutional state officer.
	I disagree with that.
	So I think that she could be held accountable for those.
	I think there's disclosure issues that she has not, you know, not adequately disclosed all of the things that she was given.
	And it's my understanding about some campaign finance things.
	Yes, that's what I was going to ask you about.
	What about the campaign finance possibility?
	She talked about using campaign finance funds for personal use, which is a hard no under the law.
	So do you think there might be something there?
	And who would be the person to look into that?
	Is that again, AG?
	We actually have an election ethics board.
	So they're the ones that would look into that at the state level.
	And I think that they definitely should be looking into that.
	It was very troublesome to hear that you took a loan from your campaign.
	I can also tell you as a person who regularly donates to campaigns, anytime someone says that they used campaign funds for something that's improper, that's, you know, I would be hesitant to donate to that person ever again.
	So essentially, she's saying that she used campaign money to reimburse Mr. Wade.
	If I were a donor, I would be very upset about that.
	If I gave her money, I might want my money back, something like that.
	So I think that she may have some issues with that as well.
	But there's, you know, there's a plethora of things that could be charged in this case.
	False swearing, filing false, you know, false pleadings, because I believe some of the pleadings that were filed were false.
	You know, she had Mr. Wade do the affidavit.
	I believe that was false.
	You know, just a ton of things.
	If someone wanted to investigate, and you know what's crazy about it is how broad our racketeering statute is here in Georgia.
	All of those things could be charged as racketeering.
	So you can take all of these things, which seem minor and piece them together and put them into a racketeering indictment.
	That's exactly what she did.
	All right, last question.
	Will Scott McAfee withstand his challenge from this left-wing judge who wants to replace him on the bench?
	And if he doesn't, who gets your case?
	Right.
	That's a good question.
	I think it'll end in a runoff.
	They've got three people in that race.
	So how we work here in Georgia is in a judicial race, you have to have a majority.
	So when you have three, you pretty much always end up in a runoff.
	So I think we're going to see a situation where it's a runoff.
	Runoffs are very hard because the voter turnout is very low.
	So the people who tend to turn out for the runoffs are a certain type of voter.
	So that would help Judge McAfee, I believe.
	If history repeats itself, that would help him.
	So the issue is going to be who fundraises the most and who can stick it out to that runoff.
	I think that's what we're going to see in this case.
	Who's the third person?
	I know the left-wing Rainbow Push guy who just got in.
	Who's the third person?
	Yes.
	So she's virtually an unknown.
	She's a staff attorney for Judge Melanie Lefferidge.
	So that's another judge in Fulton County.
	She's actually her staff attorney.
	So, but she is an African-American female, not super, you know, name like the other gentleman, Mr. Patillo, not, you know, not publicly known, but, you know, decent reputation.
	I don't know her.
	So I can't really say, you know, legally.
	And I don't know that a lot of people are.
	But that's interesting.
	So he's running to keep his seat against two prominent or one prominent and one successful African-American opponents being asked to disqualify this African-American female DA who plays the race card any day ending in Y.
Offensive Interview Questions 00:15:06
	And he's a Republican.
	I mean, it's just, I mean, that's a dynamic underlying this entire thing.
	Some of our audience pointed it out.
	I saw it too.
	He was asked to do something very courageous and he failed.
	He did not do it.
	It was a big thumbs down for me on Judge McAfee, who I thought had been relatively fair, a little weak in that hearing, but relatively fair.
	He's young.
	Hopefully he'll get there.
	But so far, I'm giving you a thumbs down, sir.
	Ashley Merchant, you're getting the double thumbs up.
	Thank you so much for coming on for all of your great work.
	And we will continue to watch you and see what happens in this case.
	Thank you so much, Megan, for having me.
	It's a pleasure.
	All the best.
	I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.
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	Joining me now, Phil Holloway, another star as a result of this case, although he was a star before, but unknown to us.
	Phil Holloway of the Holloway Law Group.
	So, Phil, Ashley Merchant, laying it on the line in very honest terms, she believes that these two perjured themselves.
	She believes that they did commit a felony and that they ought to be investigated.
	But she's got even her doubts about whether it'll actually happen.
	She mentioned the bar complaint that could happen.
	Anybody can file one of those.
	They don't make it public normally, unless you have to get a leak to know what happened.
	And you are reporting that it has happened against Fannie Willis and maybe Nathan Wade too.
	But will it go anywhere?
	Yeah, that's always great to be with you.
	And that was a great interview with Ashley.
	I think it was very telling.
	And it's always good to get that behind-the-scenes perspective that only she can bring to this ongoing discussion.
	Yes, there's been, to my knowledge, at least one really, really well-written, substantive complaint filed with the State Bar of Georgia with respect to Miss Willis.
	But I would certainly be surprised if there's not many others that have also been any person can file a bar complaint.
	So I'm sure they've received a lot because there's a lot of people that are unhappy, particularly residents of Fulton County.
	They're unhappy with how their district attorney, the person that they may have contributed to and voted for, has comported herself in office.
	You really just need to look no further than her unprofessional conduct in court when she took the stand and testified, irrespective of any odor of mendacity that she may have left behind when she got off the witness stand.
	But just the way she carried herself, calling Ashley Merchant a liar.
	And as we have talked about in this, she talked about there was merit and there was substance to her filings.
	The media came out immediately, went after Ashley and said, you know, there's no proof.
	She's offered no proof of the affair.
	And lo and behold, they admitted it.
	They had to admit it because it was true.
	Ashley's not going to put something in a pleading, Megan, unless she's got a good faith basis.
	But if I'm, and I know Ashley really well, she has more than a good faith basis.
	She has proof.
	She's got the receipt.
	So she's not going to launch that kind of nuclear missile, so to speak, into this case unless she can prove it.
	Now, the bar complaint that I'm privy to, and I've got a copy of the whole thing.
	I posted a lot of it on my ex feed a few days ago, but all of it actually, except for identifying information and personal information.
	But it is very, very well written and it goes through the professional rules of conduct for attorneys in Georgia.
	And it's got a complete table of contents where it articulates very clearly which standard she's alleged to have violated and in what way.
	But you really need to look no further than perjury because perjury, in addition to being a crime, if you violate your duty of candor to the court, that in and of itself is a disbarrable offense.
	And we don't have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt in this context.
	I think the language that the judge put in his order about the odor of mendacity and the questions that he has about the truthfulness of Fonnie Willis in this case, that could be enough to really cause a big problem for her.
	But the issue at the bar is it takes so long.
	This kind of thing is not going to be resolved anytime in the near future.
	And of course, we're going to have an election before I think any bar complaints could reasonably be resolved.
	So I agree with Ashley.
	You know, there are things that can happen, but each thing is limited in scope and it may take some time to see exactly what kind of repercussions, if any, Fonnie Willis is going to face for her.
	Unless the attorney general gets involved, in which case things will start moving and probably pretty quickly, given his power to get search warrants to actually get to the bottom of this.
	And I would say to the attorney general, Chris Carr, right?
	Isn't that the Republican Attorney General there?
	It's time.
	There can't be two systems of justice, depending on skin color, depending on your gender, depending on how defensive you get on the stand and how much self-promotion you do.
	She has gone after, I guarantee you, defendants for less with less proof than we have against her.
	Who's going to police the policewoman?
	She's the chief law enforcement officer for Fulton County.
	Who's going to hold her to account when she's allegedly committed a felony?
	It's up to him.
	Does he have the guts to do it?
	Yeah, it is.
	It is up to him.
	And there's another thing to consider.
	Of course, you talked about the state senate here in Georgia that is investigating all this.
	It's too late for there to be any change that would apply this year.
	But next legislative session, I'm expecting to see some legislation pass the Georgia legislature, probably be signed into law by the governor that allows for more substantive policing of the police, if you will, or in this case, the chief prosecutor, not only in Fulton County, but anywhere else in the state of Georgia where something like this may happen.
	Prosecutors, as we know, have immense power and it is almost unchecked.
	That's why they can get away with all the things that they do get away with.
	You know, and I'm not saying that all prosecutors are bad people like this, but there are abuses in the system.
	They are well documented.
	I'm sure there are, but we, we, you know, we're ignoring the elephant in the room, which is this is a black woman in a predominantly black county.
	And to for this white Republican judge to have disqualified her would have been extraordinary, would have been politically risky, and would have greatly upset the crowd that showed up at that International Women's Day celebration of her and treated her like she was Beyonce.
	That one as well, and that was a great piece that I saw during Ashley's interview.
	There's also lots of videos circulating about the stir caused among the churches in Atlanta after Fonnie Willis made that famous, now famous, you know, church speech, the one that Judge McAfee referenced in his order.
	That was straight up jury tampering.
	Those people who were sitting in those pews, that's where the jury comes from.
	They are the citizens of Fulton County.
	And so she's literally preaching to the potential juries, jurors in Fulton County.
	It's conduct that, in my opinion, is just reprehensible.
	That alone, I think, did not get enough attention from Judge McAfee in his order.
	She should have been disqualified for that alone, not to mention anything else she did in the courtroom, but that speech was reprehensible.
	A prosecutor should not take the pulpit in a church to stir up public opinion against what she did.
	She played the race card.
	The judge saw it too.
	And yet what we heard from the media in the wake of her surviving, thanks to Judge McAfee's ruling on Friday, spins this whole thing on its head.
	It says her race and gender were used against her.
	I'll give you an example, Simone Sanders on MSNBC on in SOT 6.
	The former president of the United States of America tried to steal an election.
	The DA, Fonnie Willis, is seeking to hold them accountable.
	And because she sought that accountability, they, the former president and his little friends, the allies, Ashley Merchant, the attorney for one of those individuals, they then tried to distract us with salacious gossip.
	We all have a duty, I think, to remind people about what this is really about.
	And frankly, if Fonnie Willis was a man named Frank, I don't believe that they would have been able to distract us.
	It is a little sexist.
	It's a little racist.
	A little sexist, a little racist.
	And then you have the last panelist jumping in.
	I'm so happy you said that.
	And they agreed that this is sexist and racist to be going after Fannie Willis in this manner and trying to distract America with, quote, salacious gossip.
	Maybe you could refresh our memory, Phil, on how we got to that point.
	Yeah, well, first off, there's not a racist or sexist bone in Ashley Merchant's body.
	And the same for Steve Sadow and the other lawyers who I know personally that participated in this.
	This is not about Willis's race.
	This is not about her gender.
	This is about her behavior.
	This is about her conduct and the choices that she made to funnel a no-bid contract with my taxpayer money to her boyfriend so that he could then carry her all around the globe, spending lavishly on her to enhance her lifestyle and to enhance her political star that she's hoping to continue to rise through all the media appearances and everything else.
	This is about Fonnie Willis's behavior, her choices, her decisions that she made.
	It is not about the color of her skin or her gender.
	And for her to say so is offensive and it's offensive not only to me, but to the people that know these lawyers.
	They are good people, but it also should be offensive to the voters and the citizens of Fulton County who do have a choice to replace her this year.
	And I hope they do so because playing the race card the way she did was extremely offensive.
	It was uncalled for and it was unlawful.
	And the judge said so in his order.
	And the thing that really, really tears me up the most about this is he said that her speech down there at that church was wrong.
	He said it was unlawful, but he didn't do anything about it.
	He exacted no measure of penalty against Fonnie Willis other than to say, maybe it's time for a gag order.
	That's the most ridiculous part of this whole thing, in my opinion, as far as that order goes.
	If what she did was wrong, she needs to be held to account.
	She needed to have been removed from the case for that alone at a minimum.
	Again, to refresh the audience, he said on page 19, her decisions to speak out publicly in this way may have ancillary prejudicial effects yet to be realized, leaving the door open for a showing of prejudicial effect when potentially where they get to void and half the jury pool has heard these comments.
	The danger of public comment by a prosecuting attorney, he recognized that and called her out on it.
	He said she cast racial aspersions at an indicted defendant's decision to file this motion.
	She cast racial aspersions at an indicted defendant totally contrary to the rule of ethics for prosecutors and said while it's not grounds for disqualification, it was still legally improper and created dangerous waters for the DA to wade further into than saying the time may well be here for her to be gagged if only the defense will move for it.
	Now, what you get instead of coverage that is honest about those facts, Phil, is things like this from Jim Acosta at CNN.
	Would you look at this drivel in SOT9?
	It just feels kind of, I don't know, sickening to the stomach that their personal life got thrown into all of this.
	And now the judges come out and said, well, you know, tremendous lapse in judgment and so on.
	And it's going to damage this case.
	Maybe I'm wrong here, but I can hear some of our viewers at home saying, why do I know more about the personal life of Fonnie Willis and Nathan Wade than I do about the details of this case of Donald Trump and these alleged co-conspirators trying to overturn election results in Georgia?
	Yeah, you are wrong.
	You are wrong, Jim Acosta.
	The reason we know more about Fannie Willis's personal life is because of Fannie Willis, because she placed herself in an ethically compromised position with respect to her lover and co-counsel, Nathan Wade, on the taxpayer's dime, engaged in a kickback scheme that was unethical and potentially illegal, and then took the stand and lied about it.
	She perjured herself.
	And in order to put the lie to the nonsense she was spewing from the stand, the defense had no choice but to get into the specifics of the relationship about which she was lying and for which she should be prosecuted, as you or I would be.
	That's how we got here.
	One of the most telling parts of that interview I just did with Ashley Phil, I thought, was when I was asking about why she didn't drill down on the details with Robin Yurty.
	Why didn't she get her to, you know, put more color into the story?
	Because the judge said, yeah, it kind of lacked completeness and detail.
	And she said, I was trying not to get salacious.
	She can't win, right?
	If she tries to get the details out, then she gets that nonsense.
	If she tries to be respectful and just get the bottom line truth about when the affair began, you get a line like you got in this judge's opinion saying, oh, it wasn't filled out enough.
Presumed Innocent Defense 00:02:09
	You know, the answer to that question, this is what I would say to Jim Acosta and those of his ilk in the media.
	Nobody gives a rat's ass who Fannie Willis is sleeping with because it's not about that.
	It is about the choices that she has made to funnel no bid contract money to that lover who also is a special prosecutor in the case.
	And it's about her bias and her and her lack of impartiality.
	Listen, there are so many things, Megan, that you know about, that we all know about in the criminal justice system that are so important in terms of procedural safeguards to prevent wrongful convictions.
	Chief among them is the right to be presumed innocent, the right to a lawyer, the right to a jury trial.
	But even before you get to any of those things, you've got a right to a prosecutor who is fair-minded, who is impartial, and who is not out campaigning to get a specific individual citizen of the United States.
	That is what fundamental fairness requires.
	So, everybody like Jim Acosta wants to immediately go to, well, why aren't we talking about the guilt of Donald Trump or anybody else?
	Because we're not there yet.
	You don't get to get there.
	You don't get to arrive at the trial unless you have a fundamentally fair process.
	And it starts with the prosecutor.
	That is the person who made the decision to gin up this special purpose grand jury and then to impanel the grand jury and then who chose to file this indictment and bring these charges.
	This is not about Donald Trump.
	It's really not about any of the defendants and it's not about whether they're guilty because we can't get there without fairness.
	And Fonnie Willis has injected, you talk about an odor of mendacity.
	There's an odor of unfairness now that's cast up over this entire case and all of the proceedings.
	And it's not going away.
	It's not over.
	There's going to be more investigations of Fannie Willis.
	And I think Ashley Merchant's right.
	The odds of her actually being the one to try this case are slim and none.
	And slim dumb vacation.
	Like me.
	Phil, thank you.
	Thanks so much for all of your help on this to be continued.
More Investigations Ahead 00:01:03
	And to all of our audience, thank you so much for tuning in.
	We are off for the rest of this week, but we will resume on Monday with, I'm sure, more on this case and all of the news for you.
	As always, thanks so much for watching and listening.
	Go ahead now before I lose you to youtube.com and subscribe/slash Megan Kelly to the show if you haven't already and download the podcast wherever you get your shows for free to be continued.
	And we'll see you on Monday.
	Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
	Many people, the better.

Chapters

00:00:40 Welcome to the Show
00:15:38 The Office Conflict
00:22:09 Political Ambitions Revealed
00:30:46 A Disappointing Privilege
00:45:55 Search Warrant Details
01:01:06 Jeopardizing a Fair Trial
01:13:10 Law School Confidence
01:18:10 Honest Services Fraud
01:25:05 Offensive Interview Questions
01:40:12 Presumed Innocent Defense
01:42:21 More Investigations Ahead