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March 6, 2024 - Viva & Barnes

04:30:11

LIVE! Ahsleigh Merchant TESTIFYING Before State Investigation into Fani Willis! VIva Frei

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	But this Congress is almost nonfunctional, so the likelihood of that is very low.
	That means that if there is an oath-breaking insurrectionist running for any federal office, they basically have just freedom to run without any consequence.
	The purpose of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, at least in my view, is to safeguard the country from insurrectionists taking office and destroying democracy from within.
	So I think it's really concerning, given that this Congress is so unlikely to take any type of real action on the matter.
	Oath-breaking insurrectionists.
	But I want to just stop.
	Just stare, people.
	Just stare.
	Stare into the soul.
	The eyes are the window to the soul.
	And every now and again, the eyes are the window to Dante's inferno.
	Oath-breaking insurrectionists, people.
	Say the line, Bart, over and over again.
	Oath-breaking insurrectionists.
	Oath-breaking insurrectionists.
	No one was charged with insurrection, let alone convicted of insurrection.
	In fact, Trump was acquitted.
	And they go with the stupid say the line.
	Repeat the lie, and eventually some idiots are going to believe it.
	And I'm going to listen to Jenna Griswold's interpretation of the 14th Amendment, subsection 3, when she just had her ass handed to her by the Supreme Court 9-0.
	Oh!
	Oh, God.
	It's so early.
	It's too early for this.
	I look a little tired, I think.
	It's the harsh lighting.
	I'm trying to bounce the lighting off the ceiling.
	It's early.
	Sorry, I'm screaming.
	It's early.
	But like...
	Patty H says, 546, I guess you're in California.
	Can't miss this, couldn't miss this.
	I tried to explain to my wife and kids why I was so excited this morning when I woke up.
	It's like, can't go for a jog this morning.
	I've got a live stream, a hearing.
	And like, what's it about?
	Well, it's the most amazing thing you've ever heard.
	This is like a daytime soap opera turned into a judicial saga that we get to focus on, nitpick, and pay close attention to.
	Watching...
	The people consumed by Trump derangement syndrome crash and burn, metaphorically, politically speaking.
	Good morning, everybody.
	For those of you who have no idea what's going on, first of all, let me just make sure that we are live across all of the platforms of the interwebs.
	Good, we're live on Rumble.
	Let me let the ad play through here.
	We got Kishor www7star says, hello.
	We're running an ad for a jaw guard, which I, oh, for whitening teeth.
	I think I could probably use that, but who cares?
	All right, so we're live on Rumble.
	We are live on, well, the YouTubes, obviously.
	We are live on vivabarneslaw.locals.com.
	We're live across platform, people.
	Okay.
	Okay, let's just back it up.
	Good morning, everybody.
	How's it going?
	It started with something unrelated to the subject matter of the day, which is Ashley Merchant being subpoenaed to testify in a state-led investigation into Fannie Willis.
	Before we get there, before we get there, yesterday was Super Tuesday.
	I have not yet fully digested the results.
	I heard that Biden lost to...
	Who did Biden lose to in...
	Samoa.
	He lost to a guy named Richard...
	Jason Palmer out of Samoa.
	And I don't make a big deal of it, but I've reached out to Jason Palmer in case Jason Palmer wants to come on the channel and talk about his presidential election bid.
	It would be amazing.
	I have to say, full disclosure, I loathe Justin Trudeau.
	I loathe Joe Biden.
	But it would not be an interview for shaming or whatever.
	It would be a fun discussion.
	So Jason Palmer, congratulations on the W. Excuse me, choking on my own.
	Tongue here.
	The other news of the evening, or I guess it came out this morning.
	Hold on.
	I've been calling a lot of things these days, people.
	Some of them are more obvious than others.
	Okay, I called it.
	I called it.
	That's two of them.
	Where's the other one?
	Oh, come on.
	Where is it?
	Where's the other one that I had?
	What's her face?
	Nikki Haley apparently at 10 o 'clock today is announcing that she's withdrawing, suspending her campaign.
	And the rumors of the day is that she's suspending her campaign but won't be endorsing Trump.
	Apparently, the message of her speech.
	They got a lecture even in defeat.
	Like, here, I just got my ass handed to me.
	But let me teach you a few lessons that I've learned that I think you should know after having so devastatingly destroyed me.
	Here we go.
	She's going to offer Trump that she won't endorse Trump, that he's got to earn.
	The vote of her 12 Democrat supporters and the so-called independents.
	Oh, come on.
	Now I brought it up.
	Now it's getting annoying here.
	Here?
	No, no, no.
	Oh, what's going on, people?
	I see it right there.
	Why can I not find this?
	And now, that's the news.
	Looks like Fanny Willis.
	Oh my goodness.
	It's not even that necessary to see, but I just want to start the morning with this.
	Okay, we got it here.
	It's a post off by a week.
	You know why I'm not seeing it?
	Because it's not refreshing in the backdrop.
	Yeah, I just lost.
	But here's a lesson that I have to teach you.
	Haley, to suspend campaign, won't endorse Trump yet.
	She won D.C. people.
	She won in the most swampy Democrat-infested hellhole that these United States of America have to offer.
	And it's not even a state, it's a district, a corrupt Democrat district.
	She won that.
	Good for her.
	All right, as I tuck my tail and run in humiliation and defeat, I'm going to teach you a lesson, Donald Trump.
	You don't get my endorsement.
	You've got to earn my votes.
	Here we go.
	The prediction was made on January 27. My prediction, Nikki Haley is going to suspend within a month.
	We're March 6th.
	I think that counts as having nailed it.
	But getting to a more meaningful having nailed it.
	And no, this is not related to Fannie Willis.
	Having called it.
	All right, people.
	Now we're going to get into the show of the day.
	For those who don't know, Ashley Merchant was subpoenaed to testify in a state investigation into Fannie Willis.
	Fannie Willis.
	It started in January.
	I'll pull up an article here.
	I talked about it in my brief summary.
	I'm trying not to cite CNN.
	So we're going with Atlanta News first.
	That's the stream that we were using as the stream for the hearing.
	Defense attorney subpoenaed to appear before state committee investigating Fulton District Attorney Fannie Willis.
	Merchant.
	Oh, here we go.
	Defense attorney Ashley Merchant has been subpoenaed to appear before a Georgia State Senate committee hearing on Wednesday.
	That's today, this morning.
	As it investigates the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Wills.
	This is not going to be a hostile crowd to Ashley Merchant.
	This is not going to be looking to excoriate, eviscerate, humiliate Ashley Merchant.
	Ashley Merchant ain't ducking subpoenas.
	She's showing up, presumably, this morning, 9 o'clock.
	Why would they live stream it if the goal of this is not to humiliate Fannie Willis, Nathan Wade, and that corrupt DA's office?
	Why would they be live streaming it?
	I don't care.
	I don't ask questions.
	Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.
	Live stream it all.
	It's getting more suspicious when they don't livestream the trials, when they don't let press in there to live-tweet to capture it like they did up in Pennsylvania, like they did in the federal cases.
	I know the rules are the rules, but those rules are rules to protect the institution, not to expose it.
	Georgia Legislative Committee formed in January to investigate the DA, said they plan to issue subpoenas as they investigate Willis.
	The Democrat straight prosecutor who brought the racketeering case against Trump and his allies for their actions in the 20th.
	It looks like the only people racketeering here are Fannie Willis, Nathan Wade, maybe Terrence Bradley, and some other people.
	We don't know who yet.
	Merchant, the defense attorney for Trump, first person to be issued a subpoena by the committee.
	Okay, this is all.
	She initially launched the allegations of improper relationships with Fannie Willis.
	We know all this stuff.
	At the committee's first meeting in February, State Senator Bill Cowsert.
	Cows it.
	He laid out plans for subpoenas and depositions as part of the investigation.
	Cows it said he already planned.
	He heard from whistleblowers, some of whom we have been hearing from in a drip-drip format.
	It's a funny thing.
	We've seen some new subpoenas come out.
	Not subpoenas, sorry.
	Some new motions, requests to disclose, proffers, additional evidence.
	They're coming from people who I guess might have been the whistleblowers, who know that their identities are going to be disclosed sooner than later.
	So they may as well come on the record right now and say what they know.
	Okay, so that's the article right there.
	He said the committee intends to dig into any credible allegations.
	They're all credible.
	They're no longer allegations.
	They're basically objective determinations of fact that, you know, just need to be brought to light no matter how long the investigation takes.
	So that is the broader context of what's going to happen today.
	The hearing is going to be streamed at 9 o 'clock, it looks like.
	I've got it up in the back.
	Hold on.
	This is it right here.
	It says 450 cap.
	I was nervous for a second that that meant that there's a cap of 450 viewers on this stream.
	I don't think so.
	I think it's 450 Capitol building.
	Or that's the room.
	I don't know.
	We'll see.
	So that's the context of what's going on today.
	The broader context of what's going on today, and I'm getting a lot of information from Phil Holloway, who has now become my internet bestie when it comes to Fannie Willis.
	Oh, Phil people.
	He is a man to follow.
	What's his Twitter handle?
	We'll get it in a second because he's been posting the good goods as they come out.
	As they come out, eh?
	So he has been posting additional information.
	Additional, I don't know if they're called motions under Georgia law.
	One of which was another...
	Oh, you know what?
	I'll have to get it in so I can get the thread properly.
	Another witness prepared to come forward.
	To testify about what Terrence Bradley knew.
	Or told them that he knew.
	Or what he heard Terrence Bradley saying over the phone to Fannie Willis when she called him up in September and said, They're coming for us.
	They're coming for us.
	Don't talk.
	I'm super quiet.
	Have I not asked for the audio?
	Hold on.
	I'm not.
	I'm going straight to locals.
	How is my audio?
	See, if I'm quiet, that to me means that you should maybe turn up your volume.
	I'm not meaning this to be sarcastic.
	Because what would I be quiet in respect of?
	Maybe in comparison to the intro video.
	But let me see.
	I'm going to locals to see how is the audio.
	We got audio's good, good, says Anne Lynn.
	We got BJ Forever.
	It's good, says Astral Doge Plays.
	BJ Forever says let a roll.
	She is a brilliant legal scholar.
	Is viva an ish today?
	I don't know what any of these things mean.
	Okay, so the audio is good.
	We'll get the comparative audio.
	My volume is way low.
	But then Cindy Banks, turn up your volume.
	Like, turn up the audio on your computer.
	No?
	Okay, whatever.
	We'll see how it comes in comparison to the audio for the hearing.
	So Ashley Merchant has been subpoenaed and is complying with the subpoena in an investigation.
	So this is not part of the motion to disqualify.
	This is an investigation into Fannie Willis and the DA's office because what has been disclosed, what has been revealed in that hearing, in the two days of hearing, the third day of Terrence Bradley testifying, the fourth day of closing arguments, is massive, rampant, clear, egregious corruption.
	A laughingstock is what that office has been turned into.
	And earlier this week, let me see if I can just pull up one of these.
	Earlier this week, additional evidence came out, or additional...
	Witnesses came out, not to oversell it.
	Additional witnesses came out and said they have more information that Terence Bradley lied on the stand.
	Eh, forget it.
	You know what?
	I don't even get this.
	I'll just summarize it for you.
	One of the witnesses is a waiter.
	We actually got this breaking news the Friday of the closing arguments.
	A waiter...
	Leaves a voicemail with Ashley Merchant saying, I was watching this trial, as was everyone.
	Why?
	Because it was broadcast to the public.
	So now people can see in real time lies, corruption, and concealment.
	The dude says, I was watching in real time and I heard Terrence Bradley testify to the effect that he hadn't seen Nathan Wade in upwards of two years since he left the firm.
	Oh really?
	Says the waiter.
	I just served them.
	When they had a lunch, I forget the third person's name.
	There was Bradley, Nathan Wade, and Chodl.
	Someone that has a C-H-O-A in their name.
	And he says, I just served them at a restaurant five weeks ago.
	Amazing.
	I served them five weeks ago.
	Get this out of here.
	Let me see this.
	I served them five weeks ago when Terrence Bradley testified that I haven't seen Nathan Wade in two years.
	And I said, well, A, that's a lie.
	And B, we all know damn well what was discussed at that lunch meeting.
	Five weeks ago, give or take, is January to February.
	So late January.
	That's after it's been disclosed that Terrence Bradley is the one feeding the information to Ashley Merchants.
	They sat down.
	And I have no doubt that Terrence Bradley...
	Not Terrence Bradley.
	Nathan Wade said to Terrence Bradley, you better shut your mouth.
	You better forget everything you thought you knew, or we're going to come after you with criminal prosecution for the alleged sexual assault with, what was his name, Rodriguez?
	The employee.
	I just remember it was, was it Rodriguez?
	Give me the name.
	I might be mixing up the name, but whatever.
	So there's that.
	And I predicted.
	That he was threatened with criminal prosecution or something criminal as relates to that civil settlement where he paid some money out of escrow to satisfy allegations of sexual assault with a former employee of Nathan Wade.
	So they lied there.
	There's arguably, because we don't know what was discussed or how vigorously it was discussed, arguably witness intimidation.
	But wait!
	There's more.
	So we had that.
	I'm going to just take this out of the backdrop so I can hear when it comes live.
	So we had that.
	And I'm going to be proven to be right on that.
	Remember back in the day when we were talking about Nathan Wade being...
	Terrence Bradley being Nathan Wade's lawyer in the context of the divorce.
	And I was like, that dude was probably...
	Not involved whatsoever.
	These three guys worked together.
	Nathan Wade was probably just using Terrence Bradley's letterhead, so it looked like he was being represented, and drafting his own proceedings, and just asking Terrence Bradley, sign off on these so it looks like I'm represented by counsel, so that they take me more seriously, so that they think this is going to cost them an arm and a leg to continue the divorce proceedings with Jocelyn Wade.
	Nathan Wade was drafting all of this crap.
	Terrence Bradley had no idea what was going on in the allegations, signing off on it.
	That was my prediction.
	Oh, well it seems that according to one of the new whistleblowers, who was it this one?
	Oh yeah, Mrs. Yeager, who's an assistant or DA or an attorney in Cobb County.
	She came out earlier this week with an affidavit, or what will be the substance of her testimony, saying that I was there when Terrence Bradley was on the phone with...
	What's her name now?
	Fanny Willis.
	And she overheard Fanny Willis saying, they're coming for us, don't talk to anybody.
	Or you don't have to talk to them.
	Arguably also, depending on the tone, depending on the implications, the insinuations, arguably witness tampering, witness intimidation.
	We'll get there.
	I'm sure we might get there today.
	But Yeager testified, Mr. Bradley stated that Mr. Wade personally prepared his own divorce complaint against his spouse, Mrs. Jocelyn Wade, and told Mr. Bradley to sign the divorce proceedings and to file them on Mr. Wade's behalf.
	People, I will tout my predictions when they're good and when I get them right and I'll ignore them and forget that I ever made them when I'm wrong.
	I'm joking.
	I make them publicly so that when I'm wrong, I can't erase it.
	That was a damn good one, people.
	It was obvious that...
	Bradley had no idea what the hell was going on in those pleadings, didn't care to, and whether or not Nathan Wade said, look, do it, or I'll fire you.
	Do it, or you're out of here.
	Do it, or we don't split these contracts a third, a third, a third anymore.
	It was quite clear what had probably happened there, and it looks like, based on some of the witness testimony, or at least what is being proffered is what will be their testimony.
	Viva was right.
	And that was a good one because that one was out of the blue.
	And all that to say now, it's also been alleged Yeager, who's an attorney at Cobb County, assistant director or something or whatever at the Cobb County, that she is now also testifying or prepared to testify that Fonny Willis in September had called Terrence Bradley and put pressure on him.
	Guys, there's nothing to go yet.
	I'm going to refresh it.
	Hold on a second.
	Let me bring it up here.
	Is it on?
	It's not on yet.
	It starts at 9 o 'clock, but let's refresh.
	Watch now.
	Live event.
	Event is starting.
	We also subpoenaed her to testify before the committee this morning as is permitted by rules.
	Okay, now tell me how the audios are leveled.
	Now I'm going to go to locals.
	This merchant responded to the subpoena as required by Monday at noon.
	And the Secretary of the Senate, Mr. David Cook, has all of the documents produced, and he will keep those in his safe room, I guess we'll call it, David, his repository.
	How is my audio compared to their audio?
	I'm going to go listen to myself.
	These are available for any committee member to review at your pleasure.
	Just get with Mr. Cook.
	We are keeping them.
	Audio is perfect.
	Under lock and key, so to speak, so they will not be made available to the public until we determine whether any of them involve confidential information or not.
	I love the southern accents.
	So we'll have those available.
	The minority whip took some time last night.
	Minority whip.
	I think he may have been the first person to really review all of the records and spent a few hours there in the Secretary of the Senate's office to review this information.
	I'm going to make a determination after we have I heard this testimony and heard from Ms. Merchant as to whether or not some or all of those documents will remain confidential.
	I remind the committee members in our rules, you are bound to confidentiality unless things are publicly disclosed.
	So for now, we will be reviewing some of the documents during this testimony.
	But I will ask you, Ms. Merchant, to let us know if anything in your opinion is confidential that you would not like for us to...
	It's publicly disclosed for whatever reason and then I will review the records as well.
	There are some personal financial records in there that I'm not...
	I'm not comfortable at this time disclosing those publicly.
	But just to sort of set the ground rules here, I will conduct the interview with you.
	You will be sworn under oath.
	Ms. Brenda Elwell is our court reporter.
	She will be making a transcript of all the proceedings, and that will be publicly disclosed for the press if you want to go back and double-check and see exactly what was said.
	That will take a couple of weeks to prepare that transcript.
	This meeting is also being live-streamed, so it should be easily accessible to the public.
	It is easily accessible to the public.
	Anybody interested in this.
	Yes.
	I'll begin.
	Ms. Merchant, you are here under a subpoena.
	Testify.
	I'd like to go ahead and swear you in.
	If you will please raise your right hand.
	Testify.
	Do you swear that the testimony that you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
	So help you God.
	Yes, I do.
	Get closer to the mic, Ashley.
	Continue with the transcript as we go.
	If you get hung up at any time and I fail to hit the right microphone and you can't hear who's saying anything, let me know.
	The way our procedures work is that I will be asking the questions and the minority party will have an opportunity upon request to ask questions as well.
	I've discussed this with The minority whip, Senator Jones, and he may or may not ask questions towards the committee.
	I don't know how long this is going to last, by the way.
	If you want to, just let me know.
	Ms. Merchant, would you please just identify yourself and let the committee know you see all our name tags to see who's on here.
	You know who we are, but let us know who you are and what your profession is, background, etc.
	A courageous attorney.
	Last name Merchant, M-E-R.
	You're going to need to pull that mic closer to you.
	I have a notepad just in case I get two questions at the same time.
	I like to make a note to make sure that I remember.
	The committee knows the rules.
	We passed them unanimously at our last meeting and you actually have the right to counsel if you want to.
	It's not like a court proceeding where we're going to be having objections, etc.
	Since you are an attorney, apparently you're very comfortable responding.
	Okay, didn't mean to cut you off, but just make sure everybody can hear you there.
	Thank you.
	Yes, I'm a criminal defense attorney.
	I was sworn in as a member of the bar in 2004.
	So I've been a criminal defense attorney for 20 years.
	I started out when I first graduated from law school.
	I came to Atlanta and I worked.
	I did an externship with the Southern Center for Human Rights.
	And then once I was sworn in as a member of the bar, I became a public defender in Fulton County.
	I was there for four and a half years until I started my private practice, the merchant law firm.
	We had an office in Fulton County at first.
	We're in Cobb County.
	I'm in practice with my husband, John Merchant, and we do criminal defense primarily.
	And do you have any...
	Other roles or affiliations?
	I've seen just press articles about you.
	Yes, yes, so I do.
	I've been very blessed to have a lot of active roles in the community.
	I was the former president of the Cobb County Bar Association Criminal Defense Section.
	I am currently, I was sworn in in January as the president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
	I've been a member of that for 20 years, a member of the Cobb County Bar Association, very active in both of those roles.
	I've been honored with several different awards.
	One from the Cobb County Bar Association.
	Defender of Justice, Champion of Justice, I'm sorry, a couple years ago.
	And then, you know, I've been honored with Rising Star Awards, Super Lawyers, and The Daily Report has different awards back when I was younger, 40 under 40. Wouldn't qualify, unfortunately, for that anymore.
	And then recently I was awarded at our annual meeting for the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
	I was very honored to receive an award about...
	My work defending the Constitution.
	She's 46 years old.
	So you are the current president of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Group?
	Yes, yes.
	And it's the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
	So she was being sincere when she offered that to Terrence.
	We have about 1,500 members right now.
	We're aiming to get around 2,000, but we're one of the largest defense bars in the country.
	Okay, that means she was sincere when she offered that to Terrence.
	And tell us a little bit about your trial experience over these last 20 years.
	So I started doing post-conviction work, which is, you know, after a person is convicted, doing appeals and habeas work.
	Then I went into misdemeanor trial work at first when I was a public defender.
	I moved into the complex felony division, which is where the majority of my practice has lied.
	I do about half of my practice is appeals, appellate work in the Georgia Supreme Court and the Georgia Court of Appeals.
	The other half is trial work.
	I specialize in complex felonies, so anything that's mostly Every once in a while, I'll have a client who has a state court case, and so I will end up helping them on that, but primarily complex felonies.
	And during the course of your practice here in the Atlanta area, tell us a little bit about your involvement, and I'm just going to refer to these as the election interference cases.
	I think they're 16 or 17. They're letting her show off right now.
	You are involved in those cases, I know, from seeing the news.
	Yes.
	Who do you represent?
	I represent a gentleman named Michael Roman.
	I was hired late August, early September, I think it was late August, to represent him.
	He lives out of state, does not live in Georgia.
	So I've been his defense attorney since the time of indictment.
	So late August or September of 2023.
	Yes, I began working on his case in late August of'23.
	I looked this morning, I filed my official entry on September 1st of'23, and then I negotiated bond for him, walked through the turn-in process, and began negotiations with What exactly is he charged with?
	What's the offense he's been charged with?
	He's charged with conspiring to violate the Racketeering Act to RICO.
	He's also charged with some of the more specific allegations for him are attempted and conspiracy to file false documents.
	So essentially, I've classified the indictment.
	The easiest way for me to classify the indictment is...
	There's the folks that are federal officers.
	I'll just say this now.
	If you came to hear only this, go watch it somewhere else.
	I'm going to be commenting.
	And then there's Coffey County.
	He's in that middle section.
	So that's the alternate elector process?
	Yes.
	And those are the documents that are deemed to be false there?
	Yes, yes.
	That's what he's charged with.
	He's charged with filing false documents, false swearing, things like that.
	For the alternate slate of electors.
	And to be clear, you do not represent any of these alternate electors.
	No, I only represent Michael Roman.
	And you don't represent Donald Trump.
	No, I do not represent Donald Trump.
	Your involvement in the case is just for Michael Roman.
	Yes, exclusively Michael Roman, and that's my duty.
	They went after one person too many.
	You have produced quite a few documents to us.
	Yes.
	Do you have any concerns as to whether any of those documents are protected by attorney-client privilege?
	I don't have any concerns about that.
	I do have some privacy concerns because you mentioned earlier that there were some financial documents that are not redacted, and so those would need to be redacted.
	That would be the only thing, but they're not.
	Phone numbers, I believe I redacted all the phone numbers, but there are some financial documents that are probably sensitive.
	As far as Mr. Roman is concerned, is he giving you permission to speak freely about his case and about the evidence or documents you've accumulated in the course of his defense?
	Yes, we went over the subpoena that I received and the classification of documents that I was asked to give.
	All of those were things that I obtained through discovery, not discovery from the state, but through my own.
	So we have a protective order in the case.
	So anything that I've obtained through the state could potentially be subject Okay.
	Most of the members of this committee are attorneys, but not all.
	And I recognize that the general public will be hearing some of this either now or later.
	Tell me a little bit about when you're talking about states' discovery.
	What do you mean by that?
	I know that everybody else may know that.
	Yeah, definitely.
	So we have a statute in Georgia that allows us to do what's called opt-in.
	So if we opt-in to the discovery statute, that means we're engaging in reciprocal discovery, which means that the state has to give us a copy of all of the material that they plan on using at trial.
	They also have to give us copies of anything that would be arguably exculpatory.
	And so in this case, there's...
	There's been a lot of discovery exchanged, because obviously there's a lot of defendants, and if they wanted to classify something as sensitive, they would do so, and then if we wanted to be able to disseminate it to any third party outside of our practice, we would have to have court permission to do that.
	But when we are investigating a case, not everything comes through discovery.
	So in general, I would investigate a case on my own, and those items are things that I did not receive from the state.
	So we've got different classes of documents.
	The documents that I actually received from the state through discovery, through formal discovery, and then documents that I developed on my own.
	And out of these documents that you've obtained from the state through formal discovery, that they're obligated to provide defense attorneys to fairly defend your client.
	Some of those have been deemed to be sensitive and that are not freely disseminated?
	Yes, yes.
	The state, how the protective order works, and the protective order is public.
	It was publicly filed.
	If the state deems something sensitive, they let us know that.
	And if we dispute that or we have some reason that we want it to be able to be disseminated, we would have to go to the court and basically argue over that.
	Fair to say any of the documents you have provided to our committee were things that you obtained outside of that formal discovery process and are not subject to any protective order?
	Yes, I did not.
	Nothing that was subject to the subpoena or that I provided was something that I got from the state, and nothing was subject to that protective order.
	I went through and was very clear on that.
	And I'm wanting to make sure of this because this committee has made it clear from the beginning it is not our intent in any way to interfere.
	I would not want to be circumventing a court order that was for the protection of the privacy of the parties to that case.
	It is not our job to interfere in that case at all or in your motion to disqualify Ms. Willis.
	I appreciate that and I was very cautious because I certainly don't want to go against a court order protecting so I did not disclose any of those documents.
	So tell me a little bit about the special grand jury process.
	It sounds like that occurred before you were ever even hired in this case.
	It did.
	My client, Mr. Roman, was not involved in that at all.
	So he was never someone that was issued a target letter or a subpoena or contacted.
	So he was never involved in that either.
	So he didn't have counsel, obviously, since he was never involved in the special purpose grand jury.
	But in my role defending him now, I've obviously reviewed all of the things that happened with the special purpose grand jury that I have access to.
	So it's my understanding Ms. Willis obtained an order from, at the time it was Chief Judge, I believe it was Judge Brasher who was the Chief Judge at the time.
	Obtained an order to impanel a special purpose grand jury.
	You know, and I followed that in the news before I was involved in the case because it's very unique.
	It's not something that happens very often.
	Normally, when we see a special purpose grand jury, it's some type of investigation into a jail or something like that.
	So it was kind of unique to see that.
	But, you know, from reading everything, my understanding is a lot of the witnesses.
	Weren't willing to necessarily talk without a grand jury, and so that's one of the reasons that they had to impanel a special purpose grand jury.
	But it was very unique.
	I've been practicing here a long, long time, and I haven't seen a special purpose grand jury to basically advise the DA, apparently, or a subsequent grand jury as to whether there's evidence to...
	Prosecute.
	Is that essentially what it did?
	That is exactly what it did, yes.
	And now, through the discovery process, I've been able to review a lot of the transcripts and also talk with a lot of the lawyers who were involved and witnesses that were involved in the special purpose grand jury.
	But that's what they did.
	They used that process to subpoena, particularly out-of-state witnesses.
	So in Georgia, it's always difficult when we have a witness who's out-of-state because we have the interstate compact.
	We have to get a certification to get a witness subpoenaed from out-of-state.
	It's not easy.
	It is one of the more difficult aspects of our job.
	So they used the grand jury process, the special purpose grand jury process, to bring in testimony and bring in, you know, witnesses from out of state.
	They issued a lot of target letters to people back and forth.
	There was a lot of people that were targets and then weren't targets who testified, maybe negotiated some type of immunity, things like that, throughout that special purpose grand jury.
	And is that made public to other defense attorneys if immunity has been granted to any witnesses?
	I don't know if it was made public originally.
	I know that some of it has been provided to us through discovery.
	We had a motions hearing where the judge ordered that the state give us copyrights.
	It's my understanding there's a transcript from just about everything, but it does appear like sometimes that was cut off.
	So there are some sections that were recorded and then maybe a section wasn't recorded and then they went back on the record.
	But it was recorded, which we rarely get in a regular grand jury.
	We rarely, if ever, get that type of testimony.
	So that was very unique to have.
	Is the state required to let you know if they've granted immunity to any witnesses that may have been utilized in this special grand jury process or in seeking the indictment?
	Yes, they are.
	Given to us through discovery, some of it has been given to us from other attorneys, you know, the attorneys who maybe represented those parties.
	There was a lot of back and forth.
	There were a lot of, you know, in this, I think, I believe this was all public, that some of the state, some of our state representatives, I think the governor in particular, were subpoenaed, and there was back and forth over who could grant immunity, who had the power in that office to grant immunity, and that's something that I reviewed in my work on this motion.
	With the DA's office because Mr. Wade was the one that took over that power.
	And so the emails that were attached to a lot of the pleadings, it was interesting.
	It first started out that there was someone else in the DA's office who's actually an employee of the DA's office who was negotiating all of that.
	And then it evolved to another member of the DA's staff, and then ultimately it was Mr. Wade, and there's emails where he said, I'm it.
	I'm the only one that can grant immunity.
	I'm the only one that has the power to do this.
	A man who's never prosecuted a felony in his life.
	Was he engaged or involved in the special grand jury process?
	Oh, very much so.
	He was by far the lead of it.
	And do you have the timeline of when that special grand jury was authorized and when it began to meet?
	Yes, I don't know the dates off the top of my head, but there is an order, and I can review it.
	I brought some of the pleadings with me.
	But it was authorized.
	So he was appointed, the timeline, he was appointed in November 2021 to work on this case.
	It was sometime after that that Ms. Willis sought the special purpose grand jury and got authority to do that.
	Because they were looking into it for a long time.
	And then that went through several months and then they issued a report to her.
	So he was hired by the Fulton County DA's office before the special grand jury was authorized or impaneled?
	Yes, necessarily, yeah.
	And so he was involved from the very beginning of that process?
	Yes, and he was actually hired, I believe, before it was even, I know it was before it was impaneled.
	I believe it was before the order was even issued, though.
	And do you know what his role was as a...
	What's the official term?
	A special assistant district attorney?
	That's a good question.
	I'm not sure.
	He usually goes by special counsel or special prosecutor.
	I don't believe he goes by special assistant district attorney.
	I don't think he's permitted to do that.
	I've studied these statutes a lot, and there's no real term for it.
	I've heard him go by independent counsel, things like that.
	But I don't really think independent counsel...
	External.
	I did not know this before, but I've studied the structure of the independent counsel in the federal system.
	They're actually a separate office.
	They have their own appropriations to have a separate office, and they are kept separate from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
	So that would be where you get the independent counsel term from, or independent prosecutor.
	He goes by special, usually, so special prosecutor or special counsel.
	And I think that's because he's not independent.
	Why would he have been needed is going to be the next question.
	Is this commonly used in the state of Georgia?
	I don't know the scope of your practice.
	I'm not familiar with DA's doing this often.
	No, and so I do practice throughout the state, and I've practiced in almost every county in the state at some point in my career, and it is very rare.
	I've had instances where there is special counsel, but those are very limited, and I can tell you about those, and then I can also tell you what I did to investigate that, because I had the same question.
	Just so you'll know why we're asking, the scope of this committee is we heard a lot of the allegations, and you, as a matter of fact, Made most of them, or made some of these public.
	Revealed them.
	There's, of course, a public outrage or uproar or concerns about some of the alleged improprieties that you brought forth, both within the...
	In the system kind of what's appropriate conduct and also financial improprieties.
	Public outrage can sway politicians.
	And we're tasked with investigating and finding the true facts and not just taking the press at face value.
	And that's why we're asking you for documents, et cetera, so we can independently verify the various allegations that have been made.
	But we're also specifically tasked with, if necessary, amending existing statutes.
	Or creating new statutes to build guardrails or whatever to essentially restore public faith in our criminal justice system in its impartiality and its fairness.
	I have looked at some of the existing statutes, but it's very sketchy.
	What is the real authority?
	We wonder if we need statutory authority or statutory limitations.
	So I'm going to explore with you a little bit what the authority is for a special grand jury to be conducting a criminal investigation, and also the use of a special assistant district attorney is what I'm referring to.
	So that's the context.
	You have done that research, so help walk us through this just a little bit.
	Is there a statutory process that gives authority to utilize a special grand jury to advise a DA or to essentially accumulate evidence for a DA to determine whether or not to indict?
	Right.
	So the first question was about whether this happens throughout the state or not.
	I did do open records to every single district attorney in the entire state of Georgia to find out because I wanted to know.
	I knew based on my practice that it was a very rare process, but I wanted to know.
	I wanted the data.
	I wanted to actually see it.
	So we did an open records for every single district attorney.
	We have received responses from almost all of them.
	There's only a couple that we haven't, but I don't know that those would be.
	Big factors, the few that were remaining.
	I think it was Augusta that I haven't received one from.
	But I talked with two of the prosecutors in those districts.
	There's only two that actually use something that would be akin to this.
	And one of them said they haven't done it in years, but they have done it.
	And they paid between $40 and $40 an hour, which tends to be...
	About the going rate for appointed counsel.
	It's between $40 and $60 an hour, I know, for appointed counsel in most counties.
	And then the other county that did use them, they use a part-time solicitor.
	And that DA said every time that they would have maybe some overflow work, an appeal or something that they had extra work to do, they would hire this part-time solicitor.
	So it was someone who was already a government employee, and they would pay $45 an hour for this person to do work.
	So those are the only people.
	This is very unique to Fulton County.
	I...
	I assumed, but I didn't know until I did the research.
	Nobody does this but Fulton County.
	The question is, why would they impanel a special purpose grand jury to prepare evidence so the district attorney could decide to charge?
	It's not even the same section.
	So the attorney general is authorized because they represent all of the state agencies.
	They are authorized to hire outside counsel, and they have to because there's a lot of conflict issues, and so it makes sense.
	So you've got different needs for hiring outside counsel.
	You've got conflicts, if there's a conflict.
	And if there's a conflict, you'd have to hire someone who's outside of the office.
	You couldn't hire someone, like in this case, like Mr. Wade, to be special counsel because they're in the office.
	So when you have a legal conflict, the offices have to be separate.
	So with the AG...
	That's usually what happens.
	Sometimes it's specialized knowledge.
	I mean, you've got people who are representing commissioners.
	You've got people who are representing people in certain agencies in the state, in certain types of power.
	And so it might be a specialized practice area.
	So the attorney general is authorized, and they actually publish it on their website, all of the rates.
	It's very transparent.
	So I went through and looked at everybody's rate.
	I mean, it's very transparent.
	How much they pay, it's based on experience.
	They get approval for that.
	They get approval for the appropriations for it.
	And it's just extremely transparent, which is in direct contradiction to how it works in Fulton County.
	And do you know how many judicial districts we have in Georgia?
	I don't.
	I do not.
	I could look at my open records request.
	So the judicial districts, there would be a district attorney for each of those.
	And so those are who I found.
	49 judicial districts.
	It's over 50. Oh, it's over 50. I think it's 59, but I'm not positive.
	That's what I think.
	I think it's 59. So out of those 59, you reached out to all of them to see if their district attorney's offices for each judicial circuit ever utilized a special assistant, you know, outside counsel.
	Yes.
	And out of those, only three of them?
	Have you ever done it?
	Only two.
	Only two.
	Only two had ever done it.
	Fulton County is one of them.
	Only two.
	Well, oh yes, I'm sorry.
	It's three counting Fulton County.
	I did not send an open records to Fulton County on that because I already knew that they did it.
	Is there a statute that authorizes that?
	There is a statute and I cite it, if I may, I cite it in my brief.
	Feel free.
	Okay, thank you.
	I don't want to misquote it.
	What power did they have to impanel a special purpose grand jury to do research to then recommend?
	To the deal.
	And how I came to learn that is I actually contacted the Prosecuting Attorneys Council early on in this case, because I was trying to figure out the legality of this.
	I did open records and I found out how much money the special counsels in this case were being paid.
	And there's about 20 different people in Fulton County that are paid under this type of arrangement.
	It's the largest personnel budget item in the DA's office.
	Why wouldn't you just hire more assistant DA's and have them in-house?
	That's what I didn't understand.
	That's the policy question.
	I mean, in my opinion, obviously, I think that's what should happen.
	The reason that it wouldn't happen is because if you're hired as an assistant DA, you can't take private work.
	So the statutes, and they're all in section 15-18.
	The one that gives the authority for this is 20. But all of those, if you read all of them, it makes it very clear that if you're going to hire more assistant DAs, they have to be paid the statutory rate.
	So you can't just pay an assistant DA anything you want.
	You could not pay them $300,000.
	I don't know it off the top of my head, but it is in the statute.
	I know that District Attorney Willis, for example, I think it's around $200,000, and that's one of the top paid people.
	So most of the people are paid somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000, something like that, depending on their role, depending on county supplements.
	So what the statute says is it gives a state salary, and then you can get a county supplement.
	But all of that is around that range.
	It's around $150,000.
	But there's limitations.
	So to answer your question, why you wouldn't just hire an assistant district attorney, first, they couldn't make as much money as independent counsels.
	Because they couldn't maintain a private practice.
	Couldn't make that much money.
	But they also would be limited in their law practice.
	They wouldn't be able to have private practice, and that's by statute.
	So if you are hired as an assistant DA, you cannot have a private law practice also.
	Do you know how many there are in Fulton County DA's office?
	How many special prosecutors?
	No, how many assistant district attorneys?
	No, I actually open-recorded that, and it was declined.
	So we actually have a pending open-records lawsuit, which I did bring.
	I asked for that.
	I asked for how many were hired, when they were hired, when they were fired, and they declined to give me that under the Open Records Act.
	So we ended up filing a lawsuit, and that's still pending.
	Don't have an answer off Google.
	I think there's...
	Certainly dozens of them.
	Oh, yes.
	Maybe a hundred.
	I think a hundred would be a fair example or a fair number based on, you know, just my knowledge of it.
	But there's quite a few.
	And, you know, if you had a certain amount of money that, you know, they spent several million dollars on these special prosecutors, that could be spent on a lot more assistant district.
	Understand what he's getting at here.
	You know the process in Fulton County on how.
	To hire an additional assistant DA.
	Do you approve the budget for the DA's office?
	Is that something controlled by the county, or does the DA have total discretion?
	It's controlled by the county, and I do know I actually went back and watched a lot of budget meetings.
	They have their budget meetings online.
	I read a lot of the transcripts, and so it's very interesting.
	It's kind of a long answer, though.
	Depending on who you are...
	In Fulham County, it depends on how your budget is approved.
	So, for example, the county attorney, if they want to hire special counsel and pay them hourly, like in this case, they go and they get that approved at the county level.
	They actually appear in front of the county board of commissioners and say, we need to hire this person at this rate, and they approve the rate.
	They monitor the bills.
	Which Fannie never did in this case.
	So that's what happens at the county attorney's office.
	When it's done properly.
	The county attorney represents the county is not prosecuting criminals like the DA does.
	Correct.
	It's civil.
	So the county attorney does all civil things.
	In this case they actually did end up representing the DA.
	In some of the open records issues, which is a whole other issue.
	But so, yeah, so the county attorney, the civil body, they actually go and get county approval from the Board of Commissioners.
	And there's actually a resolution.
	So I had, I think I attached as an example in one of my briefs, a copy of a resolution just to give...
	As an example, I'm pretty sure I did.
	You know, and it's very transparent.
	They get it approved.
	Yeah, here it is.
	They get it approved because it's an additional expense.
	It's called a resolution, and it's a resolution authorizing funding for additional personnel.
	And basically, they go and they say, you know, we need this for this project.
	Tell us why.
	Tell us who it is.
	Budgetary item, and it's approved.
	Transparency.
	It comes out of their budget, though.
	So they're not going and asking for more money.
	For the county attorney's budget, they're just asking to use the county money that they've already been allotted for this special counsel.
	The district attorney has taken a different position, and I was surprised, so I watched hundreds of hours of Board of County Commissioners meetings just to make sure that I wasn't missing anything, that she never went and asked for approval for any of these special prosecutors.
	Her budget is granted through the Fulton County?
	It is.
	It's part of its budget.
	It is.
	These special prosecutors have been paid a couple different ways.
	They were paid with state seizure money.
	So the first, around $100,000 of Mr. Wade's funding came from state seizure money.
	It appeared from looking at the budgets for the state seizure that that fund ran out.
	So then it started coming from the general fund.
	But it was money that, so Ms. Willis had a budget right around the time that she hired Mr. Wade and these other special prosecutors, she went and asked for more money for a backlog.
	And so she was given extra money.
	And that money's been renewed since.
	It was given to her to hire 55 additional personnel.
	And it's actually in the resolution.
	She went in front of the Board of County Commissioners and asked for it.
	When was that?
	Do you know?
	I do, actually, because I attached it to my brief.
	So I know the dates of things.
	September 15, 2021.
	Is when she presented her PowerPoint to the Fulton County Board of County Commissioners.
	And she gave a lot of statistics about all the unindicted homicides.
	It was mainly about homicides.
	It is, you know, there were some about sexual offenses, but it was almost all about homicides.
	She said that, you know, why am I here?
	The great trifecta, crime is on the rise, historic mismanagement, and then the COVID backlog.
	And so she asked for quite a bit of money to hire additional personnel.
	It was, I can tell you.
	The state's seizure money sounds like it comes from asset forfeiture.
	That year it was $780,000.
	And that's in the fall of 2021, just before this special grand jury was impaneled?
	Yes.
	So that happened.
	She was awarded that money September 15, 2021.
	And she actually did get the resolution and the process that...
	Now, how many people did she hire?
	How much was that addition or increase to her budget?
	$780,000.
	Not to exceed $5 million.
	What?
	Wow.
	So, she was awarded for the end of 2021, which this is September 15th.
	She was awarded for September until December 31st, $780,000.
	Shut the front door.
	It said, and then the next year, not to exceed up to $5 million.
	So hang on for one minute.
	And how many people did she employ with that?
	My vice chairman here, Chairman Dolezal, is way more high-tech oriented than I am.
	Okay.
	He has downloaded some of your documents that you produced to us that I had asked him to have available so we could see them.
	This is worse than what we thought.
	And I think you have produced to us this PowerPoint presentation that Ms. Willis made to the County Commission in September of 21. To allegedly fund backlog of murder cases, etc.
	Yes, that would be Exhibit A to that motion.
	Yes, that's it.
	And is that what we have on the screen here?
	Let's see if we can flip this one right.
	The question is, how many DAs or assistant DAs did Fannie Willis hire with that money?
	So this is part of her PowerPoint presentation for additional funding over and above her previously appropriated budget from the county?
	Yes.
	Yes, it is.
	Okay.
	So what were the county procedures for approval of funding for additional outside counsel?
	Or in this case, it sounded like she was going to hire 55 people in-house to help with the backlog.
	Does the county have guidelines or rules or regulations as to how you get funding approved for either additional staff?
	To work on her backlog of homicides.
	Or for special counsel to assist you.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yes.
	What are those proper procedures?
	You have to get approval by the Board of County Commissioners.
	And the statute, so the statute that I cited originally, 15, 18, 20, that statute actually is the one that it says that you can hire additional personnel like this, but it has to have county approval.
	So, I mean, the statute says it already.
	You know, when you were asking about changing statutes, I mean, it's clear in the statute that it has to be approved by either local law or the governing authority, which would be the county in this place, in this instance.
	And it's very specific that it can't be paid with state funds.
	Anything in that September 15th of 2021 proposal or request for funding that addressed or contemplated special counsel to pursue indictments against...
	No, not at all.
	And I watched the video, it's online, her speech, where she used the PowerPoint and the speech.
	There's nothing about that at all.
	And in fact, what was submitted was, it was pretty specific.
	It was to hire 55 new employees, not contractors, employees, in November 2021 and December 2021.
	And I did open records based on this, asking who was hired.
	And the dates of hire because I wanted to be able to track that, and that was denied.
	And who made that denial, the DA's office or the county?
	The DA's office.
	And I did bring the open records lawsuit just in case you have any questions about that.
	Three quarters of a million.
	So it was the county, and I can tell you when I filed it.
	Let me see.
	Oh, my goodness.
	I want to hear Fannie's explanation for this.
	And we went back and forth.
	I requested it several times, but it was Dexter Bond at the DA's office who sent a letter back and said, basically, we don't have that.
	We don't have to give it to you.
	He's like the chief assistant for...
	He is, and he's also the one who went to the Board of County Commissioners whenever they needed funding.
	So, you know, if they had some large printing and they had a big rebranding campaign where they had a lot of money that was spent on this rebranding, like posters and things like that around the office, and he had to go and testify in front of the Board of County Commissioners to get that paid.
	We're not paying it.
	So he's sort of the go-between with the Board of County Commissioners.
	His official title is something like Chief Legal Officer or something like that.
	But he's an attorney.
	So you've gone back and reviewed all of the Fulton County Commission's minutes and records to see what requests were made and if there was a resolution granting the additional funding.
	None and there wasn't.
	Yes.
	Oh, yes.
	Was there ever a request for additional funding for a special prosecutor to pursue these elections?
	No, never.
	No, there wasn't, and I knew that before we got the district attorney's response, but subsequently we got a response from the district attorney's office that said, we didn't do it, we don't have to do it, I'm a constitutional officer.
	She said it in church.
	So their argument was, we don't have to comply with those statutes or those rules, because she's saying she's a constitutional officer, so she doesn't have to get county approval.
	What the hell does that mean?
	She can spend her budget however she wants.
	Explain that.
	Then why would she have gotten county approval for the...
	The other 55 attorneys.
	So what I've surmised is that was because those were staff members.
	And so she went and asked for additional budgetary money.
	She needed a higher budget.
	So for those 55 people, she went and asked for more money.
	And then from the budget, she can spend it the way she wants.
	And once she was awarded that, it's her position now that she can spend that money however she wants.
	Doesn't have to use it for 55 new staff.
	She can use it for special attorney general.
	Gray Goose.
	Yes.
	Not attorney general.
	Special counsel.
	Right.
	Yes.
	Essentially.
	That is their argument in their reply briefs that they filed in court, that they have inherent authority, they don't have to comply with county ordinances, don't have to comply with the statute.
	So they don't have to comply with our state statute.
	Once they're awarded the budget, they can do whatever they want.
	I mean, how their motion, and I'm happy to send the motion, it's public record, but how their motion argued it was, if they get $5 million, they can pay that to one person if they want.
	Even though it was predicated on hiring 55. I asked her to do that.
	So their position is the county authorizes a budget and she has inherent authority to do it, however.
	Even though she specifically asked for the money to prosecute backlog.
	It was allocated to higher employees.
	What's your opinion on that?
	Do you think the statute or county procedures permit that?
	No, I do not.
	And I cited several different county So when I read the statute, when I read 15-1820, and it makes sense, you know, it makes sense intuitively.
	As lawyers, when we bill, someone is reviewing our bills.
	I mean, that's just, you know, that's the process.
	If you're in private practice, you know, your client authorizes your bills.
	If you're doing public defense, which I've done public defense, I've done appointed work, you know, the governing agency approves my bills, and they will cut them.
	They will regularly cut them if they're too high.
	And so there's always some type of budgetary authority that's It's reviewing everything.
	So I thought it was very strange that in this case there isn't one and that there's really no oversight because it is public money.
	So I know that it's an elected official, but it's still public money.
	Yeah, and it was allocated.
	So it would probably aggravate me more if I did.
	It was allocated on certain conditions.
	So we have the code section up that you're referencing for prosecuting attorneys getting additional personnel.
	That's what Mr. Wade would qualify as, correct?
	Yes.
	So under B, that's the section that authorizes the appointment of special counsel.
	And it says the manner and amount of compensation to be paid is fixed by either local act or by the district attorney with the approval of the county.
	And so that's our argument that this was...
	Not appropriate expenditure because it did not have county approval.
	So our state law requires if a DA is going to go seek outside counsel, I'm going to call them, that must be approved by the county commission.
	Absolutely.
	You're siphoning money out of the budget for external people?
	There are only three circuits that have even utilized this procedure.
	Yes.
	Do you have any idea what rates of pay were approved in those other judicial districts or whether they went through some type of approval?
	So one was $40 and one was $45.
	And Nathan was getting $60?
	The annual amount that they spent did not exceed $2,000.
	Okay, the annual is where they're going to...
	And what did Mr. Wade receive?
	He's received about $700,000 so far.
	And what's he paid per hour?
	$250 an hour.
	Has Fulton County been given any opportunity to approve or reject those bills or the fact that he's even hired?
	No, and that's an interesting point.
	So one of the things that the district attorney argued in their motions was that They don't have to have the actual bills approved.
	So she is the one that approves the bills.
	So essentially what happens was he would submit an invoice and she would sign off on it and send it to purchasing.
	And then purchasing would pay for it.
	So their argument in their motion was that the oversight is by purchasing, saying...
	A pay.
	You know, that she would be the one that reviewed the time.
	So Ms. Willis reviews the time, and then it gets submitted to purchasing, and purchasing then pays it.
	And so that's the oversight.
	In her opinion, in the state's opinion, the oversight is from purchasing.
	Purchasing just gets a bill and pays it.
	They don't actually look at it and see if the work's done.
	Does Ms. Willis do that?
	Is she required to approve these bills submitted by the special counsel?
	The contracts indicate that the bills are submitted to her.
	She doesn't sign off on all of them.
	A lot of them were signed off on by other people in her office, purchasing people and things like that.
	So there's no evidence that I was able to find that she actually scrutinized these bills or reviewed them or anything like that, but she may have.
	And you mentioned that attorneys that are working for state agencies or whatever, including the Special Assistant Attorney Generals, submit bills like an itemized statement on what...
	Services they've rendered?
	Yes, and the Attorney General has very specific guidelines on that.
	What you can bill for, how you have to bill, and, you know, is told to remind, there's a reminder that this is public service.
	So, you know, essentially be judicious in your billing.
	Right.
	You're going to voluntarily get underpaid to be able to help.
	And a lot of people view it as public service.
	Are those bills submitted in, like, tenths of an hour?
	I do some billing, you know, in my job, and it's usually a tenth of an hour.
	Are there rules or guidelines or sort of standards of practice in how you bill?
	Yes.
	So most law firms, I know because my husband used to work at a law firm, is six-minute increments, and that's how most lawyers bill in the private sector.
	Public, it appears that most of them are in ten-minute increments.
	I know that that's what all of the indigent defense...
	Yeah, we've never seen Nathan Bill 10 minutes.
	But I've never seen anything above that.
	Okay.
	And on the open records request you made to the other judicial circuits, how did those outside counsel bill?
	I honestly, you know, I would have to go back and look.
	They were very small bills, though.
	You know, I mean, they were making...
	Less than $2,000 a year.
	So they were small bills, and they were project-based, which I think is also different.
	They would be hired to do a certain project.
	If Ms. Willis had hired an assistant employee, one of these 55 employees, and tasked them with the job of going through a special grand jury process and helping seek indictments, investigate these allegations, what's the most they could have made?
	Well, first, she couldn't hire Mr. Wade because it violates county policy.
	So she would not have been able to hire Mr. Wade as an employee.
	How does that violate county policy?
	They have a lot of policies on nepotism, relationships, personal.
	There's a lot of guidelines in the county policies.
	So she would not have been able to hire him.
	It would not have been approved.
	And that would be something that actually did have to get approved by the county.
	And because of their relationship, that wouldn't happen.
	So she wouldn't have been allowed to hire him because of violations of other county policies?
	Yes.
	He couldn't have been a direct employee of the district attorney's office.
	And if he had, he would have had to give up his practice.
	This process circumvented those rules and ethical obligations?
	Yes, it did.
	Let's say it wasn't Mr. Wade.
	So if it wasn't Mr. Wade and someone else, I believe most of the other prosecutors on this case make around $175,000 annually.
	That's a lot, actually.
	That's not bad.
	I interrupted you.
	I'm sorry.
	That's okay.
	No, that was the answer.
	So, you know, if...
	If she had hired Mr. Wade or somebody else as a salaried employee, they would make around $175,000, most likely.
	So using this technique that didn't obtain approval and didn't have to follow the ethical guidelines of her own office, she was able to pay him $700,000 over two or three years?
	Yes.
	Way more than he would have made as an employee?
	Way more, and also he's able to have a private practice, which is significant because you're not able to have a private practice if you're an employee.
	So that's a big...
	Big issue.
	Have you reviewed his billings?
	Yes.
	Senator Dozo, will you give us an example of one?
	I think we have one we're just going to pull up.
	Pull up the 24 hours.
	Is that an example of the type of invoices he would submit?
	No 10-minute billing.
	That's an actual one, isn't it?
	That is an actual one, and so there's a couple things on this.
	You asked earlier about the authorization, that stamp that says okay to pay.
	I believe that's Dexter Bond's signature.
	So that was...
	That was one where Ms. Willis didn't approve it or didn't review it, at least as far as we know from the signatures.
	But her chief legal officer did.
	Right.
	So they would do that stamp, okay to pay, sign it, and then send it to purchasing.
	But yes, this is one of the bills.
	And so he had monthly caps, which went up.
	There were a couple different contracts that were renewed.
	So he had one contract that expired, another contract.
	And the monthly cap was $35,000 a month.
	That's where you see the total.
	But this billing is not something that you would normally see.
	It's not detailed.
	I said it at the time.
	This is a day and just a number of hours.
	There's no real itemization of exactly how much time you spend doing whatever type of task?
	Right.
	There's none at all.
	And I tried to get...
	I also opened records because in Fulton County you have a badge to access everywhere.
	So I didn't open records for his badge access.
	I was told he didn't have a badge.
	I was told by other witnesses that he did.
	So, you know, I don't know.
	But you would...
	If you were doing these things in the office, you would...
	I used to be a Fulton County employee.
	You have to scan, and they keep track of all of that.
	So you have to scan your badge to get in to certain places.
	So if he's doing this, even as a contractor, contractors at the jail have badges.
	The medical providers have badges.
	They all have the badges that they scan.
	I open records to the sheriff and the DA's office, and both of them told me that he did not have a card, an access card.
	But in order to do this...
	I would assume he would have to have one to get into the DA's office, and I have been told that he had one, and you would be able to see when he went in and out.
	But I was denied that.
	Anything unusual or irregular about, you know, this is just an example, Bill, about the way he built the county?
	Completely.
	I mean, this is, you would never see this.
	This is what I would call block billing.
	So it's, I mean, one of them, for example, it's 28 hours over the course of two or three days.
	Team investigation meeting.
	Ah, no, he explained that, though.
	Just putting down both sides.
	You know, I went back and looked to try and see, you know, a lot of these were, like, drafting.
	At the time, I'm not sure what would have been drafted because most of this was during the special purpose grand jury.
	So there's not really a whole lot of drafting.
	And, you know, we've obviously never seen anything that he specifically has drafted.
	But I also calculated these team investigation meetings.
	So the majority of the billing are things like meeting with team.
	So if you see here, it's got team investigation meeting.
	Then it's got team meeting.
	How many hours?
	Eight hours?
	Meeting with team.
	How many hours?
	Most of his billing is meeting with team.
	Team meeting, team investigation, team brain drain.
	Eight hours.
	Eight hours.
	$250 an hour.
	But I went through, and that's the majority of the bill.
	Microphone.
	This wouldn't be standard from what you see at block building eight-hour increments instead of, you said, six-minute increments or more specifically, and does not really give a lot of identification of what's being done?
	Money laundering.
	Pretty much zero, in my opinion, identification.
	I mean, this is not something that we would be able to submit to a client ever.
	I can't imagine.
	I mean, if I billed them $2,000 for eight hours of meeting with a team on one day, I'd just...
	Research without what I'm researching.
	I mean, you have to be detailed in your bills because that's accountability.
	I mean, that's the only way as lawyers we can be accountable.
	You know, clients aren't sitting in our office while we're researching.
	So I have to say what I'm doing.
	And somebody has to approve it.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it's ultimately Fannie Willis that was approving these either personally or through her designated assistance.
	Her rubber stamping assistance.
	Yes, yes.
	And there was a written contract with Mr. Wade.
	The Fulton County DA's office?
	There was, yes.
	Alright, let's see if we can pull that up, Senator Dolezal.
	This is wild, by the way.
	I appreciate that...
	Am I right that they were, I think I've reviewed your documents, that they were more than one contract?
	Yes, there were.
	Is this the first one?
	They all got to keep their private practices.
	Yes, that's the first one.
	Wade said he made as much from his private practice as he did from this.
	That says it shall commence November 1st of 2021 and go through October 31st of '22.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So that contract began before there was even authorization to have a special grand jury later in November of '21?
	Yes, it did.
	Does it specify that that's what his role was going to be?
	Is there any way that's disclosed to the public what he was doing?
	No.
	Up at the top, I believe it says, let's see, it just says attorney consultant.
	This one, so if you look under whereas, the first whereas, it says to provide legal services regarding anti-corruption matters.
	You know, the head of the anti-corruption unit is a lady named Sonia Allen, and she was the one that was originally...
	In the emails that I talked about earlier, negotiating immunity and things like that.
	So she's the head of that unit.
	So the DA's office has their own special anti-corruption unit already in-house?
	They do, and they have a director of that.
	Sonia Allen is the director or chief assistant.
	She heads that unit, and she was the one that was originally on the emails negotiating immunity and things like that.
	And then it switched over.
	There was some...
	Issue, I believe it was with Governor Kemp, on him testifying when, all of that stuff, and Mr. Wade took over and said, I'm the only one with authority.
	And so Ms. Allen sort of stopped working on the case, and she hasn't really worked on the case since.
	From your experience and your knowledge of Mr. Wade and Sonia Allen, does he have any special unique experience or expertise that would...
	Make him better at this anti-corruption work than the head of the anti-corruption department in the Fulton DA's office?
	No, but, I mean, other than...
	No, he would not, but Sonia Allen also hired Mr. Wade in Cobb County before this contract at, I think it was like $550 an hour or something, to investigate deaths in the Cobb County jail.
	So Sonia Allen was the chief...
	So when Neil Warren...
	When Neil Warren was the sheriff in Cobb County, Sonia Allen was the chief deputy.
	And so she basically ran the office, ran the sheriff's office.
	They had a couple different deaths, and there were some lawsuits over access to that.
	A lot of the local lawyers wanted access to what was going on with the jail deaths.
	And Ms. Allen hired Nathan Wade to do that work, to do an investigation.
	And so a lot of this came out because they were ultimately sued.
	So I reviewed part of what I did in this case was I reviewed all of those documents as well.
	Mr. Wade had to testify.
	Because one of the news organizations sued them and said that, essentially, Ms. Allen hired Mr. Wade to try to get around open records to say that it was an open investigation so that they didn't have to give the jail recordings to the families about how these inmates died.
	Mr. Wade was a witness and had to testify, and he had billed a lot of money.
	Which, I don't have the figure, but I got the invoices.
	But he had built quite a bit of money to Cobb County, but hadn't produced any documents.
	And so he had to testify, and his testimony was that everything was in his brain.
	That he didn't have any written documents.
	Oh yeah, we saw how well his brain worked.
	So that's where...
	That was some years before.
	That was some years.
	I think it was in 2020, maybe?
	It was right before this.
	So when did Ms. Allen get hired by the Fulton DA's office?
	When Ms. Willis took office.
	So when Ms. Willis took office was the same time that Mr. Warren...
	Who was Ms. Allen's boss, was no longer the sheriff in Cobb County.
	So a new sheriff was elected, Craig Owens, and so he was elected in Cobb County.
	He took over that office.
	Ms. Allen no longer had a job, and she was hired by Ms. Willis to head the anti-corruption unit.
	Did Allen and Wade have a relationship?
	So, from your documents you've produced and your news stories that I've read it, apparently there were other special...
	Counsel that were hired by Ms. Willis?
	Yes.
	And to work on these specific RICO cases or election fraud cases?
	Yes, there are several.
	And so that's kind of a longer answer because there's a couple different classifications.
	She's prepared.
	Mr. Wade was, at the time that he got this contract, he was law partners with a gentleman named Terrence Bradley and another gentleman named Chris Campbell.
	So it was a three-person, three-lawyer firm.
	Both Mr. Wade and Mr. Campbell had contracts also.
	They actually had contracts before Mr. Wade.
	So they both got contracts the month that Ms. Willis took office.
	They got contracts to do what's called taint work, which is essentially if...
	For anti-corruption, because it's a lot of police brutality cases, if there's things that could be considered privilege.
	So let's say the police union had a lawyer doing an investigation.
	They subpoenaed those records.
	Those are privileged.
	Somebody has to review those to see what the DA's office can actually see.
	So it's that wall, that privilege wall, sort of.
	So both of Mr. Wade's law partners had contracts to do that privilege review, that taint review, conflict review.
	So you're seeing if there's tainted evidence, something that should not be revealed to the prosecutor.
	Damage another case or might be privileged and not subject to disclosure.
	Right, exactly.
	And one of the best examples I could give is, you know, in the Tex MacGyver case, he was a lawyer.
	MacGyver.
	They seized a lot of his documents.
	A lot of them were attorney-client privilege related to other people.
	The DA's office was not able to just go through all of those, so they had to have a taint team is what they call it.
	We should really change that name.
	That taint team.
	And I don't know which cases, but the Taint team involved Mr. Bradley and Mr. Campbell, who are Mr. Wade's law partners.
	Basically, they're reviewing documents to see whether they should be produced or privileged by attorney-client privilege.
	So he was going to have to produce Tiffany, who's dating Nathan Wade.
	Not exactly prosecuting criminal cases.
	No, they weren't prosecuting criminal cases.
	But Mr. Wade testified that they were law partners at the time so that he would have shared a third of whatever contracts they got.
	So those contracts, he was getting paid.
	While they're involved in a relationship.
	So on this case, these RICO cases, that you're involved in one of them.
	There are other special counsel in addition to Mr. Wade?
	Yes.
	So there's two other on this case particularly.
	There's a lady named Anna Cross and a gentleman named John Floyd.
	Oh, we saw Anna Cross.
	And John Floyd has worked with the DA's office for many years.
	I actually was involved in another RICO case year before this one, which luckily my client resolved his case, so I'm no longer involved in.
	But that case, John Floyd had also helped craft the indictment.
	And, you know, he's sort of...
	Known as a go-to person for racketeering cases, so the district attorney would regularly call on him to help in drafting indictment.
	Anytime we would file what's called a demure, which is a motion to quash an indictment, he would usually be the one that came and argued it.
	And then Anna Cross was also hired, and she really focused on the work in federal court.
	And both of those sort of make sense to me, because...
	Fulton County prosecutors, they're not necessarily barred in federal court.
	It's not something that would be required for your job.
	When I was a public defender in Fulton County, I wasn't barred in federal court.
	I had no need to.
	I wouldn't have paid the dues, wouldn't have done that.
	So, you know, it's not something that would be required for their job.
	But Ms. Cross is experienced in that.
	So she was hired sort of as a subject matter expert to litigate some of the federal removal issues in this case.
	Did those two individuals have contracts with the DA's office as well?
	They have had contracts historically.
	They do not currently have contracts.
	It's very odd.
	Did you review their billings?
	I did.
	I reviewed their billings.
	Stark contrast.
	So Mr. Floyd, for example, he was only paid at a rate of $100.
	Same case.
	Same case.
	More experience and expertise in RICO cases.
	The guy asking the question knows where he's going with this.
	I believe he testified in front of the Georgia legislature when RICO was passed.
	Did he have to submit itemized invoices?
	He did.
	And his were very different.
	His were significantly reduced.
	And the difference, the big difference, was he billed for the time that he was working on the case, not necessarily like...
	8 hours for team meetings.
	Did he have itemized billings?
	Very much so, yes.
	What increments did he bill in?
	I might have some of his contracts with me, but it was either 10 or 15 minute increments.
	So did Anna Cross.
	Now, Anna Cross was paid $250 an hour.
	Anna Cross is very well-known, very experienced appellate, federal lawyer.
	Might be why she's out of the case now.
	Does a lot of complex litigation.
	Haven't seen Anna Cross.
	Handled a lot of high-profile cases for the district attorney's office.
	I mean, I know her back from when, you know, we did death penalty working hub together 15 years ago.
	And then she went to DeKalb County and prosecuted a number of high-profile cases there.
	But just very well-known.
	And her bills were also submitted.
	They were the same rate, they were $250 an hour, but they were much lower bills, not anywhere near bills that Mr. Wade did.
	Do you know how much she, Anna Cross, has received during the course of this criminal prosecution or investigation?
	I might, let's see.
	Come on, $180 to $250?
	You said Mr. Wade had about $700,000 so far?
	Yeah, oh, Ms. Cross was under $100,000, I believe.
	Wow.
	So if she's under $100,000, what about Mr. Floyd?
	Mr. Floyd, much lower, even lower than Anna Cross.
	He has not billed in a while, so I was subpoenaed.
	Well, I did subpoena, but I also did open records for all of his bills.
	We've not been provided anything recently from him, so I'm not sure if he actually did bill, because his contract said you have to submit the bill within a certain amount of time.
	So I'm not really sure.
	They stopped responding to my open records requests.
	But when they did respond, they were very limited.
	Small bills.
	This is the modern day Aaron Brockovich.
	And your open records request was to whom?
	The Fulton County government, the commission, or the DA's office?
	The DA's office.
	I did them to all of them, and once especially that they stopped responding to them.
	So they have a portal.
	And if you go to the DA's office and you click open records, it takes you to the Fulton County portal.
	So if you try to submit it to the DA's office, it necessarily goes to a portal for the entire county.
	So you have to submit it through those.
	So that's where I would submit it.
	You can designate.
	I think this is the DA.
	I think this is budget, things like that.
	So I would be over-inclusive just to make sure that I wasn't missing somebody.
	But every single time they would route it to the DA's office.
	So I would get a response that said it's been routed to the DA's office.
	We're looking into it.
	We'll get back to it.
	There were one or two that I got from the county that didn't appear to be routed to the DA's office.
	And so who's refusing to produce these?
	The letter came from Dexter Bonds at the DA's office.
	And that's why you filed a lawsuit against the DA's office to force them to comply with open records?
	Yes.
	That's still pending?
	It is still pending.
	Fulton County Superior Court?
	It's Fulton County Superior Court.
	Who's the judge?
	It's assigned to Judge Krause, I believe.
	And the county attorney contacted us and says they're going to be responding.
	So the county attorney is actually defending that.
	Something tells me they're going to be responding sooner than later now.
	They're going to respond to the case or respond to the request?
	To the request.
	You're waiting to see.
	I believe the case.
	I haven't received any documents, so.
	Fairly recent filing you filed there, that lawsuit?
	Yeah, so we filed it in January, and then they had a little shutdown in Fulton County where nothing was able to be file stamped.
	Our process server couldn't serve it until it was file stamped, and the e-file system in Fulton County was hacked, and so it was shut down for a while, so it took us a little bit of time to get a file stamp copy back, but it's now been served.
	But it was filed on January 30th.
	Of 2024.
	2024.
	And I have a copy, which...
	I don't have that.
	If you would provide us with that, then we'll give it to the Secretary of the Senate as a supplemental.
	I'm happy to.
	This is a clean copy.
	So what's the relevance to you?
	Why did you seek these billing records of these attorneys?
	I wanted to compare the different billing, the different styles of billing.
	Also, there had been an allegation that I was singling out Mr. Wade, and so I thought it was relevant to see.
	It's a damn good answer.
	The rates that the other attorneys were paid, you know, their billing, what type of billing if they billed for everything.
	Just for example, you know, when we're in court...
	They called you a liar and basically said you're a racist.
	Mr. Floyd and Ms. Cross aren't their billing.
	But Mr. Wade is always there.
	So that was one thing that I noticed.
	And I understand now that their response is that he sort of is like a case manager almost.
	So I guess that wouldn't be why he's always there.
	But...
	I just wanted to compare them and see.
	They called her a racist for singling out Nathan Wade.
	I want to show a couple of things, Senator Dolezal.
	I'm even trying to just steel man Fannie Wade's position.
	Particularly the ones that showed the trips to D.C. They're screwed.
	Oh, the trips to D.C. where he billed to meet with the White House.
	We hadn't had but a couple of days to review all your documents.
	I was, I skimmed these records because I wanted to know exactly what was going on.
	You'll see highlighted down here at the bottom on November 18th of 22, interview with D.C. White House.
	That's the eight-hour meeting.
	Eight hours.
	Do you know what that references?
	Hell no!
	Based on another motion that was filed in our case and the arguments that were made by the DA's office, I believe that that was when they met with the Department of Justice.
	They met with the January 6th committee.
	Rico!
	One of the co-defendants filed a motion to try and get documents, some documents, and the state had to respond.
	The White House is colluding in the Georgia prosecution.
	I was there for it.
	I joined it, but I didn't litigate it.
	And the state said that they had to meet off campus because they didn't have a record of it.
	You have to have a record if you go into the White House.
	And so they met with the January 6th committee off campus.
	And they said they had a really hard time getting it, getting that meeting.
	And they had to have someone who had some source or something to get them to agree to the meeting.
	But that's what...
	So the motion to compel was based on this entry.
	And this entry, in response, they said they were meeting with the DOJ and someone with January 6th.
	Can you believe this?
	Oh, no, this isn't election interference.
	They're accusing Trump of election interference.
	May 23rd, 22, travel to Athens conference with, what is that, White House?
	Yes.
	And, you know, we've tried to figure out what and who that was because there was something happening at UGA Law School, and so we just assumed that it was someone.
	Do you have a reason to suspect or can you confirm whether or not Ms. Willis or Mr. Wade were coordinating with the Biden White House in the course of this investigation and prosecution?
	The discovery, they've got a lot of our discovery involves I mean, a lot of what we have in Discovery is the same stuff that other places have.
	So they had to have gotten it from somewhere.
	And they also, you know, they read a lot of the testimony.
	They played testimony in the Special Purpose Grand Jury.
	So, you know, I don't know how they got all of that, but they got it somehow.
	And then, you know, there's one of the other things I did was I did open records for the White House access, and we had records that Ms. Willis and the mayor of Atlanta were at meeting with the vice president.
	Okay, and so this is the access?
	History.
	How does that work?
	The White House keeps records of anybody that comes in and has any kind of official meeting for sure.
	Yes.
	And my understanding is it's highly regulated.
	Who can access the White House and so you have to apply in person or apply ahead of time.
	And then they give you a time when you make the appointment and they give you a time when you're allowed to be in and when you have to be out by.
	And they track you.
	And I mean, that makes sense.
	They don't want anybody, you know, lingering.
	They don't want anybody leaving cocaine in the White House.
	But they keep that.
	And so these are, they're called...
	Wave Records, I believe is what they're called.
	And I'm not sure what that's an acronym for.
	But they're publicly available.
	They're open records.
	And this record that's shown on the screen shows Fonnie Willis was a visitor with V. POTUS.
	I presume that's Vice President of the United States.
	Yes.
	Yes, it was.
	And what was the date of that back in, was that February sometime of 23?
	February 28, 2023.
	Is that before the indictment?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Any further?
	Do you have any explanation of why Ms. Willis was meeting with the Vice President of the United States?
	No.
	I know Dexter Bonds, and I believe that's the same one that Mr. Dickinson, the mayor of Atlanta, was also there.
	Okay.
	We'll take a short break.
	We've been going at this for a while.
	Let's take a somewhere between five and ten minute recess, and we'll be back.
	See if it's a real five and ten minutes.
	Everybody, may I be the first one to say, Holy shiat.
	This has been more revelatory than I thought it was going to be.
	I'm taking notes to myself for the afternoon summary video.
	This will be the perfect time where we can catch up on some crumble rants and super chats.
	Super chats.
	This is wild.
	Ashley Merchant is flipping prepared, has right answers to the questions.
	And I just tweeted out that we're going to...
	Merrick Garland does indeed have some explaining to do in terms of the White House colluding, coordinating with Nathan Wade in an unlawful appointment persecution for RICO case that taxpayers are paying for.
	Wow!
	This is amazing.
	Okay, so what we'll do before then, anyhow, I want to get to some of the...
	We'll do the Rumble Rants, the Super Chats, and then the Rumble Rants.
	Ashley is a freaking pitbull, says Fried Pie.
	It's amazing what happens when you're telling the truth and you're well prepared.
	Eight hours.
	We'll get to the billing increments in a bit.
	Why were the indictments released one hour before the grand jury issued the indictments?
	Why were the indictments released one hour before the grand jury...
	Oh, I remember they accidentally updated the docket.
	And then they had to pull the entry until after it was...
	I don't have an answer to that, but something fishy was going on.
	Fanny is packing for a long trip to Brazil.
	Hardy har.
	Who is drafting the indictments?
	I don't know if you mean like the ones against Fanny Willis now or the ones that they were looking at.
	If you listen closely, you can hear Willis packing her bags with clothing and cash.
	Taint team.
	Everyone's going to have a good laugh at that.
	That's the spot between the butthole and the genitalia.
	Women need to realize that this is a boss chick, not Meg the Stallion.
	I don't know who Meg the Stallion is.
	I think Ashley was ready for all of this, but after Fannie called her a liar and suggested she was a racist in court, she probably dedicated every minute she's had to this.
	This is a step in greatness for whatever Ashley Merchant has by way of professional political aspirations going forward.
	She is in real time taking down a corrupt DA's office.
	This is the stuff movies are made about.
	Movies are made of.
	I am loving the exact hour on the billing.
	8 hours, 250.
	Not 8 hours, 10 minutes.
	Dude, if you...
	I mean, look, in reality, I was a lawyer.
	And very few clients will put up with, you know, just general...
	Unless it's 8 hours at court when they're with you and they know what happened.
	You put in 2.5 hours, 2.2 hours.
	And if you put in 2.5 hours and your client thinks you only work 2.2, they'll review your bill.
	And they'll say, 2.5, I thought we were only on the phone for...
	20 minutes.
	That should be a.3, not a.5.
	And you put in the billing, and you'll say, 2.5 hours.
	Research.
	Question of law.
	What is the statute of limitations on shoplifting, for example?
	And you'll detail it.
	And you'll detail it so that somebody's going to say, dude, you had to look up what the statute of limitation was on shoplifting.
	It took you two and a half hours?
	This is standard billing practice, standard ethics for a lawyer.
	Unless you're boning your boss and she doesn't give a sweet bugger all what you're billing because she's paying you from a slush fund that she just tapped into and had no lawful purpose for doing it or is using notwithstanding the purpose for which she tapped into it.
	Superstar.
	Thanks for staying on this case.
	Dude, I wouldn't go anywhere.
	Love your insights.
	Sadly, this is great entertainment.
	Yeah, it's unfortunate, but it's more fun than some other stuff.
	Can Fanny hire me?
	I need some money, but I don't want the entanglement trap.
	Is the guy behind her passed out?
	No, we've established he's alive.
	Late to the party.
	I apologize for asking something that may have already been asked.
	I was curious, who is this lady?
	What is she?
	Well, now you know.
	This is Ashley Merchant, the lawyer for Michael Roman, one of the defendants of the Rico case, who has been blowing it up.
	Viva, did I miss mic check?
	Oh, you did, and we had our issues, and I had my trolls.
	Is Judge McAfee watching?
	He can't not be watching.
	He can't not be watching, and this would be something that he could take judicial notice of.
	I think.
	I think.
	She's wearing the same as...
	Oh, these I got to.
	Okay, and then I wanted to read Britt Cormier.
	Thank you very much.
	Either the relationship started before she hired him, which means there's a problem, or the relationship started after she was his boss and he could not consent, which makes her other grape-iest by their own definition.
	Pick your poison.
	Well, no.
	It either started before the contract started, or it started after, but before the renewal, where he was given more time to build, a higher limit to build it eight hours a day with no oversight, no nothing.
	All right, now let's go over to Rumble, people.
	Like, you guys, we got 15,000 watching live on YouTube.
	We've got, let me see what we're up to on Rumble, on the Rumbles.
	Is this, let me see here.
	Hold on one second.
	Which one is it?
	Which window is it?
	No, that's not the right one.
	We are, oh yeah, there we go.
	We gotta go up to the top.
	Viva Barnes Taint Team Research.
	Okay, hold on.
	Let me bring this up.
	These are the Rumble rants, which we shall be tackling until such time as they come back.
	And don't worry, I'm gonna come back when they come back.
	On Rumble, we got PotatoSoup75 says Viva Barnes.
	Short idea.
	Taint Research Team.
	Burn Fanny Burns says Kitty724.
	The last one was from PotatoSoup.
	We got Florida underscore Bob.
	Viva.
	One of the attorneys asked Wade and Willis if they met anyone at the White House.
	Their answer under oath was no.
	Those billing records prove that they lied.
	A Florida man, Florida Bob, if you can get that to me, I don't remember them saying no because I don't think they could have said no.
	No, the question was whether or not they met together at the White House.
	I think that was the question.
	Because I don't think they could have ever denied that.
	Wade could never have denied that.
	We had that invoice at the time.
	So I'd be surprised if that's where he chose to lie.
	I think the question was, did they meet together in D.C.?
	Did they meet together at the White House?
	And they said, no, no.
	We might have overlapped, but it would have been an accident.
	So to double check that.
	We've got a new supporter.
	Welcome to our above average community.
	It is...
	Holesnipe LPD is now a monthly supporter.
	Kay Wheatley, is Fannie allowed to watch this testimony?
	Absolutely.
	This is public, man.
	And she's not a witness that's under any sort of...
	What is it called when you put a witness under...
	Not quarantine, but you know what I mean.
	But yeah, she's allowed to.
	And I guarantee you she is.
	And I guarantee you she's shitting in her pants.
	There's no other way to...
	She's planning her lies out right now.
	Smear Leader says...
	Fanny makes Saul Goodman look like a choir boy.
	Jay Pizzy, how much should Nathan Wade charge to flee the country?
	How much cash is he going to need to flee the country?
	Metal Minister says, Fanny needs to learn how to say, welcome to Walmart.
	Angry Marsupial says, it's cooking the numbers watching on both platforms.
	I'm cooking the numbers watching on both platforms.
	Thank you.
	Then we got Pack Cat, sorry for the rants.
	Don't apologize.
	Ever.
	Rumble Rants don't pop up on the live screen.
	No, and Rumble Studio is making an integration which will allow me to...
	They're incorporating some of the changes that I desperately need to be made in order to be able to use it specifically with a guest, but we'll get there eventually.
	But Rumble Platform integrates all three of them, but it's an issue.
	There's a limitation in terms of bringing up a guest and bringing up a video while we have a guest, so they're fixing that.
	Minnitonka for me.
	Just wanted to send my first Rumble rant now that that's on a Rumble app.
	Been watching you since the trucker protest.
	Thank you for being here.
	Adriano Valentino Australia says, why are they subpoenaing Ashley Merchant?
	Oh yeah, there's no question.
	This is a very cordial meeting.
	By the way, I have it in the backdrop, so if it comes back up...
	I will hear it and bring it back up.
	It's a very cordial meeting with Ashley.
	This is not adversarial.
	I don't think Fannie Willis would...
	Subpoena Fannie Willis.
	I don't know if they have.
	I suspect they have and or will.
	She ain't going to comply with it.
	Dude sounds like Fred Thompson or a Hollywood lawyer's fame.
	I don't know what that means.
	Denise Ann, too.
	Haley also won Communist Vermont.
	Well, Haley withdrew from what I understand or suspended her campaign.
	Denise Ann, too.
	David, I had to get a new debit card.
	And the new one didn't come in before my VivaBarnesLaw.lump came out.
	Now Locals is trying to charge me the new fee.
	Don't worry, I'll fix that, Denise Ann.
	Let me screen grab that.
	Don't worry, we'll fix that.
	I'm going to be miffed if you don't fail to not read this.
	Occupant4442, be miffed, whichever way that double negative goes.
	TN, Tennessee underscore mom.
	I am finally able to catch you, love.
	Love you, Viva.
	Thank you very much, Tennessee mom.
	Bogan World says, Big Teeth Nikki and Ass Willis are both pathetic swamp creatures.
	I read all chats, unless there's a good reason not to.
	Adriana Valentina Australia says, Sore Loser Nikki.
	Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
	Buh-bye.
	And we've got Adriana Valentina.
	Hi, David.
	Trump 2024.
	Let's go, Brandon.
	Let's go all the way back up to the top now because we've got more chats.
	Jerry from New York says Bradley made tens of thousands of dollars working on taint team hired by Fannie, which is all about determining privilege when he needed to be schooled without privilege by Judge McAfee.
	Not just that, Bradley.
	Sorry, not Bradley, Jerry.
	How the hell can Nathan Wade, who's involved in a relationship with Fannie Willis, be on a taint team to determine what's privilege?
	Oh, he wasn't on it.
	He wasn't reviewing the documents.
	He was just getting a third of that contract.
	He's dating boning the woman.
	Who's the one to be determined whether or not she has access to what is otherwise deemed to be privileged confidential information based on their tame review.
	This is a conflict of interest left, right, and center.
	Great coverage.
	Shame the MSM will never cover broadcast this.
	Raw testimony directly.
	BBC, Sky News, etc.
	Keep going.
	Chuck, I'd like to see how they can explain this away.
	The W-E-F-F-W-E-N-O, says V6neon.
	Folding laundry and listening to this coverage.
	Thanks, Viva Potato Soup.
	Enjoy it.
	This will make folding laundry a little more entertaining.
	Grizzle Tang.
	Newt Gingrich said something about the grand jury.
	It was something bad came out about Biden, so they had to rush the Fulton County jury.
	That's why it was so messy and came out so late at night.
	Interesting.
	Edgework says Merchant Shorter.
	Wade rounded billing to the closest workday.
	The other two prosecutors rounded to 10 minutes, and I think that's weirdly suspicious.
	Here's a copy of their receipts.
	Oh my goodness.
	Okay, so now we're good there.
	Stop screen.
	Come back to...
	Don't need Fannie's bank records no more.
	I am Fulton County resident and I am pissed.
	And the more people that are pissed, the more political support Scott McAfee is going to have to disqualify these incompetent, corrupt nincompoops.
	This is an entire DA's office.
	This is one case where their corruption is being exposed.
	Everyone who's been convicted by these people are going to have, I don't know, I actually shouldn't say this because I don't know what the law would be.
	They might have legitimate causes for query, for questioning.
	No one, I do not recall, she obviously doesn't know how to be a lawyer.
	What is this?
	Pantene magic.
	Ashley is a freaking people.
	Okay, so we got that now.
	Now let me bring up the backdrop.
	They should be coming back anytime soon.
	I'm going to run to the little boys' room when they come back.
	Okay, so that's good, and I'll bring it in the back.
	This is going to be wild.
	So I'm taking notes just for my summary later, and thus far what I've got, my note one is holy crap.
	Then we get into Fanny asked for funding to hire 55 staff.
	We have not yet gotten an answer from Ashley under oath.
	As to whether or not she ever, Fannie, ever hired the 54 staff.
	I know the chat is saying she didn't hire anybody, but I would need that to be confirmed before I can state that as a matter of fact.
	But I don't think she hired 55 employees, but I don't know.
	55 assistant DAs.
	She was given $780,000 in 2021, but that was only for September to December.
	And the contract with Nathan Wade was signed in November 2021.
	Let me just take that note.
	I didn't actually take that.
	Holy crap.
	A contract with Wade signed November 2021, except apparently they don't have a written contract.
	Don't have written contract.
	She didn't hire any staff, apparently.
	Then it was a maximum, not more than 5 million in 2022.
	Needed permission to hire external counsel under the legislation because of that sub-provision there.
	I have to find what that was again.
	Didn't get it.
	External counsel can maintain a private practice.
	That's the amazing thing.
	Nathan Wade just gets to bilk his sugar mama in eight-hour increment billings.
	No oversight, no supervision, no approval.
	And then gets to maintain his private practice.
	And recall what he said.
	I'm going to take this as a note.
	In his testimony, that his private practice...
	This was taken up 99% of his time.
	His private practice was taken up 1% of his time.
	And yet this amounted to only 50% of his invoicing.
	Remember?
	He says, look, I spent the vast majority of my time in this file, way more than my private practice, and this only accounted for 50% of my income.
	That means that he was deriving 50% of income from cases in which he was applying 1% of his time.
	And we now see the...
	What's the word I'm looking for?
	What's the word?
	Freeness, the freeness, the lackadaisicalness with which he was invoicing in this file.
	We have now exceeded the number of viewing on YouTube on Rumble.
	14,400 and counting on Rumble.
	Let me give everybody the link so we can go vote with our eyes and vote with our dollars and vote with our butts.
	Link to Rumble.
	Yeah, he was getting 50% of his revenue, which we now know is in the order of $700,000 per two years, from matters in which he was applying 1% of his time.
	Sucking at the government teat and sucking at Fannie.
	Is that too soon?
	Is that too crude?
	Sucking at the government teat.
	I'll say it that way, because Fannie was a district attorney, a member of the government.
	And then what else do I have in my notes for now?
	Fannie wouldn't have been able to have hired Nathan because of county policy.
	She said that, Merchant, but she didn't explain why.
	Because if they denied having a relationship at that time, I don't know why she couldn't have.
	The funny thing is now, merging all of this testimony with Fannie Willis' prior interview, if anybody can find that, please send me the link where she says, we are not allowed dating underlings, we're not allowed dating employees.
	And then later on, she said, well, he wasn't an employee, he was external counsel in front of court.
	If the idea is that she knew that she couldn't hire him as a staffer because she was boning him at that time, that would explain why she then went and hired him as outside counsel.
	So she might have known that she couldn't have hired him, that she could not have hired him under the law.
	So that's interesting to reconcile that.
	So she couldn't have hired him otherwise.
	And then the other prosecutors were made $175,000.
	No, that would have been the other assistant DAs.
	Would have made upwards of $175,000 a year.
	And then Cross and Floyd, the more experienced, billed much less.
	I think she said under $100,000.
	Wow.
	Defied ethics.
	Made more as external counsel.
	10-minute billing.
	Okay, we're good.
	We're up to speed now on that.
	Yeah, that's crazy.
	Ooh, look at this.
	Now we're going to hit $15,000 on...
	Rumble.
	And we've dipped below 14,000 on YouTube.
	That is a shifting of the balance that I love to see.
	Rumble, good.
	YouTube, commie.
	But in fairness, you know, look, we can do this and broadcast it to the world.
	Let me go to Locals and see what's going on there.
	Hold on, where is our Locals chat here?
	I'm going to give everybody the link to Locals.
	You can actually, you know, come straight over to Locals if you want.
	Locals.
	Where everyone is above average.
	We've got some tipped questions here.
	RHack says, Viva and Barnes are my favorite podcasters.
	That was a $10 tip.
	Thank you very much.
	And then we got $1 from...
	Oh, there's a lot bunch here.
	Freddie York says, Wade finessed his way into his job by promising to leave his wife.
	At least he keeps his promises.
	Freddie York with a $5.
	Wow, it's amazing.
	Did these clowns truly believe they'd be able to railroad Trump and not face any backlash or exposure?
	Says Bill Brown.
	I mean, it's a wild thing.
	Barnes hit the nail on the head.
	He's like, you can't prosecute this many people with this many networks of brains and intelligence and aggregate knowledge of the interwebs, independent attorneys representing them.
	You can't prosecute.
	How many people are being prosecuted in Georgia under the RICO?
	I want to say...
	I want to say 20?
	How many are there?
	Oh, hold on, guys.
	I just have to find something to double-check.
	On Sunday, we were talking about Gorilla Grip, and I thought someone thought Barnes mistakenly referred to Fannie as Gorilla Grip, but I found this.
	444, which is 928-444-3555.
	That's a cell number.
	What's the owner name of this phone?
	The name that would appear on, say, a Bluetooth device is found online 32. Yeah, what is it?
	Gorilla Grip?
	Which is Gorilla Grip Pussy Pal.
	Now, see, that's just ugly.
	That's ugly.
	I don't know who this guy is.
	You gonna save that woman number in your phone?
	No Gorilla Grip Pussy Pal?
	What?
	is the DA that attorney you don't do that attorney of districts there they important but madam you don't you don't say that about her that is I hadn't heard this part of it.
	How do I get out of here now?
	Gorilla grip pussy pal.
	Goddamn Fanny.
	Shit, that sound like if you get in there, Fanny will adjust some PSI from you just like that.
	Feel like your dick caught in that catacomb.
	You don't want that, daddy, daddy, what you want?
	You had a call to fight upon him to get you out.
	Oh, my.
	Okay, well, so now we've answered several questions.
	I'm going to stop the screen there.
	I apologize, people, for anyone with sensitivities.
	Oh!
	This is fantastic.
	So I don't know how long this is going to go on for.
	There's a flight.
	There is a United flight by to Rio at 4 o 'clock.
	Fanny should be on it.
	It's so bad, and it's such wild exposure of corruption.
	Tip of the iceberg says, Yikes, Philo T. Farnsworth.
	Viva, are you going to try to get her on the show?
	Ashley, for sure.
	A thousand percent.
	Fannie is welcome anytime.
	I'd say we could do an in-person live interview, but I don't...
	Maybe not.
	Ashley Merchant, a thousand percent.
	And I'll drive up to Georgia to do it in person.
	That's the next state up.
	Don't need Fannie Bank records anymore?
	Okay, good.
	We got that.
	And let's see what we got here.
	Here we go.
	Hold on a second.
	Getting some emails coming in here.
	Coming in hot.
	Oh, I hear it.
	Hold on.
	They said they got one minute, a couple of committee members on their way back.
	Oh, so that's not in there.
	Well, hold on.
	We got one minute.
	Let's be efficient with our time.
	High stress environment right now.
	Boom.
	You know, it looks...
	Like, okay, this is from Avalash, says, you know, this looks like just the yeet cannon needed to yeet old Fannie.
	Only hopes orange looks good on her.
	SplatterRGB says, so what does the state investigation accomplish?
	Criminal disqualification, disbarment, you're fired.
	They were clear that there had to be some legislative purpose to this, I think, if it's anything like congressional investigations.
	But I presume, and I don't know, so I'll just say this.
	I presume there can be criminal recommendations.
	Or at the very least, political consequences, because Big Fannie Willis is actually up for re-election now.
	Okay, we're on.
	We were reviewing the billing practices of the contracts of the various outside counsel had.
	And I pulled up here.
	One section of Mr. Wade's bill for the...
	I'm going to go pee in a second.
	Really early on in his involvement in the case, as I recall, it began on November 1st.
	He's billing to learn.
	So this would be out of his first.
	He's billing to learn.
	I see on November 5th, prepare case for pretrial 24 hours on one day.
	What do you make of that?
	I heard his explanation.
	I thought it was astonishing that, you know, you didn't sleep for 24 hours.
	I've been to trial.
	I'm sorry.
	I've been to trial and had to work long hours, but 24 straight.
	But we did question him about that at the hearing, and he said that that's when it was concluded.
	So how he explained it was November 5th is when the work was concluded.
	And so he had done that work up until then, and that he only billed when it was concluded.
	So he said that the 24 hours.
	Who knows when it spanned, but that how he built was included.
	Would have had to be between November 3rd and November 5th, though, right?
	So it had to be on the 4th and the 5th, 12 hours a day?
	It had to be.
	At least.
	And, you know, the other thing that I noticed with this is prepared cases for pretrial.
	At this point, it says anti-corruption unit.
	His two law partners are the conflict lawyers for the anti-corruption unit.
	So you've got law...
	I mean, it's like my husband couldn't represent someone who's adverse to me.
	Like, my husband is my law partner.
	He can't be doing privilege review on a case I'm prosecuting.
	So he's consulting on anti-corruption cases for the DA's office where his two law partners are doing the privilege review at the same time.
	That plus the 24 hours are the two things that really struck out to me.
	But the only role he had was this prosecution of this election fraud.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	The only role.
	Okay.
	So when it says anti-corruption, that's the corruption we're looking at, election interference.
	Yes.
	He's never worked on any other case.
	All right.
	Let's see that other bill there, Senator Dolezal.
	All right.
	So here's another one.
	If you can see that, okay, this is the one we put up earlier.
	It looks to be much more specific date-wise anyway than just, you know, those 24-hour chump.
	Right.
	I mean, it's more specific, but it doesn't say what, you know, like, just for example, team meeting and argument prep.
	Argument prep for what?
	I mean, normally when we do bills, we would say, you know, argue motion to dismiss or argue whatever the motion is.
	But his point is that it's day by day, not over long periods of time.
	Statutory privilege.
	You know, whatever it is.
	Date ranges when it's over multiple days.
	That's what he's getting.
	Down at the bottom 426 to 427, 18 hours.
	If I'm reading that right, are 16 hours.
	But he specified the date range where he didn't before.
	He just has one date, 24 hours.
	Yes.
	And you say these are approved by Fannie Willis.
	By contract, she has to approve these billings.
	Yes, she does.
	And those are approved.
	Did she ask him any questions?
	If there were any questions, you know, and as a lawyer, when we submit bills to clients, they regularly question, you know, and I know when I've done appointed work, they would, they will.
	They regularly question that as well.
	You have to list exactly what you're in court for, exactly what you're drafting.
	You can't just say prepared cases.
	You've got to say, what did you prepare?
	What did you draft?
	I mean, the county in Cobb County, for example, they make you actually attach motions.
	If you do like an appeal or something and you're billing for that, you have to actually attach it to prove that you did the work.
	I did go back at the break, though, and I have an answer to one of your questions earlier.
	I just wanted to clear up.
	You had asked me when the special purpose grand jury had convened.
	I looked.
	The state filed a response.
	So this is D.A. Willis' response that was filed on February 2nd.
	This response to your motion to disqualify?
	Yes, sir.
	Response to my motion.
	On page 13, they wrote, shortly after his appointment in January 2022, District Attorney Willis petitioned the Chief Judge of the Superior Court to convene the Superior Court judges to consider her request for the special purpose grand jury to conduct an investigation into the facts circumstances relating directly or indirectly to the possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections of the state of Georgia.
	And they attached that exhibit.
	So you had asked me earlier when she petitioned.
	So it was, you know, in their own words, shortly after his appointment.
	So this whole...
	The cases are about attempts to disrupt because obviously Georgia certified Biden as a winner and he got inaugurated, you know, that following January and this is...
	Years later, we're having this whole investigation.
	Yes, attempts.
	And my client specifically is charged with attempt and conspiracy.
	So he's not charged with actually doing a specific act.
	He's charged with conspiring or attempt, depending on which section you're talking about.
	Everybody should go back to my tweets at the time.
	Some of these itemized statements show drafting.
	Yes.
	Did Mr. Wade draft any documents to your knowledge or prepare any legal documents at all?
	Well, he didn't sign any of them.
	No, not that I'm aware of.
	Did he sign any pleadings as if he was the drafting attorney?
	No, and he's not the one that usually files them.
	Will Wooten is the one that usually does the filing.
	There's two other prosecutors that also do it.
	Alex, and I don't want to butcher his last name, starts with a B. But he does it, and then Grant Rood.
	Anna Cross has also filed pleadings.
	Haven't seen her in a while.
	Mr. Wade.
	In your review of all of his billings, did you ever see where any of his time or bills were cut or reduced by whoever was reviewing them and approving them, either Ms. Willis or her deputy?
	No, I never saw any questions.
	And her response, or their office's response, doesn't indicate that that was ever done either.
	And your experience when you were...
	Have you ever billed consistently without having a bill reduced?
	...that you were reviewed?
	And they cut your time.
	Oh my gosh, yes.
	Yeah, when I first left the public defender, I had a couple clients that were in the appeal process, because at that point I was in the appeals division when I left, and I didn't want their cases to linger, and I didn't want a new lawyer to have to kind of just pick up right when they were going to the appellate courts.
	So I kept some of them.
	Some of them the judges appointed me, and so I would be paid, I think it was $50 an hour, $45 an hour, something like that.
	And then some I just took pro bono.
	But I had to get those bills approved.
	And they were regularly cut.
	On Mr. Wade's contract, he was allowed to bill.
	He was capped.
	He could not bill more than $35,000 in any given month.
	Yes.
	So the original contract before the special purpose grand jury was started was a lower cap.
	This was the cap for the majority of his work during the special purpose grand jury and then now.
	So he had a contract November 1st, 2021, up until October 31st.
	Oh, she really knows what she's talking about.
	One of the times they were out of town.
	So they re-upped the contract November 15th.
	After two weeks of sex.
	The cap was significantly higher.
	I don't remember the first cap, but it was not $35,000.
	The second or third cap was negotiated after they admitted to being a sexy time.
	All the payments that he received.
	Either I did this or this might have come from Fulton County purchasing.
	So that was produced to you from Fulton County?
	Yes.
	Is it all the payments he received?
	Yes.
	This was produced from Fulton County, yes.
	And what's the total?
	Month, month, month.
	$35,000.
	That's not so good.
	It looks like $22,000 all the way through $23,000.
	Your eyes are fine, sir.
	Yes, $22,000 through $23,000.
	So his first bill would have been paid in January of 2022.
	So he billed for time in November and December.
	And then you see those two bills.
	So those were $15,000.
	I believe that was the cap.
	In January, he was paid for $15,000 for work in November.
	And then in December, he had work totaling $15,000.
	And he was paid for both of those in January.
	That's why there's those top two invoices for $15,000.
	Yes, that's why there's those top two invoices.
	And they produced some other documents to me as well that showed which funds they came out of.
	So I was able to track which ones came from state seizure money and then which ones came from county general funds.
	Fannie is in big, big trouble.
	And that was all before this grand jury was even...
	The grand jury was not approved until June of 2022.
	It was requested in January.
	And I just looked that up at the break.
	So it was requested in January.
	It was approved in June.
	The order, actually.
	But what happened was they started picking.
	So it looks like they started picking the grand jurors on May 2nd of 2022.
	They went for a full year.
	And they actually started hearing evidence June 1st of 2022.
	How long did that grand jury last?
	Way before he would have been having to question any witnesses or attend grand jury hearings or anything.
	Yes, he could not have attended a grand jury hearing until at the earliest May.
	Holy shit, he's capping out at $35,000 and there's no work to be done.
	You're talking about the experience and expertise of the three outside, I'm going to call them outside counsel, because they were not direct employees of the DA's office.
	Correct.
	Wow.
	Had Mr. Wade ever tried a felony case?
	Never.
	Prosecuted a felony case before this, to your knowledge?
	No.
	That he has never prosecuted a felony case.
	And I asked his law partner that, who had been his law partner for some time, that he had never prosecuted that.
	I also did some independent research in the metro areas where I knew that he had worked in Cobb County, so I looked to see if he had ever been filed as a prosecutor in Cobb County for felonies, and he was actually...
	Just a solicitor, and solicitors is, because you said not everybody may understand the difference between solicitors and district attorneys.
	We've got a next solicitor on this panel, so don't say anything negative about him.
	So he can tell you all about it.
	They prosecute misdemeanors, aren't they, right?
	Yes, and in Cobb County specifically, they prosecute misdemeanors, yes.
	Okay.
	It looks like...
	He's pretty much hitting the maximum that he was allowed to under his contract?
	Yes, most months he did.
	And this is through that block billing that was not specifically itemized exactly what he was doing or how much time on each task?
	Always block billed.
	He never itemized bills.
	Never was specific.
	What were the caps for the other two special counsel?
	Were they also limited?
	I assume you've received their contracts, or did they have a written contract?
	They did.
	So they had written contracts, and I do have those, and they did have caps.
	They were significantly lower than Mr. Wade's.
	They do not currently have contracts, and I just found that out at a hearing because we had asked for that.
	We had asked for it in open records, and then I had subpoenaed it as well.
	pretty much every subpoena I filed for the hearing, the state filed a motion to quash, including this one.
	And Ms. Cross was at the hearing and she said, I can just tell you right now, I don't have a contract.
	So I had thought, I was under the impression that they just weren't giving me that contract.
	I had no idea that they just didn't have one.
	So apparently right now, Mr. Floyd and Ms. Cross Do you think that was intentional so that they don't have to disclose how much they're earning?
	I think it was sloppy.
	Does Mr. Wade have a current contract?
	Yes, he does.
	I also think that, I think it may have been, I don't know if it's disclosure, but I can tell you that they've changed since I started looking at this.
	They've changed what they put on the public documents.
	I used to be able to go to Open Checkbook and see every time he would get a check, and since I filed this, none of them have come up.
	So I don't know if he's not being paid anymore or if he hasn't filed any invoices, but the invoices are due, I believe, 30 days after.
	You know, they regularly came up, but now all of a sudden they don't.
	Okay.
	This is wilder than I actually even thought.
	He's building his monthly cap before he was actually doing any work.
	So eventually you sought to disqualify Ms. Willis from serving as counsel and prosecuting Mr. Roman's case.
	I did.
	Okay.
	Can you pull up that motion?
	That motion was filed here in January.
	I think it was January 8th of 2024.
	Yes.
	Ashley is taking down an institution.
	What was your motion to disqualify based on?
	It was based on a number of things, but it was based on research mostly the fact that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had a romantic relationship, and they had been traveling, and he had been paying for a lot of that travel.
	So there were a couple different things.
	She had not followed the statute.
	So the statute I referenced earlier, 15-18-20, said that you had to have county approval.
	She didn't have that.
	So that was one thing.
	You had figured that out through your financial records?
	Yes, I had figured that out through my financial records, through open records, through reviewing all the Board of County Commissioners.
	And I actually, to that moment, I actually attached a document showing how independent special counsel would normally be appointed.
	I'm sorry, special counsel.
	Because I found one where, and I think it's exhibit, let's see.
	Okay, so that statute was 15-18-20.
	I found one where Fulton County had actually been asked to approve a line item for An independent contractor agreement.
	And so this, I used it as an example of what normally would happen.
	Was that for an attorney?
	It was for an attorney.
	So she's saying in pleadings now that she's not required to get county approvable in the past for people other than Wade.
	She had gotten approval?
	This is actually the county attorney.
	So this document is the county attorney.
	I do not believe she's ever gotten approval for anybody.
	And her filing said she doesn't.
	I mean, her filing, at the break I was looking at it.
	I mean, she said that...
	That I incorrectly contend that the appointment exercised by, and in parentheses, a state constitutional officer must be followed by an approval of the local government's Board of Commissioners.
	And she says over and over again that I'm just wrong, that she doesn't have to because she's a state constitutional officer.
	So that was their position, that she doesn't have to.
	So is that one of the grounds for your motion to disqualify these?
	Let's just call them financial irregularities, that she had not complied with the state law or county policy of getting prior approval?
	Yes, that was one of the primary bases.
	But then I also reviewed case law and saw the conflict of interest.
	And our motion, the theory, basically just to sum up the motion, is that...
	Essentially, he's getting paid all of this money, and they're not going through the proper procedures.
	And I go through it in the motion.
	And she's benefiting from it.
	Which is rare.
	Didn't file a what?
	He didn't file an oath of office.
	And I'm one of those people that I, you know, I always, when I first start a case, I always make sure that everything is, you know, all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed.
	So I always pull that.
	Anytime I have, I've only ever had special counsel twice, and it's been...
	People who were not paid, who were district attorneys in other jurisdictions who took the case on, which is the normal process in the state.
	But I've always pulled that just to see that they're sworn.
	You know, I mean, that's something that's important to me.
	And I couldn't find it, so I did open records to the probate court, to the superior court, and there was no oath of office filed.
	Sworn for the special assistant district attorney?
	Yes.
	If you're going to be inside of a grand jury, grand juries are highly regulated.
	I can't just go in a grand jury.
	None of us can just go into a grand jury.
	So you have to be a sworn officer of the state to actually be in there, particularly to present evidence.
	And so I wanted to see if he had taken an oath.
	And that's something that you would file.
	It should be publicly available, not something that's really highly contentious or secret.
	And there wasn't one.
	So once I learned that, I was like, why are they not filing an oath?
	This is odd.
	There's no public approval of these contracts.
	There's no oath of office filed.
	This is different, you know, what's going on.
	We later found out that he had taken an oath, but nobody had filed it.
	And the law requires, there's a statute that requires you actually file it.
	I have looked at that.
	So the statute for a district attorney, their oath, when they are sworn in that position, says, I do swear that I will faithfully and impartially, and without fear, favor, or affection, Discharge my duties as district attorney and will only take my lawful compensation.
	Yes.
	Did Ms. Willis sign her oath that swore she would not take any unlawful compensation?
	Yes, she did that and then she also filed some disclosure forms that are required.
	There's financial disclosure forms that Fulton County requires that you file every year and you have to disclose if you've received any gift.
	Over $100.
	$100?
	And she knew it.
	So for anybody doing business with the county.
	And Fulton County is very, I mean, I used to be a Fulton County employee.
	I didn't consider it a gift because I repaid them cash.
	So anytime there's anything that could be construed as a gift over $100.
	And, you know, I've gone to lunch with prosecutors before who wouldn't let me pay for lunch because they're like, what if it's over $100, you know?
	So people do take that pretty seriously.
	So that would apply to Ms. Willis would not be allowed to receive gifts from whom?
	From anybody who was, and I actually believe I attached it as an exhibit.
	Remember, Fannie Willis said, I don't consider it a gift because I repaid them.
	It's basically anybody who is doing business or seeking to do business with Fulton County.
	That would include Mr. Wade, obviously, then.
	Oh, definitely.
	What kind of business?
	That makes sense because that's one of those provisions that's supposed to be guarding against honest services.
	Like anti-kickback statute.
	That's exactly what I said.
	Hire somebody as a vendor and they give you gifts in exchange.
	Yes, and so they require that you disclose that every year.
	It's signed under oath.
	You have to file it with Fulton County.
	So how did you learn about this relationship between Mr. Wade?
	I think this has been acknowledged now by both parties, correct?
	It has, yes.
	As of 2022.
	It's acknowledged that they had a...
	Sexy time.
	I don't know if they still do, but at least had a romantic relationship.
	Yes, that's not...
	How did you figure that out?
	How did you find out?
	So, at first, I knew Mr. Wade and I knew Ms. Willis, and a lot of people in the community were a little surprised to see Nathan and Mr. Wade handling this case.
	It was just, a lot of people said that.
	An open secret.
	A lot of people were talking about that, and it was kind of surprising, because it's not really, you know, he does a lot of law practice, but this isn't what you would imagine him doing.
	Did you ever see him have other billings?
	How did he have time to represent anybody else?
	That's, okay, good question.
	She's not going to be able to answer at Fulton County.
	He had other people working for him.
	He had a law student working for him for a while, and then he had a first-year associate, so I'm assuming that they would probably do whatever other work he had.
	Did you ever look at his calendar?
	Did you have access to that to see if it matched up?
	No, I didn't have access to his calendar, and I didn't have access to their text messages.
	I mean, I was able to get their-- Guerrilla grip.
	I mean, the one thing that really struck me is if I was accused of something and I was saying I didn't do it...
	I would download my phone.
	They have a system that's called Celebrate.
	And Fulton County pays for it.
	City of Atlanta pays for it.
	It's literally a system that you can hook your phone into.
	I have an investigator that has it, and I have my clients do it all the time.
	You hook your phone up and it can find deleted text.
	It can find everything.
	And you can limit it.
	You can say, I only want text with this person.
	So, you know, if I was being accused of having an affair with someone...
	And I said it didn't start until April, and someone else said it started in October.
	The easiest thing to do is to, you know, download that phone.
	And for privacy concerns, you can file it under seal, but you could easily narrow it down and say, I want this timeline.
	I want all of our texts from, you know, November 2021.
	And it would easily tell whether or not they were romantic in nature.
	Before I leave the billing issues, did you ever compare Floyd and Cross's bills to Wade's to see if they were building a meeting together like there was a meeting with teams or whatever So, I looked at that.
	One thing is, we don't have most of Floyd's.
	So, Floyd has not billed in quite some time.
	So, I didn't have his to compare, but I did look at Anna Cross's.
	The one day that I remember looking at was when they were in federal court.
	So, Ms. Cross was the one actually litigating in federal court.
	But Mr. Wade was just was sitting there with them at council table, and they both billed for that.
	I wanted to see if he billed for time that he was sitting in court waiting.
	Because I know in Cobb County, for example, with appointed work, if we're sitting in court waiting, we can't bill unless we're actually doing something.
	Like they won't pay for two people to sit there.
	And so I wanted to look at that.
	But they were both there in court.
	He was thinking about the case.
	What about the teams meeting where he billed for?
	Were either of them involved in that team since they're also outside special counsel?
	No, they were not.
	All those people were people who would not have itemized that.
	Okay.
	Employees.
	Back to your uncovering the relationship.
	Yes.
	How did you figure it out?
	So Terrence Bradley was Nathan Wade's law partner originally, and he was also his lawyer in the divorce.
	I did not at the time know that they had filed for divorce.
	I knew Nathan's wife.
	I knew both of them historically from Cobb County.
	Small community.
	People knew them in Cobb County.
	Mr. Bradley actually called me after an article.
	We were looking into the financial irregularities.
	We're looking into how much money had been paid because everybody in the case was kind of like, why do you have special counsel?
	On this case?
	On this case, yeah.
	Was Bradley still a partner with Wade at that time?
	He was not.
	There was testimony that their partnership ended in summer of 2023.
	So it had just ended, is my understanding.
	And it's kind of unclear what month.
	The testimony is very unclear as to when they actually...
	I have when they dissolved.
	I think it was September.
	But it's very unclear as to their partnership.
	And I will say their partnership was a loose partnership.
	They had a partnership with the bar, but they all had separate legal entities.
	So each of them were filed as the law office of Terrence Bradley, law office of Nathan Wade.
	They had some joint bank accounts, but then they had some separate bank accounts.
	So I don't really know the exact structure.
	By design?
	But they were working together.
	Terrence actually called me.
	He had seen an article where I had done open records with another lawyer, Manny Aurora, and we had uncovered how much money everybody had made.
	The news had gotten wind of that, and I later learned that the news had open records to get all of my open records.
	So every time I would get something, the news would get it, because I wondered how that happened.
	So somebody published that, and I had done some more open records.
	And Ms. Willis actually called Mr. Bradley when I did these open records and said they're looking into us.
	And he called me because he was worried about it.
	And so we had a conversation and he actually asked me, do I need a lawyer?
	You know, what's going on?
	What are you investigating?
	What's the framers of this?
	And we had a conversation and I said, well, my interests are different than yours.
	I represent Mr. Roman, so I can't advise you.
	That would be a conflict.
	He asked if John, my husband, could.
	And I said, no, that's a conflict too.
	You know, if you feel like you need somebody, you need to talk to someone else.
	At the time, that was early in September.
	I had court in Cobb County, and I ran into Mr. Bradley.
	I was in Judge Harris' courtroom.
	I think it was either September 11th or 13th.
	I checked my calendar a week or so ago, but it was one of those dates.
	And I was taking a plea in front of Judge Harris, and Mr. Bradley was also there.
	Another lawyer who ultimately represented Mr. Bradley at our hearing, B.C. Chopra, he was there in court also.
	B.C. Chopra, that's the other guy's name.
	He had lunch with Wade and Terrence.
	He was taking the plea with me.
	And Bert and I have known each other for a long time, Terrence, BC, everybody's known each other for a long time.
	We were all sitting in a conference room attached to that courtroom, waiting for the pleas, chit-chatting, took the plea, went back in, and Mr. Bradley essentially...
	I went through the whole thing and said, well, this is what's really happening.
	I had a notepad and I took notes on all the things to ask for for open records.
	So what did he say was really happening when he said this is what's happening?
	He said that they met at a judicial conference before, he was very specific that it was before she became DA.
	Because that was one of the things that he couldn't remember when the judicial conference was, but he knew that it was before.
	She became DA.
	When did she become DA?
	She became DA in...
	2021.
	2020.
	It would have been January 2021.
	Okay.
	So she became DA January 1st, 2021.
	But she had a transition team leading up to that.
	Yeah, and Nate was on that.
	And Nate was in charge of her transition team.
	So Mr. Bradley told me all of that.
	We met for about an hour.
	Said that they had been together.
	They met at this conference.
	Nathan was still married.
	Why is he telling this to her?
	And he...
	Mr. Bradley was upset because of what happened in the divorce.
	He was upset because they were still married.
	You know, the Wades were still married.
	And he got to sign false documents.
	And he essentially just left her after meeting Miss Willis and dropping the kids off at college.
	And Bradley was Wade's attorney in that divorce action you're talking about?
	Not really.
	In name only.
	I didn't know that at the time.
	But they were law partners.
	They had been, yes.
	And I actually don't know if he was still his attorney when he talked to me.
	I don't know if he was or not.
	I'm going to flag this.
	We're going to get back to it later.
	Mr. Wade represented himself, and then he hired a different lawyer.
	So I didn't know anything about the divorce.
	He burnt Bradley by preparing false documents.
	So Bradley did not like the way Wade had treated his wife?
	He did not.
	Or himself in the documents.
	He did not like the way he had treated his wife.
	He didn't like what was happening in the divorce proceeding, yes.
	And, I mean, I remember specifically him saying, you know, I handle my business, things like that.
	Like, you know, that I don't leave my wife without alimony.
	Do you think Bradley had the affair with Wade's wife in 2015?
	They'd been married almost 30 years, and literally it was right after they dropped their youngest off at college that he said, move out.
	And so we went through.
	I was obviously interested in, wait, what?
	What's happening?
	Walk me through this.
	And so he was telling me about the access cards, you know, that Mr. Wade had access cards, telling me about the contracts, told me about their contract, that Nathan had brought them the contract for the first appearance hearings.
	They had a contract for that.
	We didn't talk about that yet.
	That they had the contract for the taint work.
	And then ultimately that Nathan was hired as the attorney on this case.
	That they had been dating before.
	And he, I mean, he told me, you know, they met at hotels.
	He would go to her place.
	And I remember him saying, you need to find her bestie who they had a falling out.
	That's the person whose condo it was that they would meet at.
	And did you later determine who that bestie was?
	Yes, it was Robin Yeardy.
	It was not until sometime later that I determined that.
	It was very difficult to determine who that was because he did not remember her name.
	But he knew her by sight?
	He did.
	Did he later confirm to you or identify who she was?
	Yes.
	I showed him a couple pictures of some other folks' names.
	This was in January of 24, right before your motion?
	It was.
	It may have even been after I filed the motion.
	It was either before or around the time, but it was in January.
	I had gotten some open records requests from the DA's office.
	They had a contract.
	We just put on screen some of the text messages that you produced to us.
	This is from your phone.
	It is.
	This we've all seen already.
	Terrence Bradley, I see you over there on the left.
	Yes, and so when you see on the 14th that one that's right in the middle that says file attachment with MIME type, that is a picture of her.
	So it doesn't show up on this, but it's actually, there's a picture.
	So while you're texting, you're shooting him a picture to see if he can identify Robin Yerty?
	Yes, yes.
	Did he identify her?
	He did, yes.
	He said, yes, that's her, that's the East Point.
	And he thought the apartment was in East Point.
	I later found out it was in Hapeville, but those are very close, you know, close areas.
	So he knew they would meet at that apartment?
	He did, yes.
	He knew all about it.
	And it was hard to find Miss Yeardy.
	What happened, and she was Robin Bryant, and then she got married and was Yeardy.
	I did an open records request for a contract that the DA's office got.
	It's called Critical Mention.
	She has a, I guess he's an attorney, but he's sort of in charge of communications.
	His name is Jeff DeSantis.
	Right after Ms. Willis had opened the investigation in this case, that same week, he contracted a company called Critical Mention, which is a media monitoring company.
	They put a dollar figure, basically, on your media presence.
	And they give you these analytical reports.
	And they say, you know, hey, you did great on MSNBC.
	That's a million dollars worth of, you know, stuff for your brand.
	The Fonny Willis brand is doing well.
	Or, you know, this phrase is doing well.
	Things like that.
	She had an employee in her office that was...
	Responsible for promoting her image, her publicity.
	She had a publicly funded contract for this.
	So Jeff DeSantis called this company, and it's in the emails.
	I think I provided those as well.
	But contacted critical mention and said, we need to hire you to do media monitoring.
	And it was the same week that she had sent the letter to Raffensperger and Kemp about this case.
	He said, we need to have a contract to do media monitoring.
	Got $10,000 approved, paid $10,000 for a year contract, for an annual contract.
	Who approved that?
	Jeff DeSantis' email said the county approved it, and his emails indicated that it was hard to get approved, that he had to really push, I think is what he said.
	There's some language to that.
	But the county paid for it.
	Do other DAs do that?
	I've never even heard of media monitoring.
	I didn't even know it existed.
	No, no.
	It was very shocking.
	But so I got some of the emails.
	About this media monitoring.
	I did open records, and again, once I got them, they shut me down and wouldn't give me anything else.
	But so these emails have attached to their PDFs, and you can see in the emails the hyperlink to them, where you can actually see the analytical reports.
	That's what I wanted to get, and obviously nobody would give those to me.
	But these emails showed a trail where two people in her office, so Ms. Willis, Mr. DeSantis, and then Robin Yerdy.
	We're the ones that had access to this critical mention profile.
	It's a platform that you can log into and see, you know, how am I doing in the media.
	Amazing.
	What was Robin Yeardy's role in the DA's office?
	She was a liaison between the news organizations.
	So she said that, like, when CNN, MSNBC wanted her on, they would call Robin and she would coordinate it.
	She would do her hair and makeup, and then she would coordinate her interviews.
	But so how I found Robin was I'm going through these emails and all of a sudden I see an email from Mr. DeSantis saying, take Robin off of this account.
	She's no longer with the office.
	And I was like, oh, I wonder if that's her.
	And so I found a picture of her and I asked Terrence, is that her?
	Because I found out she had been fired or had been let go.
	I still don't understand the DeSantis guy.
	And so that's how I was able to figure out who Robin Yerdi was.
	Then we were able to run her, run her information, get an address.
	And that's how we were able to narrow down where this hateful condo was.
	So that's where, basically, Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade would meet for their relationship.
	Yes.
	But Mr. Bradley told me at that first meeting that they would meet at hotels.
	He told me about a lot of travel.
	I mean, he detailed a lot of stuff.
	He said that they traveled to Texas, they traveled to Florida.
	Then he forgot.
	Magically forgot.
	He specifically said Belize, a cruise.
	The Bahamas, you know, things like that.
	And you were later able to verify that through other subpoenas or open records requests or whatever?
	Yes, I was.
	I was able to.
	I subpoenaed bank records.
	I subpoenaed credit card records.
	And then I actually subpoenaed the travel agencies that Mr. Wade used for some of those trips.
	He used two of the cruises that they took.
	He used a travel agency.
	So there was a cruise to the Bahamas.
	I got through a travel agency.
	There was a trip to Aruba that I got through at the travel agency.
	And then there was another cruise.
	I think that one was to the Bahamas also that I got through a different travel agency.
	They had the one with his sisters.
	And then his credit cards are the ones that showed all the Belize trips.
	And they showed that he was buying the tickets for both himself and Ms. Willis?
	Oh, yes.
	The card-to-card statement.
	Because I guess he used a travel agency, his credit card statements actually had her name and seat number and all that on.
	Yeah, you've got to provide that info for the tickets.
	Clear it was paid for by him on his credit cards.
	Yes.
	She paid him back.
	Is this the document you gave us from the Capital One there?
	It is, yes.
	And there you can see, so Clara Bowman is Mr. Wade's mom.
	So this trip, this was the cruise that happened October 31st, around that date.
	Mr. Wade paid for Ms. Willis, Mr. Wade, and then his mother's plane tickets.
	It's in his wallet.
	Their cruise receipt.
	I think that one was Royal Caribbean.
	Good.
	So your summary here showing the trips, we know that in late October they took a cruise to the Bahamas, and this is from his financial records he paid for this for both?
	Tickets?
	Yes, this is from his financial records.
	There were a lot of Ubers and things like that.
	I did not include things like that.
	I wasn't positive.
	I wanted to be under-inclusive, not over-inclusive.
	And then you show the trip to Aruba, another one to Bahamas, one to Belize, one to Napa Valley, California.
	These are all from October 22 up till May of 23. Yes.
	Okay.
	This is a document you produced to us?
	Yes.
	Is this a summary or is this something we prepared?
	No, it's a summary.
	16,000.
	17,000.
	And so you discovered that and verified its accuracy through these credit card receipts, etc.
	Yes.
	Do either of them deny these trips occurred?
	No, they've admitted it.
	So is this the impropriety, the financial impropriety of getting financial benefit from the job that he's paying for her way on these trips with money that she's paying him and approving?
	This is what I would call undisputed.
	Some of the other stuff on his credit cards, it looks like there's trips to Charlotte and Florida and other things like that.
	But this is what we could undisputed say.
	was with Miss Willis.
	So back to your...
	You're a good investigative reporter.
	I said this before.
	You have heard these rumors, and now Mr. Bradley, just by almost happenstance, you're with him in court, and he spills the beans on it and verifies it.
	Then you go get the documents to prove it's accurate.
	Yes.
	And you show, you identify year to get him to say, yeah, that's the woman whose condominium.
	Yes.
	And, you know, I developed it.
	You joke about my investigator skills.
	I've done public defense most of my career, you know, at some point or another, pro bono.
	It's hard to get money for investigators, so I've learned how to do a lot of it on my own.
	And, you know, I dig a lot on things.
	And I do like to use the Open Records Act, so I was able to do that and get a lot of information.
	But what I did was I compiled all of the information Mr. Bradley gave me, and then I did various open records requests based on it.
	And then, you know, once I would get something...
	I would reach out to him to verify because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't tracking anything that was wrong.
	You know, I didn't want to make any allegations that didn't have support.
	So I would regularly verify with him.
	And, you know, I'd see him in court.
	We talked on the phone several times.
	I wasn't the only person that he told about this.
	There was another attorney on the case, Manny Aurora, who his client ultimately pled out.
	So he didn't continue this investigation, but he was involved in the investigation early on.
	And Mr. Bradley told him some of the same things that he told me.
	So you know, I was able to Independently verify a lot of things, which to me, investigating is important.
	You know, that the East Point location, that it was in Haightville.
	You know, Robin Yeardy actually did quit.
	Was she forced to quit?
	No, I don't believe she was forced to quit.
	That was a point of contention in our hearing.
	She said she left, that she was sent to another division.
	It's my understanding she had some, she was outspoken about, she didn't like some of the things that was happening in that office.
	And when she voiced that, she was...
	Sent to a different department to work.
	Firing a whistleblower.
	Add it to the list.
	And it wasn't something that she wanted to do because she did the communications.
	Reprisals for calling out improper conducts.
	And so she quit after that is my understanding.
	Based on her testimony and the validations and all the pleadings.
	So after, I might be skipping parts of your investigation because it's pretty darn thorough and you had gotten this track off.
	Cell Hawk, what's it called?
	Cell Hawk, yes.
	You were mentioning to me earlier when I kind of got you off that employees can have it on their own phone if they want to, and they can...
	She could have gone back and proven that they had not been communicating.
	Before he was hired.
	Yes.
	So let me explain that because there's two different systems.
	And, you know, I'm always learning new things about this.
	But cell phone data is one of the new things in criminal defense.
	We see it in a lot of cases.
	The cell hawk data that you just showed, that is geolocation data.
	That is different from the Cellbrite.
	So there's two different programs.
	CellHawk is the program that does geolocation data.
	Essentially, what you do is you get all of the pings.
	So every time your phone, you know, you see those cell phone towers everywhere.
	Every time you use your phone, it's trying to find the closest tower.
	So in a metro area like this, there's a lot of towers.
	That's why we get good signals.
	So when he's in Hapeville, there's a lot of towers.
	So we can really, really narrow it down.
	So what we had our investigator do, and I'm only talking about the geolocation stuff.
	I'll talk about the tech.
	But what we had our investigator do was narrow it down.
	We got all the raw data.
	And we had him narrow down, and we actually excluded a ton of things that were not right on top of this location.
	We wanted to be very, very careful just to have what was literally right on top of this location.
	On top of the locations, right.
	So he was able to create a geofence, geolocation fence, which...
	The location you're talking about is Ms. Yerdi's condo.
	Yes.
	None of this was presented to Scott McAfee, the judge, by the way.
	That area.
	So he was able to find, essentially, just to summarize a couple of things.
	Presumably.
	Where he, you know, Mr. Wade would call Miss Willis at midnight, something like that.
	Booty call.
	And then all of a sudden, his phone would travel.
	And you can actually watch it.
	When you do the live Cellhawk, the app, it's pretty cool.
	You can actually watch the phone travel.
	And it's pinging because you're using it.
	You know, if you have an app open, your phone's pinging.
	So my phone's pinging right now because I'm sure I have an app open.
	So it's pinging from his house all the way down to the condo.
	And then he's pinging all the way at the condo until 4 in the morning.
	And he calls her when he gets there.
	And then it goes sideways.
	Well, it doesn't go silent.
	It doesn't ping around.
	He starts pinging again, driving back, and then he texts her when he gets home.
	This is before he gets hired in November of '21.
	Correct.
	This guy knows exactly what's going on.
	I would defer to the experts on the cell hawk data, but that's the summaries based on what we had him do.
	And again, we tried to be very, very narrow.
	There were a lot of dates that it looked like it happened also, but you know, maybe he was bouncing off a different location and so we wanted to be very narrow.
	So is that why y'all asked him in the hearing how many times have you been to this location?
	That's an interesting point.
	All we have as defense lawyers is the right to subpoena evidence.
	I have to have an evidentiary hearing to do that.
	I could not issue a subpoena for AT&T for this evidence until I had a hearing date.
	It takes a while to get this stuff.
	We got it that morning.
	The morning of the hearing, and obviously I'm busy doing the hearing, We got that data.
	My paralegal was literally trying to download it for the investigator at the time and get it over.
	We knew we had the data, but we didn't know what it showed.
	So at that time, we didn't know what it showed, really, until he was able to do the analysis.
	We had some preliminary reports from him, but nothing.
	I mean, it took...
	A lot of hours.
	It's a lot of data.
	So it takes a lot of time to pinpoint this information.
	But the other thing that I was talking about, the other, so this is the Cellhawk report, and heat map is just like how many times it's pinging, you know?
	Heavy concentration is, you're talking a lot at this time.
	We get to make pinging jokes, right?
	The other thing I was talking about, just to make sure it's clear, so that's Cellhawk.
	Cellbrite is a different program.
	Okay, what's Cellbrite?
	Cellbrite, and it's C-E-L-L-E-B-R-I-T-E.
	Cellbrite is a program similar to Cellhawk, but it downloads data in the phone.
	So this one is you pinging off of towers.
	And the other one's going to be the text messages and phone calls.
	Showing where you were.
	Exactly.
	And they overlaid them.
	Cellbrite...
	Actually can get your texts, your pictures, your app usage.
	I mean, all of that stuff.
	So it's one of those things that if you want...
	If a defendant is threatening someone by text and they delete it...
	They'll take their phone and hook it up to Cellbrite.
	Cellbrite makes what's called a forensic copy of the phone.
	But you can also limit the data.
	So it's a very expensive program.
	So not a lot of people have it.
	So when I have my clients use it, it costs a lot of money for them to have it done.
	But the DA's office has it.
	They have the software.
	They pay for it.
	You can find that in their open checkbook.
	The City of Atlanta Police have it as well.
	But what you can do is you can copy cell phone.
	You know, what I had mentioned earlier is...
	Do you have to have the cell phone to do that?
	You do.
	You have to have the cell phone to do it.
	So what did Mr. Bradley give you all his cell phone?
	No.
	Or how did you get Mr. Wade's cell phone?
	So we did not get that data from Mr. Wade.
	So we only got the location data from Mr. Wade.
	We cannot...
	I do not have the power to get...
	The text messages.
	I don't have that power.
	How did you get it?
	I would have to have a search warrant.
	The state's the only one that has the power to actually get someone's text messages out of their phone.
	But my whole point in saying that was if I had been accused of having an affair and it didn't start, you know, and I said it started in April and someone else said it started in November, they have the ability.
	I don't have the ability.
	They have the ability to plug that phone into the Cellbrite and...
	Print out a report that shows all of the texts.
	So Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis, had they wanted to disprove your allegations, could have just used that Cellbrite program, and it would have shown no communications between them.
	Yes, and it would have also showed the contents of the text.
	If the texts are romantic, if they're not romantic, if they're friendly, you know, and they would control the data.
	So if there's something that was privileged, they could redact it.
	If there was something that...
	You know, if they wanted to only limit it to, like, we want to prove that we weren't talking romantically in November.
	They could limit it to that.
	So they could have actually pulled up the text itself to say, hey, I need you to help me work on this case, or else, hey, I need you to meet me at the love nest.
	Yes, 100%.
	Yes.
	I don't have that ability.
	So I don't have the ability to go somewhere and get that data.
	But then how do they get the text message?
	All I have the ability to do is get that geofencing.
	Who found out about these 12,000 texts?
	Yeah, okay, good.
	That's the question.
	Good question.
	That is what I was able to get by subpoena.
	So I was able to get the geolocation data by subpoena.
	What I can't get is what's inside the phone.
	I can't get the text inside the phone.
	The words in the text.
	Exactly.
	And the pictures.
	You were able to find out that they were texting each other.
	Oh, yeah.
	Prior to November 1st.
	Oh, yeah.
	How did you find that data?
	Is that anything you've produced to us?
	Yeah, you have that.
	So the cell hawk data actually analyzes that.
	So you can see, and we just summarized 2021.
	So approximately 12,000 interactions, that's voice and text, for the year of 2021.
	That they got through a subpoena.
	And again, remember, 2021, he didn't get the contract until November of that year.
	So most of 2021, he's not under contract.
	He's under contract.
	Over 2,000.
	Voice calls, almost 10,000 text messages.
	How did they explain that?
	They didn't.
	This hasn't been presented to the judge yet.
	The hearings that you've had, did you get either one of them to say, that's not true?
	No, this has not been admitted yet.
	No, what they did was they filed an affidavit saying that geolocation data is not always reliable.
	Does that apply to Cellbrite data, though?
	No, it doesn't.
	And it was ironic because I have...
	A number of cases.
	I mean, almost every murder case I've had in the last decade has had geolocation data.
	Used by the prosecution against the defense.
	Unbelievable.
	I mean, literally, they're using this right now.
	So our investigator actually analyzed the same.
	There's a trial going on.
	It's called the YSL trial.
	There's the same data being used in that trial, and our investigator actually analyzed it for them in that case.
	For them, you mean for the Fulton County DA's office?
	No, for the defense looking at that data.
	This is why people are saying that everyone's going to be looking to dismiss convictions.
	They're currently using the same data in another courtroom to prosecute someone, but their defense in our case was that it's not reliable.
	It's not reliable.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	And did your Cellbrite data come in?
	The existence of the cell phone calls?
	No, so the Cellbrite data, that would have to be voluntary on part of the DA to actually...
	So they could show you that to disprove your allegations?
	100%.
	Okay, didn't do it?
	No.
	Neither Wade nor Willis?
	No.
	Okay.
	God, if anybody can get those cell phones...
	You've determined you think there was a relationship that had begun before he was hired?
	For sure.
	And after having met...
	With Mr. Bradley, you began to prepare.
	A motion to disqualify and to dismiss the case altogether, right?
	Yes, I actually started the motion in September and then added to it.
	Can you imagine if she was preparing that motion for September, October, November, December, four months.
	You had text communications with Mr. Bradley to confirm this?
	Yes.
	And was that because you didn't want to file a pleading that was inaccurate?
	Correct.
	100%.
	You wanted him to verify the accuracy of what you were claiming had happened?
	I did not want to say one word that had not been verified.
	Because he was the source.
	Yes.
	And not just verified.
	Not just good faith.
	Verified.
	He probably knew as well as anybody in the state.
	They had been best friends also.
	All right.
	And so let's pull these up, Senator Dolezal.
	When did you start?
	You kept these text messages somehow?
	I did.
	So I actually, Mr. Bradley uses an Android, I believe.
	And so...
	It was not easy to just download them, and I'm not the most tech-savvy person.
	I also, there's a lot of texts that just went into things that I didn't think, I thought would just embarrass people and weren't relevant.
	So what I did was I screenshotted the texts that I thought were relevant.
	I tried to use those in court, but the prosecutor kept objecting and saying I was hiding things because I wasn't trying all of my texts.
	So they just kept on and on for days saying I was hiding things, I was hiding things.
	And accused her of impropriety.
	Who's they?
	The counsel.
	Adam Abade was the prosecutor.
	Abade, who...
	So he just kept saying, you know, that I was...
	Where's the beginning of that text?
	Where's the thing after that?
	Where's the other part of that text?
	These aren't complete.
	You know, rule of completeness kept objecting.
	And I had just screenshotted the texts that I thought were highly relevant, but weren't...
	Flanderous, I guess.
	I don't even know the word.
	But, you know, there were some that, like, you know, that Ms. Willis' daughter had failed out.
	Like, things like that, they were just ugly.
	They didn't need to be admitted.
	Oh, yeah, I read that.
	So I had tried really hard to just screenshot the relevant ones, but they kept saying that I was hiding stuff and I wasn't showing the whole thing.
	So when they objected to my text coming in the screenshots, they said they wanted the whole text chain, and the judge ordered me to, if I was going to admit the text, to go figure out a way to download all of them.
	So I bought it.
	Bought a program for 20, 30 bucks and took three hours and I was very proud of myself for finally figuring out how to do it.
	But I was able to make a copy of it and then redact our phone numbers.
	So this actually showed when they're read, when they're viewed.
	So up there on January 5th at 9:50 a.m., you're asking...
	Read the question.
	So I'm asking him, do you think it started before she hired him?
	You're talking about the affair.
	Yes, the affair.
	And what's his response?
	His response was absolutely.
	It started when she left the DA's office and was judge in South Fulton.
	And so, you know, these are things that he had told me, but I was getting ready to file.
	My filing deadline was the 8th.
	As we're doing this, I'm fact-checking line by line, basically.
	And did you send him a copy of your proposed motion?
	I did.
	And I actually admitted, so at the hearing that we had, I was able to admit the email where I sent him that.
	So I sent him a copy of the motion that weekend when I wanted him to review it.
	And then he had a text.
	He didn't write me back by email, but I submitted my email so that the court could see exactly when I sent it and when he responded.
	And he responded that everything looked good.
	Because I asked, you know, I said, I'm sending you this motion.
	I need you to look at it.
	And then he responded that everything looked good in it.
	He actually told me at first, he wanted me to make some changes because I had not included the information about how much money he had received.
	I had only included the information about how much Wade had received.
	And, you know, I didn't know that it was, it wasn't really highly relevant to my motion.
	But he was like, oh, that's going to tip them off that I'm talking to you and I don't want...
	He did not want anybody to know that he was talking.
	He was very concerned about what happened.
	No crap.
	I'm going to let you just read through this chain.
	Okay.
	I can do it.
	I know I'm off by heart by now.
	Absolutely, it began before it began when she was a judge in South Fulton.
	When was she a judge in South Fulton?
	2019, 2020.
	She became a judge in August of 2019.
	I did an open records.
	I first asked.
	Actually, I first did an open records and they said no.
	So then I subpoenaed the records for the judicial conference, the municipal court conference.
	So she was a municipal court judge.
	They were both municipal court judges.
	So I got the...
	Who's both?
	You mean Wade was a judge at the time also?
	Wade was a judge.
	He was actually a speaker on the panel.
	It was October 2019.
	So I found...
	I found online an old agenda where he was speaking.
	And Terrence Bradley had told me that they met at a conference where Wade was speaking and Willis had gone.
	So I knew that.
	And it was in person.
	So I could narrow it down because of COVID.
	I figured out when COVID happened and when all the conferences went virtual.
	Narrowed down my timeline.
	So I searched for...
	This specific time period, which is when Bradley had told me the relationship started.
	And when was that conference?
	It was October 2019.
	Wade was a judge.
	So I found the agenda for that.
	Like a low-level municipal court type thing.
	So then I reached out to the municipal court judges CLE group and said, you know, if it was an open records request, I would like a list of attendees.
	Because I wanted to verify Ms. Willis went there.
	Can you believe she did all this?
	And they said no.
	So I subpoenaed them and they gave it to me.
	I also subpoenaed...
	Was she in attendance?
	She was.
	I also...
	Where was that conference?
	It was at Lake Lanier.
	I also did an open records request to the city of South Fulton because I know that they have to sign off if your judge is going to go to a conference.
	So I did an open records request to them to make sure that they had actually sent her to that.
	So I verified from two different sources that she attended that conference.
	And that matched what Mr. Bradley had told me.
	Wow, this woman's fantastic.
	So is that a part-time job, a municipal court job, a judge?
	Yes, it is.
	So Wade could continue practicing law and do that on the side.
	So she was a full-time, but Wade is a part-time.
	Did maybe once or twice a month at most.
	Okay.
	Because he was in the city of Marietta.
	I mean, he was a fill-in, like, judge for that.
	That wasn't his primary job.
	Okay.
	So you narrowed it down to that's when the relationship began.
	Scroll through here for us, and I can't read that green line.
	That's okay.
	If you don't mind, just sort of read it through.
	No, of course.
	Oh, he can read it, but I like this guy.
	It says, is this accurate?
	And this was, again, on Jamie.
	So you're saying, is this accurate?
	You're going over this brief and saying, I'm about to swear this in court.
	Will you verify it's accurate?
	Yes.
	So at that time I was going through the actual statement.
	Poor Nathan Bradley was intimidated into lying.
	So I said, upon information and belief, Willis and Wade met while both were serving as magistrate judges and began a romantic relationship at that time.
	No, not magistrate.
	Municipal.
	And he corrected me and said, no, it was municipal court.
	You had said magistrate court and he said no.
	Right.
	And I was, you know, I was just...
	I slipped up.
	I should have said municipal court.
	I knew that.
	So you say thank you.
	What was his response after that?
	Don't say who you got it from.
	12:00 PM on January 5th as you're getting your pleading ready.
	Don't tell anybody where you got it.
	He said you can't put where they met.
	Not many people know that.
	I might be one of only, not even Chris Campbell.
	Chris Campbell was their other law partner?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Wow.
	And I did not.
	I did not disclose Mr. Bradley.
	In my initial filing.
	I didn't until the state forced me to.
	Why was he afraid to be disclosed?
	Just because of his relationship with Wade?
	Because Fannie's a corrupt nincompoop who will go after him.
	Multiple reasons.
	I mean, it's a district attorney in Fulton County.
	I didn't really want to go file something against her.
	It's not exactly a fun position to be in.
	Also, I mean, they have a lot of mutual friends.
	I'm sure it wasn't a fun position to be in, to be...
	Outing a friend of yours, you know.
	But the attacks, I mean, it's a small legal community.
	Were you able to get this into court?
	Because Bradley, I saw some of his testimony, all of a sudden can't remember anything about anything now.
	Were you able to use this to impeach him and show that he did know precisely what happened and when?
	Yes, and he changed his testimony.
	He didn't change it.
	He just forgot.
	He just forgot.
	He had never discussed this with me.
	Then you showed his text message where you all discussed it.
	Well, you know, at that point, that caught me off guard.
	So, you know, I didn't expect that.
	So then I pulled my text messages.
	And, you know, I had some screenshots of them just in case.
	And I told his lawyer, you know, do you want to look at my text messages?
	And so then he later came back and testified that, yes, he had.
	Ted told you that?
	Yes.
	Oh, that must have betrayed her.
	Jeez Louise.
	Did Wade testify to any of these hearings?
	Oh, yeah.
	He did.
	Did he acknowledge the relationship or not?
	He acknowledged the relationship, yes.
	As of '22.
	Before he was hired?
	No.
	No, he did not.
	So before I filed the motion, nobody acknowledged any relationship.
	So I filed the motion on January 8th, and then on Martin Luther King...
	Yeah, walk us through that.
	What were the grounds that, why is it you feel like...
	Bonnie Willis should be disqualified from continuing this prosecution.
	A, he lied under oath, but that's after the fact.
	And these are things that I alleged in my initial motion that was filed on January 8th.
	I outlined this.
	My client in particular was not part of the special purpose grand jury.
	They did not recommend him to be indicted.
	He was not a subject.
	He wasn't part of that.
	So he was added on.
	That's interesting, because I remember hearing that the...
	Special grand jury had recommended prosecuting like 40-something people.
	I thought it was 60. He was not even in that list of 40?
	He was not.
	Wow!
	They add him because he's a politically good target.
	More than half the people they wanted prosecuted.
	Subsequently, there's been a book that was published called Find Me the Votes that authors had exclusive access to her, and so all of her theories in how to indict people and who to indict was explored in that book.
	Wow.
	So from that, I was able to learn that she cut a lot of people.
	Was that because they cut deals with him, immunity deals?
	Some of them were that.
	Some of them I just don't think she wanted to bother with.
	And then she added to the list of people that were not even recommended.
	My client.
	At least your client.
	My client, yes.
	She added him.
	So he was one of the ones.
	So there were some people, and it's publicly available in that book.
	Senator Graham, Loeffler, Purdue, those people.
	They recommended prosecuting them?
	Right.
	She had considered prosecuting them and taken them off the list.
	So there were a lot of people that had been on the consideration.
	Why did they add Michael Roman?
	And my client had not been considered, and then he was added.
	Why?
	So, to me, I was trying to figure out, you know, what, like, why would...
	Why would you want to expand it?
	There's different ways you can go about prosecution.
	Do you figure out why?
	Why they add your client to the list?
	No, but my allegation in my motion is that the bigger the case is, the more money that's made.
	And that made sense to me.
	So for me to file the motion to disqualify, obviously, we had to have some type of a basis besides all of the violations.
	And so expanding litigation...
	Because of how large it is, they've now, the judge has said, we're probably going to have to have three trials, and each of them is going to take several months.
	Where if you just imagine, just follow me down the path, if you only indicted one person and it was narrow, you know, you could try it in a month.
	If you indict 19 people and, you know, three different essentially alleged criminal schemes, you know, like I divided it up earlier, you now have three years of trial.
	You know, you've now gone from a month of trial to three years of trial.
	That's a lot more money.
	He was a senior staffer.
	And so that, to me, was a financial motive, particularly since my client was not recommended by the special person.
	Yeah, but he was a politically valuable target.
	Senior staffer.
	And you had the data to show that she was financially benefiting from the continued prosecution.
	Yes.
	And so to answer your question, you were saying walk me through it.
	So January 8th, I have a deadline to file this.
	So I'm verifying, you know, and that's what you can see in the text.
	You can see heavy text with Mr. Bradley right around then to verify everything.
	I file it, and at that point, the world is shocked.
	I mean, shocked because nobody had any idea.
	This had been hidden.
	This was even hidden from her father, who she had testified.
	she talks to 10 times a day.
	So very few people knew about this relationship.
	And so they very much wanted to know who knew about it.
	Mr. Bradley, that next weekend, he gets some calls about He gets a call trying to fish to see if he's the leak.
	Her client is Michael Roman.
	Is what it was couched as.
	He gets a call from a gentleman named Gabe Banks, who ultimately represented Chris Campbell.
	He filed a motion to quash against Chris Campbell, who's the law partner.
	Gabe Banks...
	Wife works for the DA's office?
	Yes, he does.
	She does.
	Works for Fannie Willis?
	Yes.
	And I've not gotten it.
	I've not open-recorded it.
	But I have been told that Mr. Banks also has one of these special counsel contracts.
	Again, I have not open-recorded that.
	Not part of my case.
	But so he calls Mr. Bradley.
	And Mr. Bradley calls me.
	And another friend of ours, her name is Cindy Yeager.
	She's a district attorney in Cobb County.
	She just signed an affidavit.
	And, you know, he was upset.
	I talked to him.
	It was, I believe, a Saturday night, you know, and I could tell he was upset by his text.
	I left my kids and went and talked to him because I was worried about him.
	And, you know, he took it as what he described to me as the first shot against the bow, you know, that they were trying to figure out if it was him, and they were trying to silence him.
	Trying to silence him?
	Mm-hmm.
	And he said Gabe didn't say anything that threatened him.
	He just out of the blue called him, and he hadn't talked to him in quite some time.
	So it was out of the norm for him to call.
	So, Mr. Banks called and told him that, was asking if he was the leak, meaning if he was my source.
	And Mr. Banks said that it was because he had seen a news article.
	And Mr. Bradley knew that wasn't the case, so he said, send me the news article.
	So he sent him some article that did not say he was the leak, and that put an end to it.
	But then the next day, Mr. Wade called Mr. Bradley's best friend and said to remind, Remind him of his ethics.
	It's an attorney-client privilege.
	Yes.
	Who's the best friend?
	Can you tell me?
	He told me his name, and I'm not positive.
	I think I know who it is, but I'm not positive.
	So Wade calls Bradley's best friend, says, you better call Bradley.
	Remind him of his privilege.
	Remind him he's got attorney-client privilege with me, and he better not spill the bills.
	After having already called him.
	I do know the best friend works at a law firm called Beasley Allen.
	He told me that.
	He said his best friend's name, and then he said he works at Beasley Allen.
	And he was pretty upset about it, and it was the same day of...
	Miss Yeager's birthday, so he didn't want to call Cindy, but he was upset, so he called me.
	This is witness intimidation, as far as I'm concerned.
	And we were both pretty upset about it, because it seemed, you know, tampering with witnesses.
	It seemed like tampering, and it's just, you know, it's just an uncomfortable position to be in, you know, and all of us were kind of worried how the state would react to all of this.
	But at that point, you know, it still...
	Did he interpret that as Miss Willis trying to intimidate him from revealing this affair?
	Or Mr. Wade.
	He took it as intimidation, yes.
	What he called it as is his second shot across the bow.
	Those were his words.
	So he said the first shot across the bow was Gabe Banks.
	The third shot?
	Sexual assault.
	So that's how he interpreted it.
	And the third shot was sexual assault.
	But at that point I had not disclosed him as the witness, as the primary source.
	So nobody knew that.
	And I was trying to protect him as much as possible.
	Just because I knew he didn't want these calls.
	It's not something that you want.
	So they filed some motions to quash, and I had to quash all of the subpoenas, pretty much every subpoena that I had issued.
	So after you filed this motion to disqualify, I guess a hearing was scheduled?
	Yes.
	And then you started issuing subpoenas to line up your evidence?
	Yes.
	That's when this witness tampering occurred?
	Yes.
	After that, to try to intimidate your witnesses from coming to court?
	Yes.
	And let me walk through the timeline.
	So I filed this on the 8th.
	The next thing that happened was Ms. Willis tested.
	Testified.
	I say testified.
	She spoke at a church on Martin Luther King Sunday and was making some statements about why did they single out Mr. Wade.
	Didn't say anything about that we singled him out because he's the only one she's having an affair with.
	Did not agree to that.
	Instead said that it was racially mutated.
	And the other two special prosecutors were white.
	Yes.
	But they were making significantly less money.
	Right.
	And she even said, you know, to the church, she even said that I'm paying them the same rate, which is not true.
	Mr. Floyd's contract is for $150 an hour.
	It's never been $250 an hour.
	So that, you know, one of my kids was listening to it and, you know, said, come listen to this.
	And I listened to it and I was like, wait, that's not true.
	So that was one thing that she said that wasn't true.
	Also that it was racially motivated.
	She didn't say anything about...
	Yeah, they're singling him out because he's the one I went on all these vacations with and he's the one I'm romantically involved in.
	Instead, she said that we were singling him out because of race.
	And then she said that they were all paid the same, which is not true.
	So I thought at that point, okay, they're not going to admit that they have this relationship.
	And so I'm texting with Mr. Bradley, you know, oh my gosh, are they going to lie about this?
	Like, you know, it's on their credit cards.
	Like, I don't know what's going to happen here.
	And so then...
	In the divorce proceedings, Ms. Willis had been subpoenaed to testify, and she actually invoked her executive privilege as the DA.
	Yeah, I remember that.
	She wouldn't testify.
	She would not testify.
	And then they settled it.
	Right.
	And then they settled it.
	Because the judge said he was going to have to testify.
	So they settled it, and he did not have to testify.
	At that point, the judge had given us a hearing date, so I was able to issue subpoenas.
	So my subpoenas started going, and I filed the returns of the subpoenas, and all of a sudden, the motions to quash started coming in.
	Right around that time, the state filed their response, where they admitted to this relationship, but they put limits on it.
	So their response that they filed, I believe it was February 2nd, I believe, Yeah, February 2nd.
	So on February 2nd, they filed their opposition to our motion.
	They admit that there was a romantic relationship, but they claim that it started after he was hired.
	And that all of the gifts and travel was roughly divided.
	They submit an affidavit from Mr. Wade, and they submitted a receipt from...
	A credit card where she had paid for one plane ticket.
	So, you know, a couple hundred dollars on hers and then thousands of dollars on his.
	And the affidavits from California.
	And every single one of them had a motion to quash.
	And they kept saying, I don't have a good faith basis.
	I don't have a good faith basis.
	Not just that it's not true.
	Very harshly saying that I was making this up.
	But that she's a liar.
	Nobody had told me this, and it was gossip, and I was lying, and I should be sanctioned.
	So the court held a hearing on their motions to quash, and I was forced to disclose Mr. Bradley as a witness, which I did not want to do because I was worried.
	Because I knew they had called and all of these things.
	But I had to disclose them as a witness.
	And so at that point, I was still talking with Mr. Bradley fairly regularly.
	But that then changed.
	Unreal corruption.
	So you're waiting on the judge to rule on your motion to disqualify?
	Yes, sir.
	In summation, the grounds for that are what?
	That this is improper for a prosecutor to have a relationship?
	Violation of ethics.
	With?
	The special prosecutor?
	Yes, it is a conflict of interest.
	And that's because the financial benefits or just because?
	Mainly the financial benefits.
	There's a couple different aspects to it.
	We've also alleged some other misconduct because the prosecutors aren't allowed to publicly condemn an accused prior to trial.
	And she made a speech at a church and said this was racially motivated, talked extensively about the clients being guilty.
	She testified at our hearing that our clients were guilty, that my client was, you know, guilty of trying to, I don't even remember, subvert democracy or something.
	But she's made a number of public statements condemning.
	That's an appropriate conduct for a prosecutor.
	That was called forensic?
	That were made along the way.
	And, you know, you can kind of follow them through this media monitoring company.
	But so she makes these, and then she got disqualified from prosecuting.
	Another person she wanted to prosecute.
	For making public statements?
	It was for a fundraising.
	She had thrown a fundraiser for his opponent, his political opponent.
	So when that happened, you sort of see her press stuff dwindle a little bit.
	So she stopped making as many public comments.
	But then when this motion came about, she made the church speech, as I'd call it, where she calls me a racist and a liar, racist, and condemns their guilt.
	And then she also gave interviews to this book.
	I don't know.
	The timing was just nuts.
	But the book came out right around the time that all this was happening, and it's called Find Me the Votes.
	That came out in 2024, you're saying?
	Uh-huh.
	It came out a month ago, if even.
	And she literally let the authors of this book in when she was deciding how to prosecute this case, who to indict, who not to indict.
	It's so unbelievable.
	I mean, their whole thing is that they had unfettered, you know, behind the scenes access to her thought process and stuff.
	So, and she's talking about all of this, you know, that they're guilty.
	But the big thing for the forensic misconduct is she's in the church speech.
	She's saying, and she says this in the book too, that God has told her to prosecute them.
	So the theme between these two things is that God told her to prosecute them.
	She's Joan of Arc.
	She's Joan of Arc.
	That's unethical.
	That's unholy.
	In my opinion.
	You get struck by lightning for doing things like that.
	I'm trying to recollect what I remember reading in basically the Atlanta newspapers about all this because this was new to the state senate as well because all of this began on January 8th which is that the day we started?
	8th or 10th or something?
	It did.
	I mean it was the day session began and all of a sudden these bombshell allegations come out and I think that was the motivation for our Senate resolution forming this investigative committee to say let's find out if this is true independently of all you guys' legal issues or whatnot.
	So I remember she wouldn't testify in the divorce case.
	But did you subpoena her to testify in your motion to disqualify?
	Yes, and she filed a motion to quash.
	She refused to testify, but then she came to court and did testify.
	Yes.
	Before they could even manage the debate.
	As they were arguing the motion to quash.
	Wow.
	Okay, so in that testimony, did she deny the start date of this?
	Yes, she said it started in early of 2022.
	There was some discrepancy between them, you know, a month or two here and there.
	Generally, it was around March.
	what Mr. Wade was supposed to.
	What are the consequences for an attorney to give sworn testimony that she did if you're Bradley, what is it, Yerke?
	Yerke.
	Trackhawk data, your other independent verifications are found to be truthful.
	It's a crime.
	It's a felony.
	You'd lose your license.
	It's perjury.
	Same for Wade.
	Yes.
	Wow.
	And we have rules that are one of the, I mean, outside of privilege and confidentiality, we cannot suborn perjury.
	So if I have a client who tells me I did it, I can't put them on the stand to say I didn't do it.
	I mean, I would lose my license over that.
	I cannot do that.
	That's why Anna Cross is not there anymore.
	...came to court and said, "Oh, yeah, this started in 2019." Oh, yeah.
	She saw them.
	You know, she saw them together.
	She testified that she saw them romantically together, and, you know, they were very close.
	And you had Bradley's text message that showed he confirmed that absolutely back in January.
	She knew it for sure, for goodness sake.
	Yes, and he had a lot of details, you know, little details that matched up.
	Did you get other details from him by phone?
	Yes.
	That wasn't in the text?
	A garage door opener that Mr. Wade had a garage door opener.
	Oh, there's another witness who's claiming.
	I subsequently learned that he told Mr. Aurora the same thing.
	Another witness is confirming Bradley said that.
	Garage door opener to her place.
	To her back door.
	Yeah, to her place.
	I mean, there were other things, I mean, just a lot of context, things about how freely Mr. Wade could go in and out of the office, you know, the DA's office, stuff about they would sometimes use hotels.
	One thing that he told me was that Mr. Wade had, before he filed for divorce, had used Mr. Bradley's credit card and then paid him back in cash for, you know, so that there wouldn't be a record of it.
	Dude, how much more could you get?
	A little puzzled by the legal standard.
	I'm reading...
	And I'm listening to Abate.
	Explain to us the difference between a conflict of interest and an appearance of a conflict or an appearance of impropriety.
	This guy knows the difference.
	That is the big argument right now.
	And I'm not the best person to explain that.
	My husband argued that part.
	But, you know, appearance of impropriety, it's one of those things like that if it undermines the outcome, undermines the competency in the outcome.
	And we spent a lot of time in our brief talking about the constitutional underpinnings of this.
	You know, due process that my client has a right to due process.
	He has a right to a fair and impartial prosecutor.
	And we don't think that's happened in this case.
	And so I think that would be more along the lines of the appearance of impropriety.
	And then actual impropriety is receiving money, you know.
	Like, receiving money and not paying it back.
	And there was testimony about that.
	And lying under oath.
	And Mr. Wade did that she paid him back in these sums of cash.
	But there's no records of any of that or where she got it.
	Anything shows him depositing cash?
	No.
	And, you know, we asked her, like, where you got it.
	She said that she...
	First, she said she barred it from her campaign.
	I missed that in real time.
	I think all of us up here that have campaigns know you can't take campaign funds for personal use, right?
	I'm not well-versed in that law, but that is my understanding.
	It's pretty black and white.
	So she testified that the majority of the cash she had on hand was from her campaign, that a loan she had given herself from the campaign.
	She was very clear about that.
	And then she also said that when it got low...
	She would supplement it by getting like $50 back at Publix.
	But I mean, she's giving him $4,000, $2,500.
	So, you know, large sums of cash.
	And there's no trail, obviously.
	Because it's a lie.
	In some of the documents you produced to us, there were a couple of IOLTA trust accounts.
	Those were Mr. Wade's accounts?
	Yes.
	So he had more than one trust account in his law firm?
	Yes, he did.
	And did you find any discrepancy or whether these funds were deposited there?
	Yes.
	And, you know, so he testified because we asked him where he deposited the funds.
	And these are the funds where his paychecks, basically, from Fulton DA's office?
	Yes.
	At first, he deposited them to his joint IOLTA that he had with his law partners.
	And then he started depositing them to his personal, when I say personal, just him, IOLTA.
	An IOLTA that did not have anything to do with Mr. Bradley or Mr. Campbell.
	Do you think Mr. Bradley was aware that he was running the money through a separate account?
	I think it might have been part of the reason that they dissolved.
	Mm-hmm.
	That they broke up?
	Yes.
	Because I told you this, he burnt Bradley money-wise.
	Do you think his ex-wife knew that this money was being held in a trust account rather than...
	Previously, it had been going through his home bank account.
	His ex-wife didn't have any idea.
	I mean, you could tell in the pleadings that he was even making this much money.
	I mean, he filed some interrogatories and some answers in that divorce case saying that he made a couple thousand dollars a month.
	What a mother effer.
	We knew he was making up to $35,000 a month under this contract.
	Right.
	And he has a lot of money parked in one of those ioltas.
	And he was still bilking his wife, Jocelyn.
	So that's...
	Of money.
	Does it look like he was using his law firm trust account or his personal lawyer?
	IOLTA is a legal trust account, right?
	Yes.
	The interest from it goes to the state bar to help fund some indigent care or whatever, right?
	As much as I wish we could park money in our IOLTAs that was earned and not pay ourselves, we can't do that.
	So when you earn money, you can't leave it in your IOLTA.
	IOLTAs are for client money, so they're a lawyer trust account, and essentially what they are is if you settle a civil rights case or a personal injury case, and you get $100,000, and 60 of that's the clients and 40 of it's the lawyers, it has to go into your IOLTA.
	It sits there until you clear the case out.
	You finalize the case.
	You send a settlement letter.
	You get the amount, and you have to put it in your actual business account, and then the client gets their check for their part.
	So IOLTAs are very highly regulated by the state bar.
	They can't commingle funds.
	It can't be earned money.
	It's got to be money that's not earned.
	And the interest does go to the state bar, but once you earn the money, you have to pay it.
	You have to have it in your account because you have to claim on your taxes.
	Right.
	I mean, lawyers wish that they...
	Oh, I know.
	And I also didn't have to pay taxes on it until it was a year that they didn't make it financially as they wanted to.
	So sometimes attorneys might take a maintainer up front.
	And bill against that retainer.
	You might do that on some of your criminal cases.
	I'm going to take $25,000, I'm going to put it in my trust, and then I'll submit an itemized statement and pay myself as I earn the money.
	That's exactly what they do with retainers, with retainers that are refundable.
	So they would ask, you know, $10,000 retainer, and then if this month I billed $1,500, I send you a bill.
	And then I take the $1,500 and I transfer it to my business account.
	As soon as it's earned, you have to transfer it.
	So these funds, if they, in fact, came from the contract with Fulton County, should have probably never been put in a trust account at all because they were already earned after he had done the work and within some amount of time after that he sent the bill and he got paid for work that had already been done.
	I mean, if they were put in a trust account, they would need to be transferred quickly.
	Is that the kind of ethical violation that can get you disbarred?
	They highly regulate the IOLTAs.
	Highly regulate.
	I mean, the state bar, like, there's a list of places that we can do, you know, do banking because they're regulated by the state bar.
	I have to go in person for most of my IOLTA transfers.
	They're not something that I can do, like online banking.
	I mean, it's a pain.
	But, yeah, so they're highly regulated.
	We know these were deposited in his IOTAs because the back of the checks for Fulton County show where they were deposited.
	And have you asked him about this?
	They didn't talk about that during the trial.
	But they ran this money through a trust account.
	Is it still in there?
	I mean, the last I knew, he didn't give any explanation.
	I mean, he just said that he pays for everything through his business, and then he basically just said his account and figures it all out.
	Okay.
	I know you have a court appearance this afternoon.
	You've been very patient with us.
	I'm going to give Senator Harold Jones an opportunity to ask a few questions under our rules.
	We do allow at least one member of the minority party to participate.
	And Senator Jones, you're not...
	Time limited.
	When the buzzer hits and you've got to go to court, you tell us, but I feel like we've got at least 15, 20 minutes or whatever.
	Oh, you definitely do, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.
	My court's at 115 in Fulton County, so if I get in trouble, if you can call the judge, then I'm fine.
	You got it.
	I just wanted to go back to the issue about the conflict.
	I think that's kind of what brought us all here to some extent.
	On one issue in your brief, the most recent one that you filed.
	The second one?
	Right.
	On page 21 of that, you went ahead and acknowledged that the aspect about him not signing, I believe, or being duly authorized to be a prosecutor, that that's already been...
	Handled in one court, but you're still bringing that issue back up.
	But it has been decided in the negative.
	In one court, of course, you are still bringing that issue back up.
	Yeah, so you're talking about the oath?
	Right.
	The oath issue.
	Yeah, so Manny Aurora was working on this issue early on, and he filed a motion about the oath.
	At the time, it hadn't been filed.
	And in and of itself, that's not...
	You know, not filing an oath, that's not going to get rid of a case.
	That's not going to disqualify in and of itself.
	Clearly, the judge told us that.
	But I was trying to paint the entire picture and how I felt that it was relevant.
	You know, and it definitely is not a ground that I was arguing for disqualification, but I felt that it was relevant because it shows that they were hiding this relationship and all the evidence indicates that.
	Right, and I was just going to show them while moving on to this next particular point here, which goes to page 24 of your brief.
	Which deals with, I think, the thing that's really out there in the media, which deals with the relationship and aspects of that, that in some kind of way this creates a conflict of interest.
	No, no, no.
	It's just unethical.
	It could potentially get a rule on that, but I think it's important to kind of go through it.
	And you cited the case of Whitworth versus State.
	What in that case actually applies to this particular case?
	I don't know if I'm looking.
	You said it was the last one that I filed?
	Yeah.
	So February 9th.
	Yes, page 24. Page 24, you said Woodward?
	Withward.
	I don't see Withward.
	At the bottom, Georgia courts have developed their own standard for disqualification of prosecutors.
	That's not my page 24. You must be looking at a different, the one that was filed February 9th at 347.
	We can't hear you.
	I'm so sorry.
	I want to make sure I'm following the same one.
	You're talking about the defendant supplemental reply that was filed on February 9th at 347?
	Let's go back.
	Okay.
	Let's use your first one.
	Okay.
	Okay, so that one there on the Whitworth case.
	I wonder how that actually impacts this particular case.
	Which page are you referring to?
	Page 24. Page 24. His demeanor is bothering me and his vocal fry is bothering me.
	Let me just act like I don't care about what's going on here and get the vocal fry.
	And now let's argue a point that's totally irrelevant.
	So the site is Whitworth.
	The court recognized a conflict of interest as a ground for disqualification.
	Yeah, it has something to do with the oath.
	This guy mixed up oath with conflict.
	I wish I had that case in front of me.
	I don't have the case in front of me.
	He started by talking about the oath.
	That, first of all, is physical precedent only.
	Right.
	Yes.
	But you did cite it.
	And said that it's physical precedent only.
	And you're using that as the basis, really, to say it's a conflict.
	There's no other case law that you actually use in this particular brief to say it's a conflict.
	Guaranteed that that's not true.
	And also amusement sales.
	So there's already two.
	It deals with contingency fee.
	Right.
	And so in Whitworth, and I have the case if you want to go through it.
	It actually talks about that there's ways of citing the conflict.
	Number one would be if he had or the prosecutor had actually spoken to the defendant.
	Has that taken place?
	No.
	Okay.
	Second, has he represented the defendant?
	No, he hasn't.
	There was a motion early on.
	Getting your mic.
	I didn't even bring this up here, and I don't think we talked about it in the brief, but there was a motion early on because Mr. Campbell, who's Mr. Wade's law partner, actually sent a mailer out to my client and all of the other defendants.
	Yeah, so I don't think anybody called based on that, but they did advertise to them saying, call us to represent you.
	And then they came with the third, which says there has to be a personal stake in the defendant's conviction.
	So is that what you're relying on there, that there's a personal stake in his conviction?
	Yeah, and the prosecution also.
	Prosecution, exactly.
	Again, that's physical president only, and I don't remember the specific facts of that case, but it's not just a conviction.
	It's not the outcome, it's the prosecution.
	The state wants it to be just a conviction.
	They talked about that.
	And we argued this extensively, over three hours, I think, in front of the court.
	Testified.
	But it's also a personal stake in the prosecution.
	In the prosecution, the process.
	And that was an amusement.
	You know, prosecution, in that case, they...
	That was a contingency fee case.
	That's correct.
	So that was completely different.
	And so in amusement, it was a contingency fee case.
	So they had a personal stake actually really in the conviction because they only received the contingency fee when the conviction happened.
	Right.
	So what you're really saying is that they had a personal stake in just bringing the case.
	Yes.
	Because there's no personal stake in the conviction similar to amusement, correct?
	Well, so amusement's a little bit different because there is no conviction in a forfeiture act.
	Correct.
	But they're going to get money if they win.
	Right, but there's no conviction.
	But they're going to get money if they win.
	That's the key.
	They get money if they keep the forfeiture.
	That was a forfeiture case.
	I think that was game slots.
	That's correct.
	But they get money if they win.
	That's the only way they get money.
	They don't get money for bringing it.
	So I just wanted to make sure it was clear that that was not conviction because you can't have a conviction.
	But they only get money if they're the victor.
	He's receiving his funds.
	Mr. Wade is receiving his funds because he's billing because the case is going on, correct?
	Oh, yes.
	Not because he wins a case.
	He's making a mistake.
	Make a ton of money off of it.
	So what you're saying is the actual conflict is just bringing it.
	Prosecuting it.
	Prosecuting the case.
	That's a long answer.
	The actual conflict is lying on your disclosures about how much money you can give.
	I'm talking as far as this issue is concerned right here.
	When you use Withworth, you use amusement sales, and they say that there has to be an actual conflict in amusement sales.
	And let's go back to Withworth if we can.
	Because in Withworth, the person was actually told, the prosecutor was actually told by another prosecutor.
	That they want the case to actually resolve in a conviction.
	Because what had happened was, the defense attorney came to the prosecutor and said, we would like to plea.
	And the prosecutor basically said, no.
	He went and got advice from somebody, and that prosecutor said, we would like this case to resolve in a conviction.
	And so, the question, and that then was held not to be a conflict.
	They said that still is not an actual conflict, even though someone told that prosecutor.
	We want to see a conviction.
	We actually want to see it go to the end.
	Don't plea him out.
	And the court said, no, that's not an actual conflict, because what you have to show is there's an actual unfairness to the defendant in the trial.
	Can you point to any unfairness in the trial that's taken place?
	Yeah, being subjected to one.
	It's not limited just to the trial, but to answer the first part of your question, when you're asking about the conviction, a person at stake, Ms. Willis has made numerous public statements about her interest in a conviction.
	There's some emails that had been admitted as part of it, as part of some of the exhibits in the case.
	There's a lot of pleading, so I don't know which one exactly, but talking about her desire for there to be a conviction and jail time.
	And then in my case, for example, so Mr. Wade offered my client...
	We were the first people to get an offer and we said no, we wanted a dismissal because he was not guilty and that did not happen.
	So obviously there's an interest in him being convicted of something because when the plea offer was for him to pay a $5,000 fine and have a misdemeanor.
	So in reality, because you said that he wanted to extend the case out, he was actually trying to end their client's case.
	With a $5,000.
	It was going to end.
	With a conviction.
	Interest in the conviction.
	But earlier you said that you believe, which was total speculation, that they created this case against your client to do more billing.
	And what you're just telling me now is that he was willing to stop his billing because he offered your client a misdemeanor and you rejected it.
	You're the one who's continuing the billing.
	No, no, you're the one that's continuing to make him bill.
	He was willing to cut that off.
	You said, I believe that they created this case against my client so they can continue to bill.
	But he basically went out and said, I'm tired of billing.
	I'm going to offer misdemeanors.
	And you said no.
	Take a couple notes because you had a couple questions there.
	I want to make sure I answer all of them.
	So the billing, so as far as the billing and the offer.
	So what I was trying to explain, and I'm glad you gave me this opportunity to sort of go into it in a little more detail.
	I tried to explain that there are really three classifications as how I broke the indictment down.
	There's the folks that are involved at the federal level.
	You see those people having, you know, they were in D.C. Then you see the electors.
	Then you see coffee.
	These cases could have been handled...
	Ms. Merchant, we can't even hear you.
	Oh, I'm so sorry.
	Just pull it up right to you.
	And tell the other guy to stop breathing into the mic.
	Okay, sorry.
	Okay, so how I was trying to explain it is I separate this down into three different types of cases.
	And it could have been handled that way.
	Coffey County could have been prosecuted in Coffey County if it had been chosen to do that.
	The stuff with the federal could have been...
	Handled in federal court if they had chosen to do that.
	Then the electors would have been the only remaining case that...
	Could have been prosecuted in Fulton County.
	Instead of choosing to do that, and it's not just my client in particular, but that group, that group in the middle.
	By putting them all three together, it expands the litigation.
	How it expands it is a couple different ways.
	It expands it because when you charge a RICO case, you can bring in evidence of everything.
	So essentially, instead of having a case, a quick case, you know, a case where there's evidence against Michael Roman, only Michael Roman, we litigate that.
	They expanded it to include these three different classifications.
	What does that do?
	That means the trial is going to be a year.
	They can plead people out.
	They can plead Michael Roman out.
	They can plead this person out.
	They can plead people out.
	But they're always going to have that large enterprise.
	And it actually does, even if they pled my client out, the offer was for him to testify.
	So, you know, for him to testify, even though he would not be on trial, his acts.
	Would still allegedly be on trial, which still expands the litigation because he's not gone.
	The deal's not you can plea out and you're gone.
	Bye.
	We're not taking up time with you.
	It still expands it.
	So my whole point earlier was that this expands the litigation.
	Because imagine if we just had, like you see in other cases, one defendant.
	You can limit the information to just that crime and that case.
	Or you could have three separate indictments.
	But what we've done here is we've put them all together.
	You've made it so that it's necessary to try them to have three trials because there's no courtroom that can fit all of those people.
	So that expands the litigation.
	So in case, in the case that you cited, physical or not, Whitworth, it says specifically that when the prosecutor goes up...
	Morgan, who is the person who's not supposed to, who's talking to him, who's the prosecutor.
	This guy read one decision he thinks is master of class.
	Hobbs informs Morgan, who is the prosecutor, that he anticipated a successful criminal prosecution.
	But that any decision regarding Withers' proposal to Morgan was Morgan's to make.
	Morgan decided to continue to go forward.
	And they said that that was not a conflict.
	That that was his, the prosecutor's decision to make.
	And you're saying, this is the case you cite.
	You cited this case.
	In your case, they actually came to you and said, we're willing to give you a plea.
	Did you not hear her answer?
	And you said no, which is perfectly fine.
	Did you not just hear her answer?
	But then you say, well, they want to extend prosecution on my client.
	They were willing to cut it off.
	Did you not just listen to what she just said?
	And so therefore, the case that you cite is totally opposite than what situation that you're dealing with.
	How would you say that you have a conflict in this case?
	Based on this case, just saying, just based on this case, that was your first case that you cited in your brief.
	I don't think it was actually the first case, but...
	The first was actually a federal case, but the first Georgia case you cited was Whitworth on this particular issue.
	Right, on this particular issue.
	Did you not hear my answer?
	I don't have Whitworth in front of me, and there's a lot of different facts about these cases.
	I would be happy to review it and let you know.
	But what I can tell you is that I still, and we still believe, that this is to expand the litigation.
	And even if it's minor, the law says over $100, that's enough to have a personal interest.
	So what we've got is we've got these financial disclosures where they're not being truthful.
	Ms. Willis is lying under oath.
	Maybe he has COPD.
	Which is the same thing my client is charged with conspiring to do.
	Lying under oath about receiving a benefit.
	So you've got those.
	You've got this concerted effort, which we have seen, unfortunately, drag out over the last couple months, this concerted effort to hide this information from the public, to keep this information out.
	Lie under oath.
	I think that it is very reasonable for a court to think that that is a conflict of interest.
	And whether or not it's a stake in the conviction, a stake in the prosecution, we definitely have seen a stake in the prosecution.
	And you know, Whitworth, the problem with Whitworth, and this is...
	Who actually brings the case?
	The district attorney.
	How do they get the case?
	Well, we know a lot more now because of the book, Find Me the Votes.
	So we know a lot more than we normally would know.
	And that's one of the things that I talk about in my motion.
	In this case, it was actually Nathan Waite.
	So he's the one that he presented most of the witnesses.
	How was your client charged?
	How are these clients charged?
	So my client was charged just in the actual grand jury.
	Okay.
	So a grand jury.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So we had a special grand jury.
	And then you had a grand jury.
	Yes.
	Who made this determination?
	Well, yes.
	They made a determination to bring charges, basically.
	To indict, correct?
	Yes.
	So are they part of all of this?
	No, no, no, no.
	I've never had the privilege of being inside of a grand jury, but I have heard a lot about what happens inside of a grand jury.
	It is a witness who comes, and in this case, it was actually the investigator for the DA's office.
	So just understand this.
	It is a very low standard of proof.
	It's probable cause.
	I have had clients who were dead indicted.
	I actually had a lawyer that I worked with at the Public Defender that was indicted along with his client because the DA presented an indictment that actually had the lawyer's name on it by accident.
	And the grand jury indicted him.
	So you're saying the grand jury has flaws?
	100%.
	Would you think it would be better for just the prosecutor to draw the accusations?
	No.
	I know you guys have a bill doing that right now.
	I definitely don't think so.
	The grand jury is better than no oversight.
	Correct.
	Definitely.
	But it's a continuum.
	So my point in bringing that up is the grand jury is not perfect.
	The grand jury is...
	I'm not allowed to be part of the grand jury.
	It is not what I would call adversarial.
	So the grand jury is one-sided.
	They only hear from the prosecutor.
	And they hear hearsay.
	So in this case, using it as an example, the...
	Investigator for the DA's office, listened to all the January 6th testimony, read all the testimony, went in there and summed it up for the grand jury.
	The grand jury doesn't draw up the indictment.
	They actually, the prosecutor, brings that indictment.
	And then they vote, and it's a majority.
	So all they have to do is a majority vote, and it's by a very low standard.
	It's a probable cause, which is about 25% proof.
	So you've got hearsay.
	You've got a witness who hasn't actually witnessed anything personally.
	You've got a standard of 25%.
	I think there should be much more safeguards on the grand jury process, personally.
	That's for another day.
	So you went through a special grand jury and they made their recommendations.
	Then went to a grand jury and they, of course, made their recommendations.
	And how many persons have actually pled in this particular case?
	Two or three.
	Two or three already.
	So the first gentleman who pled, he was a bondsman, and he was not, because of the state law for bonding agents, he's not able to actually run his business while he's on bond.
	So he had a significant financial interest in entering a plea early on because he essentially couldn't work if he didn't enter a plea.
	And, I mean, he got probation.
	You know, it was not exactly, not what you would imagine in a huge racketeering case.
	You would not imagine probation and a $5,000 fine.
	The other two people who pled are both lawyers.
	Lawyers at the end of their career.
	I can imagine when I'm close to retirement and I have my retirement funds, if I would want to spend them on a criminal trial or spend them seeing my grandchildren, I would spend them seeing my grandchildren.
	One of the things we've been talking about is Mr. Wade's kind of qualification.
	But you did mention early on that he was very instrumental in the special grand jury process.
	So he's been there.
	He's been part of this process.
	Oh, you can see that by his bills, yes.
	Right.
	Other than it's just his bills, you said that you recognize that he's been part of the process.
	So even though he's very, I guess, what everyone's saying is inexperienced, he was able to go to a special grand jury and get their positive recommendations.
	They indicted a ham sandwich duty.
	You know the expression.
	He was able to go to a grand jury and get indictments, which are positive for the state side.
	And he's actually had some persons actually plead guilty.
	So this inexperienced former...
	Assistant Solicitor, I mean, he's not doing too bad, is he?
	For a corrupt RICO.
	I mean, if you want to talk about his qualifications and whether I think he's qualified, I'm happy to talk about that.
	No, I'm just saying.
	I'm just saying.
	I mean, when you say that someone's totally unqualified, that's basically what's been going on.
	It's very surprising he was able to go to a special grand jury, and you say he's integral in that.
	Oh, that's not surprising at all.
	And he's going to a grand jury, and you say he's integral in that.
	Then why even say that he's unexpected?
	Because he's never tried a felony, you moron!
	Basically, you're saying those are just lawyers that don't want to do anything anymore, and they just pled their clients guilty.
	I understand.
	No, no.
	So the special purpose gringery, first of all- Harold Jones the second.
	I understand.
	The special purpose gringery, I've had the opportunity to read a lot of the transcripts from that.
	It's direct examination.
	So you're bringing a witness in and you're talking and you're saying, "Tell me what happened." So he did that along with Mr. Wooten, and he never did it all by himself.
	He definitely led it, but Mr. Wooten asked a lot of questions.
	And there were some other prosecutors in and out, but he was always there.
	But that, I mean- Special Purpose Grand Jury is really just to investigate and get testimony.
	So it's not...
	But when a person's trying to insinuate that somebody's basically totally unqualified, it is important to realize that they've walked this case to this particular point.
	Very complicated case, I would imagine.
	I mean, that's something that we can debate.
	You know, if walking someone through the Grand Jury, the Special Purpose Grand Jury, is complicated or not.
	Asking questions.
	And again, there's a team of 10 lawyers.
	So now there's a team of 10 lawyers.
	Who knows what part he's doing?
	But the question would be then, why him?
	Why not all of the public servants who are taking government salaries and restricted in their private law practice?
	Why do they need him there when there's all these other people?
	As far as the qualifications, asking questions in a special purpose grand jury in and of itself, I mean, there's no opponent.
	There's no adversary.
	There's no judge.
	Once it became adversarial, you've had persons start pleading.
	And maybe more potentially correct.
	Possibly.
	But we'll find out.
	But let me ask you this, though.
	Because you were talking about the staff.
	One of the reasons you may go outside of to outside counsel could be the fact that if you actually put this type of case within the office, just speculating, but to some extent we all are.
	No, we're not.
	No, we're not.
	Basically shut down.
	It's a potential that the DA's office had actually basically shut down.
	Oh, God, no.
	If you took the million dollars that he's been paid, you could hire five lawyers.
	Six lawyers.
	You could do that, but how long would you be able to keep them?
	In other words, if you had five new inexperienced ADAs, they're not a tackle in this case.
	And also...
	Well, the inexperienced ADAs are not going to make $200,000.
	So if you're hiring inexperienced ADAs, you'd probably be able to hire 20. But that's not what you're talking about.
	But the key thing is, that job that you're talking about, that you're going to hire with that, with the million that you would have paid him, if that's your theory on it, that's not going to stay.
	That's not necessarily going to be long-term if you're just saying the money you paid him, you could have done this.
	Because his is a short-term kind of situation.
	His is on contract, so it's short-term.
	It's not a long-term contract.
	It's not going to last for a person's career.
	So I understand the back and forth when persons were saying, well, they could have used this money for that.
	But that money was delegated for him on the short-term.
	It was never delegated.
	So it's not anything that a person would come in long term and actually necessarily do.
	But at the same time, that would be up to the district attorney to make that decision.
	No, it wasn't up to her to make that decision.
	I just make the point that so far, from a district attorney standpoint, I would say that they probably believe that so far the case is successful.
	And we can argue about what's qualified and what's not, but certainly I think that they would argue at this point the case has gone from a successful pattern for somebody that's been denigrated and said it's totally...
	unqualified.
	I just said a bunch of claps.
	How much was the money?
	Stop.
	Thank you.
	Was that a question?
	I took notes because there were a couple different questions in there so the first one You said about how much money.
	So Ms. Willis had stated that it would be between $3 or $4 million to actually pay Mr. Wade completely to prosecute this case.
	So you'd be able to hire a number of prosecutors.
	Some of them do come and go, but most of the prosecutors we've seen on this case have been there since the beginning.
	Unfortunately, these cases take time, so people may leave.
	You also asked me about that this money was delegated for this, and I just wanted to make sure that my testimony was accurate.
	This money was never delegated for this.
	The county did not ever delegate this.
	The county was not involved in that at all.
	Ms. Willis is the one that decided.
	And there's no, like, budget.
	There's no transparency at all on this.
	She does the contract with him, and I believe you showed those contracts.
	So in that sense, it's...
	Delegate it to him because that contract can end at any time.
	She could say, "Hey, the contract base," because he works at her pleasure.
	Oh, yes.
	He works at her pleasure, all right.
	Yes.
	Moron.
	On the trips, how much total were the trips?
	About $20,000.
	Ooh, that's a lot.
	I think it was about $17,059, but even if we say $20,000.
	Working at her pleasure.
	$5,000.
	I don't know.
	$4,000.
	Unfortunately, They did not provide all of the records, so I can't tell you exactly.
	All I can tell you is what Mr. Wade charged on his credit cards.
	I can't tell you.
	Most of it was paid in cash, so there's no record.
	So I wish I could tell you, but...
	I can't.
	Going by your slide, one was $3,335, one was $4,453.
	Which one?
	Hold on, I want to make sure I'm clear.
	Working at her pleasure.
	Six trips.
	Okay, but which trip are you talking...
	Well, you said one is $3,000-something.
	I want to make sure I'm clear.
	Yeah, put it back up for me, please.
	There we go.
	Okay.
	So the first one, Royal Caribbean, $3,335.
	Vocal Fry is very annoying.
	And then we see the next one, and then the next two.
	How would that compare?
	I mean, is that so unusual on price points as far as trips are concerned?
	No.
	I mean, I don't think so.
	He didn't say she overpaid.
	I mean, Royal Caribbean, I specifically kept out the money that he spent on his mom's cabin.
	So they had two cabins.
	His mom had a cabin.
	They had an oceanfront balcony for the Bahamas.
	Did he ever stay in a cabin?
	The oceanfront balcony is probably upper middle, but I don't know that it matters.
	Flew comfort class.
	Not a normal for a lawyer.
	Do you know what maybe the average American spends on a vacation?
	Not this much.
	You don't think?
	No.
	Have you looked?
	No, I haven't, but I would imagine most of the Fulton County taxpayers would love to go on in the interest.
	This idiot thinks $20,000?
	Since you speculated, I could speculate and say that you did look, and that's why you didn't put it in your brief, because Forbes actually says that the average is about $3,700 that a person spends on a vacation.
	Not four in a year.
	Family of four.
	At that time, they were taking two and three at the time.
	That makes sense.
	That's about normal.
	No, no, no.
	Hold on, hold on.
	I want to make sure that's clear.
	You said they were taking two or three at a time.
	All of these, I made very certain that my numbers only included the two of them.
	So the one trip that they took his mother on...
	But it's two adults.
	Two adults, yes.
	It's nothing extreme.
	Extraordinary.
	So you said $3,700 for a family of four.
	That does not surprise me.
	For families that can afford to go on vacations, does not surprise me.
	So it's basically what the average American would do.
	No!
	The average American who can afford to go.
	This is half of that for two people.
	So you said $3,700 for a family of four.
	This is for two people.
	Right.
	It's just two people.
	Right.
	Yes.
	Double it.
	Yes.
	So it wouldn't necessarily be half.
	It's two adults.
	Bottom line is it's not extravagant.
	It's not lavish, is it?
	Can you imagine these arrogant, pompous Democrats?
	And that's one of the reasons I didn't include all the Ubers.
	I quite frankly didn't want to do the math.
	But there were a ton of Ubers on each of these trips.
	There was a hotel at the beginning of the Royal Bahamas.
	I didn't include that.
	I didn't want to do the math.
	And I also did not want to do the math.
	And how much does Ms. Willis make?
	200 and something thousand a year.
	It's in my brief.
	Your argument is that a person who makes $200,000 a year is actually setting up prosecutions to go on a trip that costs $3,500.
	It's $20,000 worth.
	No, no, not in isolation.
	I mean, you're talking about in isolation.
	No, I'm not talking about in isolation.
	I'm talking about what's in briefs.
	I don't know what else you may be speculating about.
	I'm just talking about what's in briefs.
	Speculating is a word of the day, people.
	This is the benefit that she got, and all I'm saying is that I've got a person who's making $200,000, and the benefit that you're putting into the briefs, not what you may say that you may find elsewhere, but the benefit in the briefs is...
	I go on a trip for $3,300, $4,400.
	These guys can't believe me.
	And they have made up all these prosecutions for $3,300.
	I mean, that's your argument.
	That's your argument, that's your argument.
	That's not.
	That's in the brief.
	And that's not our argument.
	So, you know, we did argue for about three hours.
	What else is in the brief?
	What else is in the brief?
	A lot of facts, a lot of laws.
	No, no, as far as actual financial benefit.
	So the financial benefit that I put in the brief was what I could prove.
	I did not want to have any, as you call it, speculation.
	I did not want to speculate about anything else.
	So I did not know if Mr. Wade paid for an Uber that Ms. Willis was literally sitting in at the same time.
	You can kind of assume, because it's from the airport to the hotel, but I did not want to speculate to that.
	So I didn't include those in the numbers.
	So the hard numbers in here are all of these numbers that are on trips.
	Yes, the ones that I actually had hard numbers that I knew that she had.
	Yes, that's in the brain.
	In our business, we deal with proof.
	And so that's the proof that we got.
	That's why that's what I did.
	That person is doing all of this for that.
	Right.
	Oh yeah, and so what I included was what I had the actual hard proof of, and then some of it's attached to the brief, some of it I got by subpoena, so some of it is actually exhibits that were admitted.
	I think I submitted to you all the certified business records from a couple different travel agencies.
	Those are actually admitted.
	They were taking two trips a year.
	And there were a lot of other receipts that I had that I did not know for sure if they were joined, and so I didn't include those, and I haven't talked about them today.
	And you shouldn't, correct.
	Exactly.
	That's correct.
	I 100% agree.
	So this is what we're dealing with.
	They took two trips a year, the average American.
	So my next question then becomes...
	Then becomes...
	Conflict as far as his salary is concerned.
	Just curious.
	Is it the amount of salary that really creates the conflict?
	They tried to argue this already in court.
	So is the amount of salary that gets...
	Is creating this conflict in your mind?
	No.
	Or is it just the fact that he gets any salary at all?
	No, it has nothing to do with that.
	I did not make any allegations against Mr. Floyd or Ms. Cross.
	It's the fact that they were sleeping together and he was paying for trips for them to go on and they were hiding it from the taxpayers.
	Which we just discussed that.
	That's why.
	So, if there's not a trip, then you don't believe there's a conflict.
	Oh, I do, because of the Fulton County laws.
	The laws say that they- I'm not understanding the county codes, but I'm talking about as far as like- I don't want to talk about that.
	What the case law says, which is what the judge is actually going to.
	If there's no- What judge?
	Are you in court?
	You're doing worse than Abate.
	If you're not hiding that or against the Fulton County ordinances, do you believe that there's a conflict?
	If they brought it out and said, hey, we're dating, is it a conflict in your mind?
	They only brought it out once I alleged it, and they called me a liar multiple times.
	What I'm saying is that if they brought it out, would it be a conflict in your mind?
	Is it a conflict?
	And what would be the conflict?
	So in a perfect world, what you're asking is, if Ms. Willis had gone to the Board of County Fishers and said...
	I'm having an affair with this man, but he is brilliant and he would be an amazing prosecutor on this election interference case.
	Can I have an appropriations of $3 million and I will get it done?
	And she had said, and I'm going to go on vacations with him and we're going to date and we're actually going to go home to the safe house that Fulton County is paying for and he's going to be here for four hours at night.
	If she had said all that and they had given what they gave in Exhibit J, knowing that, Exhibit J, we wouldn't be here.
	Clip it.
	Shut up.
	You got any more questions?
	Your client actually has no conflict.
	Because that would still exist.
	Your client has no hard conflict then.
	Oh, he's got a hard conflict.
	No actual conflict.
	It doesn't matter.
	Your client's got the conflict.
	If you disclose a conflict, it still exists.
	If you disclose it, it's not a conflict, you moron.
	That you cited.
	If a person says, I got a conflict, but I'm still going to testify against you.
	I know I represented you, and I have a conflict, and I'm going to go testify against you.
	Conflict is now over.
	Absolutely not.
	If you have an actual conflict where your client is harmed, just because they disclose it doesn't end that conflict.
	The harm is in not disclosing it.
	You're just saying, I caught somebody there if I'm going to create something and call it a conflict.
	You cannot waive a conflict like that.
	You just couldn't.
	If your client is, you could not do that for your own client.
	Can you be quiet now?
	If your client is actually suffering harm.
	As far as how the prosecution is taking place, because that's what a conflict is.
	Just because she says, oh, I'm doing these things, you're not going to go to your client and say, you actually have actual harm, but she said it, so we're going to still go forward.
	That makes absolutely no sense.
	I'm sorry, I don't understand your question to me.
	You don't have a conflict if you're saying if she disclosed it, it would go away.
	Then there is no conflict.
	No, no, no.
	I did not say that.
	I said we would not be here if that had happened.
	Right, because you wouldn't claim there's a conflict.
	No, because...
	They would have disclosed it.
	We wouldn't be here because it violates so many of the Fulton County statutes and ordinances and the state statutes that we wouldn't be here because it wouldn't have been approved.
	This guy's worse than the bottom.
	But if she disclosed it, not the way you said it.
	If she disclosed the facts...
	It's disclosed now.
	What is the conflict?
	If she disclosed the undisputed facts, the facts that we all, you know, your side and my side.
	How is your client harmed?
	That's my question.
	Hold on.
	I'm trying to answer your first question now.
	So if we, if all the undisputed facts, if those had been in front of the Board of County Commissioners, we wouldn't be here because there would not have been a contract because it's in contravention.
	Of the laws.
	So we would not be here.
	I would not be bringing a motion because who knows if my client would have been indicted.
	Now, I wish we could go back in time and undo that and see, but we can't.
	And so, Mr. What case law do you point to to prove that?
	Oh, the statutes.
	No, it's not the statutes.
	Not Fulton County statute.
	I'm asking the Georgia Court of Appeals, Georgia Supreme Court, is there any case that says that?
	This guy sounds like Ian Copeland.
	It's really not surprising, honestly, because can you imagine this happening?
	I mean, honestly, in December, would you have imagined this happening?
	I think most people would.
	I don't want the statutes.
	I can tell you, I have found some cases in other jurisdictions, but I have never found a case in Georgia where, and mind you, this only happens in Fulton County.
	We're talking about Fulton County cases where there would be a special prosecutor appointed, because it's the only place that this happens.
	So, otherwise, maybe the AG.
	So, you're talking about a prosecutor sleeping with the person that she is appointing to do this work, paying exorbitant amount of money, not getting county approval, not filing...
	Is she paying him?
	Or is he earning the money because he's actually billing hours because...
	Well, he's billing hours.
	I mean, I don't...
	He's billing hours because he's prosecuting.
	He's billing hours.
	A case that a grand jury indicted.
	I would hope that he's billing based on work that he's doing.
	I don't know because I don't have proof of that.
	And the billing is very irregular.
	But I don't know.
	So, you know, I don't expect...
	Words do matter when we say that she's not paying him in that sense.
	He's earning money for a case that he's in charge of prosecuting that a grand jury indicted.
	That's where we are.
	You're correct.
	She is not paying him.
	The Fulton County taxpayers are.
	As they pay every prosecutor, as they pay every public defender, and every government official that actually exists.
	Employees, yes.
	And that he is part of that process.
	And he is prosecuting a case that you're involved in, correct?
	He's prosecuting.
	And he's been integral in that prosecution.
	Does this guy not understand how stupid he sounds?
	I mean, he has been very involved.
	Integral to me means that he is necessary.
	Senator Jones, are you getting close?
	Yes, sir.
	I'm getting close to anything of a rational thought.
	It clearly says in Whitten, Whitworth versus State, it clearly says, The prosecutor should see no unfair advantage in taking advantage of the accused.
	Grandstanding is all he can do.
	What unfair advantage has he done in this case?
	$700,000.
	I have a lot of questions about Whitworth.
	I would love a chance to read it if you have a few minutes just so I can actually respond.
	I don't have it in front of me, and there's a lot of cases out there, and I want to make sure I respond accurately.
	Try it.
	Okay.
	Absolutely.
	Thank you.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm one of those people on visual.
	I'd like to see it.
	Thank you.
	Oh, my goodness.
	What's the actual conflict?
	The $650,000, $700,000 he got paid.
	She's looking at this.
	But he did work.
	We're going to wrap up here in a few minutes.
	I wanted to let the public know how you can get information to us.
	Each senator on the committee has a separate email address for committee business.
	And it's simply the last name of the senator.
	In my case, it would be calcert.inv@senate.ga.gov.
	INV, obviously, for investigation committee.
	So each senator, their last name,.inv.
	I'm just going to talk like this.
	I'm just going to talk like this.
	And David Cook is sitting over here in the corner as the secretary of the Senate.
	He is going to be the safekeeper of any documents or evidence that we accumulate.
	His email address for this purpose will be cook.inv.
	I've had a number of citizens that have reached out and wanted to provide information or be heard.
	Including the waiter?
	Testify possibly in front of this committee.
	Oh yeah, bring it!
	We are encouraging anybody that has input or information that might be helpful to us to provide it to a committee member, ideally to cook.inv@senate.ga.gov because Secretary Cook will provide it to all committee members.
	We don't have a next meeting scheduled yet, but it will be no more than a couple of weeks away.
	Ms. Merchant, you may not be able to have completed your testimony today, and we may have to call you back for additional questioning after today, but I'm not rushing.
	Take your time, read that.
	Can it not be the first week of April?
	Cobb County spring break, please.
	That'd be fine.
	Thank you.
	Sorry, I'm going to cough again.
	Okay, yeah, no, I'm so glad.
	So this is Morgan.
	When you said Morgan, it didn't, it should have...
	J-Tom.
	It should have struck with me.
	I remember this now.
	So this case...
	She's going to destroy him.
	J-Tom was actually the district attorney when he first took this case, and he was not...
	Don't talk.
	Wait.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	I forgot the microphone.
	Look at the way this jackass is sitting there with...
	He took employment later on.
	So it's different than our case because he took employment later on.
	He wasn't actually paid hourly.
	He was a member of Prosecuting Attorneys Council.
	And I'm glad you brought that up because that was one thing that I didn't really go into earlier.
	The other way that counsel is usually appointed in these cases is the Prosecuting Attorneys Council actually appoints it.
	And that's what happened in that case.
	But they sometimes will pay an hourly rate if it's something that is needed.
	But in that case, he was actually the district attorney in another county.
	And that's what I've experienced before.
	So the two times I've had special counsel, it's been because it's somebody from outside in another jurisdiction that's brought in.
	The other big difference with that case, and this came up in our oral arguments with the judge, that's a post-conviction case.
	The standard of review is very different post-trial than it is pre-trial.
	We're in a pre-trial posture.
	And we talked about that because the judge asked us a similar question about how to distinguish that.
	And the judge pointed that out.
	That is post-trial.
	Post-trial we have harmless error review.
	It's not a great review.
	So, you know, it's just like ineffective assistance of counsel.
	If you stop the harm before it happens, it's a different review than if you fix the harm after it's already done.
	It's really hard to overturn a conviction once the conviction happens.
	And that's what you have there.
	But in this case, they never got to the harmless error review because they said that no conflict existed.
	I understand what you're talking about by the harmless error, but they never discussed that because no conflict existed.
	And you're right, it is post-conviction, but bottom line is...
	You really did not address the aspects that I was talking about.
	It's a conflict, and it's not me putting this case in, talking about a conflict.
	It's you.
	It's a case that you guys actually did cite.
	With that, Mr. Chair, I yield.
	Can I at least answer that question?
	Sure you can.
	We definitely cite it because we have, both myself and my husband, have a very strong policy of citing everything.
	We don't hide cases.
	So if there's something that's adverse to our position, we're going to cite it and we're going to explain it.
	We don't hide behind it.
	Bam!
	We cite adverse authority all the time.
	Adverse authority, but that's fine.
	He has to get the last word.
	The oral arguments that we did, we actually, that was how the oral arguments started.
	All right, so that line of question deals specifically with the legal principles involved in your motion to disqualify.
	As I understand it, you're not really claiming a conflict of interest between defendants, etc.
	It's the conduct of the prosecutor.
	Absolutely.
	Yes.
	Yeah, there's no conflict.
	Yeah, we're not talking about the conflict between defendants.
	We're talking about the fact that the DA's office failed to follow state law and get approval, failed to follow.
	Followed county policies to get approval of her budget in this contract, that he was not eligible to have been hired had he been disclosed because of, you referred to it as nepotism, but it's relationships with, and your complaints are of she's receiving a financial benefit of gifts of more than $100, which violate county.
	Yes, county and state.
	And we attached that to one of the briefs, her return where she filed it under oath, that says, I mean, it specifically says if you've got something over $100, you have to disclose it.
	Oh, here it is.
	So it's called the Fulton County Income and Financial Disclosure Report.
	And that says, and it says pursuant to Section 2-79 of the Fulton County Code of Ethics, that...
	Any time you've got each gift or favor from a single prohibited source in the aggregate amount of $100 or more.
	And then it says, for purposes of this section, gift and favors means anything of value given by or received from a prohibited source.
	Prohibited source means any person, business, or entity that the involved officer, so Ms. Willis, knows or should know is seeking official action or seeking to do or doing business with the county.
	So obviously that would apply.
	Okay.
	And failing to respond to your open records request and potentially giving false testimony under oath that your version of facts has proven to be true.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Keep us posted.
	I guess we'll keep reading the press as to how your case progresses, I guess, there.
	I'm troubled about this Find the Votes book.
	Are you saying that the prosecutor has been...
	Giving interviews while prosecuting.
	Discussing an ongoing prosecution and her prosecutorial strategy and indictment strategy...
	While doing it.
	...to authors of a book during the course of the prosecution?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	And that book has now come out?
	It is.
	I don't think I brought it with me.
	No, I have a copy.
	We admitted a copy at the hearing.
	No, it's out there.
	It was published.
	Shocking.
	Is that a violation of ethical obligations in some way to be publicly discussing, just like the public statements you made about the guilt of a defendant, etc.?
	Yes, definitely.
	And we allege that and argued that as far as forensic misconduct.
	It's very surprising, shocking, and I don't know that there's a ton of cases on it.
	No one's ever done it before.
	Also, we talked about it somewhat in our hearing because it goes into a lot of details about the financial troubles that Ms. Willis had prior to becoming DA.
	Tens of thousands of dollars lying around the house.
	It talks about that a lot.
	Is she getting a financial benefit from that book?
	I don't know.
	Is she getting a royalty or payment for having been a contributor to it?
	I have no idea.
	Okay.
	But I know her dad testified that he was interviewed for it.
	He came to the district attorney's office and was interviewed for it as well.
	And I think that was when her dad first learned that she had dated Mr. Wade, I think.
	But I may be wrong.
	Or maybe that's the first time they met, something like that.
	All right.
	Well, thank you for your willingness to testify before us.
	Documents you provided.
	We'll need some time to analyze and review those.
	And again, all committee members have access to those at David Cook's office.
	Look at the way the guy there, Harold, what's his name?
	Harold is sitting.
	We are not making copies or disseminating those.
	I will review the documents in more detail, and I'll confer with you, Senator Jones, if you're able to.
	We might can agree on what should be kept confidential there.
	I noticed some bank records.
	If it were me being investigated, I probably wouldn't want it divulged to the public.
	I don't think that's necessary for us to do, to do our job here.
	I do appreciate everybody's attendance, and thank you all for making time to be here on our committee day.
	Thank you for doing this, Senator.
	We'll keep you posted for the meetings.
	The meeting is adjourned.
	Hear ye, hear ye.
	We're not going to get any hot mic.
	Let's see if we see any hot action on the live cam.
	Here we can see Senator Jones.
	Oh, they cut it.
	I want to bring up something that they didn't bring up.
	Oh, yeah, just, you know, the average American just goes out and, you know, $4,000 for a vacation.
	I mean, you can't, there's no way actually, I mean, maybe someone could have come up with it in real time.
	Hold on, remove.
	They were taking two of these trips yearly.
	Is it here?
	Yeah, I just have to go freeze frame here.
	They were taking two of the trips yearly.
	Oh, they took three trips.
	They took three trips.
	Oh, yeah, so...
	A, this is below the, what this guy, the Forbes made an article that the average American spends this.
	No, the average American who can afford to go on vacation can do one of those a year.
	And they have to save up for it.
	And they might have to put it on credit, not pay cash.
	They took three.
	October, November, December.
	Oh my God, they took three?
	For a three-day trip, $3,000?
	Another three-day trip, $3,000?
	Geez, we're planning our spring break next week.
	And then she got two more?
	2023?
	Bam!
	March, April, May.
	My goodness, they take a vacation.
	Look at this.
	So October, November, December.
	Then they had to skip January, February, March, April, May.
	They took five trips within...
	What's my problem here?
	They took five trips.
	May, June, July, August, September, October.
	They took five trips in seven months.
	Am I missing something here?
	October?
	November.
	October to November.
	December, January, February, March, April, May.
	Seven months.
	They took five trips.
	And that arrogant, pompous, detached, elitist, pompous prick comes out and says, that's totally normal.
	Every American can just take trips like that.
	Holy hell!
	Sorry, am I screaming?
	Fannie is effing cooked.
	And you knew damn well.
	First of all, this was an amazing, productive hearing.
	Because in three hours of hearing, we basically got the entire Fannie Willis trial summarized.
	We got the entire trial summarized for those who didn't have the time to watch Sit Through That.
	And then there's going to be some who are not going to have the time to sit through this.
	Oh, this afternoon after I...
	Oh, let me hit send on my...
	Let me hit send on my email notes.
	Just so you hear everybody.
	I'll share it over at Locals.
	My notes from today's hearing.
	In the chat.
	Bada bing.
	Is it going to be able to get sent?
	Please enter at least one character.
	Dude, I entered an entire thing.
	Oh, there it is.
	Okay, here we go.
	I think it might be too big.
	It's going to be too big.
	I'll put it in the comments section here.
	There we go.
	Don't anybody steal my notes there, but invivabarneslaw.locals.com.
	Notes with links.
	Is it going to let me hit send here?
	Come on, leave a comment.
	I can't seem to send it.
	Doesn't matter.
	That was fantastically, wonderfully useful.
	Not useless.
	Fanny Willis is going down.
	Ashley Merchant is phenomenal.
	She actually, you know, it's fun to see this.
	This was more argumentative, especially with Harold Jones II.
	Thinks on her feet and knows her chiot.
	And those are two very, very good things.
	All right, everybody who's got a duck out, I can totally understand.
	I haven't eaten breakfast yet.
	What I'm doing before I go anywhere is I'm going to go through the Rumble Rants people, then the Super Chats.
	Hold on, I've got to get rid of this.
	My milk is so loud.
	Sorry, sorry.
	I might be screaming a little too much.
	I don't need to scream quite that much.
	Okay.
	I was amazing.
	Let's go to Rumble and deal with the Rumble rants.
	Deal with as in have the privilege of going through.
	Five trips, but remember, Fanny said she didn't even have time to take leave the office for lunch.
	Yep, and she didn't have time to see her dad.
	Five trips over seven months, but only saw her dad 13 times in two years.
	And hid her relationship.
	Maybe she wasn't seeing her dad because she had to discreetly hide her relationship with Nathan Wade.
	Oh my goodness.
	J-E-R 7 of 9. Juror 7 of 9 says, $100 rumble rent.
	Thank you very much.
	Thank you, Viva, for showing us this political chessboard.
	Ashley Merchant for SCOTUS.
	She's amazing.
	The minority senator was providing soundbites for corporate media who will play his statements and not miss Merchant's response other than when she didn't have the full Wentworth case in front of her.
	Ms. Snave, you're right.
	I'm going to...
	I'll go snip up and clip up that guy's testimony.
	You're right.
	That's how it works.
	Now you understand.
	They just get the sound bite out.
	You didn't read the decision?
	Now sit down when you're reading.
	Don't come.
	Arrogant prick.
	We got...
	Going back down.
	Okay, we got Denise Antu.
	Damn, is she good?
	He's throwing crap at the wall, hoping the heck that something sticks.
	Sammy says, didn't we just learn from Tish James that there doesn't have to be a harm party for a conviction?
	No one is above the law, lols.
	Wimplow says, this man is extremely stupid and corrupt.
	And I don't know about the corrupt part, but I'm going to agree with the stupid part.
	Metal Minister says, this guy is either or slept with Fanny.
	V6neon says the Democrat isn't there to make sense.
	He is there to confuse smoke and mirrors.
	He will conflate and confuse while running out the clock, preventing her to correct anything.
	Sammy says about the trips.
	Yeah, it was over $100, so exactly.
	Shut your mouth, Mr. Harold.
	Oh, yeah, everyone takes one trip here.
	They took five trips in seven months.
	Grits is green.
	Grizzetang.
	A family of four includes two adults.
	Dumbass.
	And a family for once a year, not five times in seven months while their relationship lasted.
	Sunbeam Valley.
	This is what telling the truth sounds like.
	No pauses.
	No, I don't recall answers.
	She knows dates, times, and places.
	Her recall is epic, and she brought the receipts absolutely.
	Edgework says Merchant.
	I would love to explain this in the way even you can understand, but I had the crayon surgically removed from my brain already.
	CSFL, which stands for...
	Comically safe for life.
	Typical Democrat.
	Ask and don't allow answers.
	Attempt to confuse when you don't have a hope.
	I've seen enough of it to know that this, as far as congressional hearings go, is the MO for the Democrats.
	Standard Red, him.
	I like my biscuits with mustard.
	Mm-hmm.
	No man says, 1904, thanks for showing this, Viva.
	Thank you all for being here.
	We were, I think, the number, top 10 live streams in the world.
	At this hour, I'm going to go double-check the tweet from Rumble.
	And that's only on Rumble.
	That didn't include...
	I love it because...
	Hold on, everybody.
	I'm going to give everybody the link.
	Share?
	Copy.
	Get this out of here.
	Let's go back here one more time.
	Come on over for the after-party on Rumble, peeps.
	Rumble!
	Come...
	Uh-oh.
	Uh-oh.
	What did I just do here?
	Come over to Rumble.
	I will read the Super Chats afterwards as well.
	But come over to Rumble.
	It's the good place.
	Where was I?
	I'm over here.
	No, I'm over here.
	Stop telling Merchant what she is saying, dude.
	Ask for clarification.
	Stop fishing for gotcha.
	Good on Merchant for not allowing the reframes.
	Edgework.
	I thought you were talking to me for a second.
	Finboy Slick in the house.
	I just spat on my table.
	You think they're going to come to Barnes help?
	For help when the IRS gets a whiff of this.
	I don't think Barnes would...
	Barnes doesn't take liars as clients.
	CSFL says, it is possible that this cash was from a loan she made to her own campaign.
	This can take back and use for her own purposes.
	This wasn't made clear.
	Do you have info on this?
	No, I think bottom line, she should probably admit it to having broken the law.
	Well, we got that guy in the end, Harold.
	he did his best cx max 76 viva does that rule prosecutors can't publicly state guilt of their accused before trial apply to litigious james in new york It's a good question about making public statements.
	Condemning the guilt during the trial.
	I don't understand how Leticia did not face bar sanctions for that.
	But like Barnes said, you know, who's going to go after her?
	They're all in bed on the same team there.
	What Leticia James was doing in my limited understanding of what's possible, permissible, ethical, under prosecutorial misconduct or ethics, it never made sense how she was doing it and how she was doing it with impunity.
	But I agree.
	But I don't know.
	Braindead dropped out.
	Birdbrain dropped out.
	Who will be Trump's VP?
	Oh, Birdbrain is in the Nikki Haley.
	Sorry.
	I thought...
	I misunderstood that.
	King of biltong!
	I gotta go to the post office today.
	Good morning from Anton's in Roanoke, Texas.
	Free shipping for your biltong.
	Biltong is like wet beef jerky from what I understand, but I'm gonna taste it today.
	With code VIVA on biltongusa.com or antonusa.com.
	Eat biltong whilst you watch Fanny get exposed.
	Gross.
	Happy hump day.
	That's Wednesday.
	And if you're Fanny Willis and Nathan Wade, it might...
	Also, it'll just be every day.
	I'd pay good money to see Willis and Wade's real-time reaction to this testimony.
	Me too.
	And that was from Alex417F1.
	They've basically gone and given grounds of appeal to a number of convicted criminals and convicts, I should say, in Georgia.
	What an awesome compliment.
	Way to go, Ashley.
	She was amazing.
	I was going to say she'll have an attorney general for Trump.
	Now that we've seen they just go after everybody who's in Trump's orbit, even senior campaign officials like her client, Roman.
	That's why they went after him.
	He was a politically valuable target.
	I think I wrote that in my notes.
	This is so...
	Oh, I hope to God Ashley has protection.
	Russ Portman.
	She's too big for that now.
	This is so clearly bad that fanny and media coverage will have to lean heavily on the racial angle for damage control.
	E.g.
	white officials do the same thing but only come after the black ones.
	Irm, why do I want to mention Al Capone as an income tax evader and to quote Bette Midler's first Wiseclubs, wake up and smell the audit.
	V6neon, potato soup, taint team gorilla grip, viva the story that keeps on giving.
	You know this looks like the yeet cannon needed to yeet family.
	Okay, these I got to earlier.
	Okay, and then there were a few more that came to the top.
	Donald Trump's VP, Ashley Merchant.
	That would be amazing.
	I can't afford vacations in this economy, but when I do, I manage to go somewhere.
	It's to visit my family, Denise Antu.
	It's just the detached audacity.
	Great show, Viva.
	Has Merchant accepted your ex request?
	I don't think she has, but I might be a liability.
	I appreciate that I might be a liability to some people.
	Ashley Merchant.
	It still says pending.
	Am I even?
	Maybe I'm...
	Dude, maybe I'm at the wrong account.
	It says I'm a criminal defense attorney in Georgia.
	I love my job.
	And then it links to Merchant Firm, joined in 2010.
	But it's Merchant.
	Her handle is Ashley Merchant, but without the T. Maybe I'm waiting on the wrong account.
	Anyhow, I don't take it personally whatsoever.
	I can't wait for Barnes to take on this absolutely five trips.
	But remember, Fanny said she didn't.
	Okay, so now we've done that there.
	So we can come out there.
	I will do the tips as well.
	How do I do the stop screen?
	And now we go up to the start ones.
	Scroll all the way down.
	I'm just going to go through all of these if we can.
	We can.
	An instigating factor in the fall of Big Fanny is classic Sun Tzu.
	If your adversary is of bad temper, irritate him.
	Very good.
	And also, you know the old one, Napoleon Bonaparte.
	Never interrupt your adversary when they're making a mistake.
	What's the other one?
	If you want someone to hang themselves, just give them enough rope.
	Dana White.
	Can't you compare how many trips they took in previous years to compare, to prove if it's normal?
	Well, I mean, you couldn't because you wouldn't be able to get that without a subpoena.
	Took me a few times to figure out how to spend, send a super chat.
	Will Dana White?
	Oh, Dave White, not Dana.
	Thought Dana White was in the house.
	Oh, you're from Canada.
	Well, thank you very much.
	It's good to see you.
	But yeah, that would require, you know, basically subpoenaing prior financial records to get that info.
	Whether or not you'd get it is up for grabs, I suspect they wouldn't have.
	Notice that from October 28th is one trip.
	Then they separate November.
	That, to me, counts as one trip, 7,000.
	Or it just counts as two freaking trips within one month.
	The fudge, man.
	I mean, yeah, every American does that.
	I mean, it's amazing.
	Oh, Dave White.
	Oh, I see what happened.
	You didn't get to put your...
	Well, thank you very much for that, Dave.
	I hope you didn't send two by accident.
	Viva, what exactly was this jury for?
	This was not a jury.
	This is a state...
	Stretch my butt out a little bit.
	Straight.
	This was a state committee investigating Fannie Willis.
	Now, they're not cloaking it as.
	I believe they probably have to have some legislative purpose for the investigation, which they clearly do, and they outlined.
	But they broadcast this on purpose because they want everybody to hear this because they're taking down Fannie.
	The state is taking down Fannie now.
	She's out.
	She's gone.
	She's out of this file, and I believe she's going to be disbarred.
	And I believe she is going to face some sort of criminal or ethical sanction.
	I know everyone says, you know, Dems are above the law.
	This is for the world to see.
	They broadcast this hearing for a reason.
	And it was to make the announcement public.
	She is handling him like a boss, says Ann Moore.
	She absolutely was.
	Get him, Ashley!
	Get him!
	Fire, says TLCG.
	WG, the fact that the minority party could have anyone to participate in this committee and the best person for the job was this clown.
	Some people have dignity and will not go out there and embarrass themselves.
	It seems that Ashley, not Ashley, um, Anna Cross either has dignity or has been yeeted from the file for blowing it open with the unnecessary...
	This all happened because of Terrence Bradley being destroyed on the stand by Anna Cross.
	All of this.
	I mean, this was in the works from before, but this guy is Dumber Sina Hawk Johnson.
	Who is that?
	I don't know who that is or what that is, but yeah, he was...
	I hope you see what he is doing.
	Well, now I'm curious, Scott George, what was he doing?
	How many deep breaths have we all taken now?
	This guy is stooping Fanny as well.
	So I had my theory that maybe Nathan Bradley had had the affair with Fanny, not Fanny Wills, Jocelyn Wade back in 2015.
	That was the affair.
	But there's no way that Nathan Wade would have known that and then still worked with, hired on Terrence Bradley.
	So unless Nathan Wade knew that she had an affair but didn't know with whom, and it was Terrence Bradley, and Terrence Bradley didn't like seeing the way scumbag McGee Nathan Wade was treating his former lover and screwing her out of money and disrespecting her.
	Yeah, then I think the more accurate, the more plausible answer is that Terrence Bradley was angry with Nathan Wade because he made him lie on court documents that now bore his signature.
	Facial expression to this guy on the right is killing me.
	Yeah, the two guys sitting next to Harold Jr. were laughing their heads off.
	Let's see this guy's text messages with family.
	Just kidding.
	Ashley was meant to do this.
	There is no shaking her.
	Absolutely.
	I'm thinking this guy is a DEI appointed senator.
	This clown is merely trying to hold her up for getting to court.
	Well, he was trying to re-argue what Abate blew it on in the closing arguments.
	And apparently, Fannie Willis was unhinged on Adam Abate for his shitty, absolutely humiliating, embarrassing closing arguments.
	This clown is merely trying...
	Oh, I got that already.
	Sorry about that.
	The two guys next to him realizing how dumb he is.
	Yeah, we all saw that in real time.
	Queening Mina says, "Why do we always try to justify negligence?
	I know you living the black code, but this is embarrassing for us who comprehend just fine." Throwing in the race card to all of this is just on there.
	It makes it even worse.
	Nobody went after Nathan Wade or Fannie Willis because they're black, period.
	It's because they're corrupt.
	And anybody who then throws in the race card almost seems to tacitly be trying to join those two things together.
	They're the bad ones.
	This guy is, was an attorney, so probably he was coached by Fannie's camp.
	Well, he did terribly.
	Fannie's dad is behind her?
	I don't think so.
	Well, Fannie wasn't there.
	He growls like a Tasmanian devil.
	I'm a few minutes behind this listening to IALTA account bits.
	I think we know why Miss Fannie likes cash now.
	No, the idea that they would keep it in their interest account for lawyers?
	Interest account, lawyer, whatever.
	Yeah, so they can just, you know, divvy it out to themselves in a low-income year so they don't have to pay too much in tax.
	I got that in my notes.
	I find this guy's line of question partisan and dishonest.
	No shit, Sherlock.
	I mean, the guy's a partisan hack.
	Liar.
	As a rep for your citizen's interest, you seek the truth, not litigate your politics.
	They were trying to re-litigate Adam Abate's failed closing arguments.
	Ashley Merchant is my new celebrity crush.
	Keep your schmeckle in your pants, Florida.
	I know you do.
	And you will.
	That's a beautiful picture, by the way.
	Those are some big-ass mountains behind you.
	But yeah, she's definitely impressive in intellect.
	That John Clifford Floyd III sitting behind her, I don't know who that is.
	How about Fannie launching a fundraising website after she launched her case?
	Problem.
	I am catching up, but significant other OSOX violation immediately comes to mind for how invoice payments are being done.
	SO, standard operating?
	This is bad.
	This was the law from Enron Crimes.
	I am shocked right now, says Julie O. You'd think Wade would love Grease and Pulp Fiction, but he's not a fan of Joint Iolta, John Travolta.
	Okay, I get it.
	Any criminal defendants in Fulton County that had cell site data used to prove they are dirty is doing a happy dance right now.
	Cases dismissed, says Dave Hardy.
	Don Frank, let's have some Nathan's hot dogs.
	No, thank you, sir.
	Keep your schmeckling your pants and your hot dogs.
	Nathan Hot Dogs are the famous New York Nathans where they have the Kobayashi hot dog eating competition up at...
	What's that playground, the fun park, the theme park?
	Ah, the chat's going to get it.
	When will meeting with Kamala House be brought since prior to Trump charges?
	That's the big one.
	White House behind the subpoena.
	Dude, they got to that during that hearing.
	Stu's Music Box says, "Man, I wish I had this woman right now doing research and phone mining against the sovereign citizen who used her phone to get commit for all of my gramps.
	Just wow, this woman is good at what she does.
	Absolutely." Lunchetta reminded me that it's time for breakfast and/or lunch.
	She is awesome.
	Book deal, movie, and should run for DA and go.
	She's amazing.
	wise cross-american downloading cell hawk right now i think i pulled out of the joke feng feng ruins charts well fan fan uh...
	uh...
	fan fan ruined uh...
	Hawaii Wild Cabinet.
	Look at the dates on the trips.
	When were they working?
	People save up just to do one of those trips.
	Absolutely.
	Caribbean Islands, offshore accounts?
	Probably not.
	Jeff DeSantis is a Dem Operative.
	I've heard this.
	Screen grab that.
	And then this is the most curious part.
	Why did Bradley talk to Ashley?
	So I flagged it.
	I think we now hypothesize why.
	He might have had the affair with Nathan Wade's wife.
	Didn't like the way she was being treated.
	I think more likely...
	He got pissed at Nathan Wade when he found out that Wade was lying on court documents that he was just asking Bradley to sign off on.
	And then Bradley's like, holy shit, I'm going to get in trouble with the bar now because I signed off on perjured statements, basically.
	Viva without an oath.
	Would that invalidate the indictment?
	That's the operating theory, but some people say it might not be so black and white, but that's what some people say.
	This lady is extraordinarily intelligent.
	Kat, thank you.
	Bam.
	Bada bing.
	Bada boom.
	How is she getting paid for all this extra work?
	She loves what she does.
	Fanny was recently seen in Argentina buying a condo through Adolf Eichmann reality.
	Oh, that's Merrick.
	Merrick.
	The Elephant Man.
	John Hurt.
	I see the same thing every time I see that avatar.
	I would love to see how he bills private clients.
	Not the same, guarantee you.
	I don't think he has private clients.
	There's a United Flight.
	Okay, so these I all got to.
	I all got to.
	These I got to all.
	Let me see here.
	In our vivabarneslaw.locals.com community.
	Okay, let me refresh this and we're going to get to the tips here.
	Oh, my.
	See, why isn't it letting me leave the comments?
	What is this bull caca?
	I can't seem to leave the comments.
	Oh, well, let me see if I can go do this in a separate post.
	Hold on, I actually want to screen grab this so I can show how smart I am.
	Okay, I'm going to screen grab that.
	And now I'm going to go to vivabarnslaw.locals.com.
	Post my notes from Fanny.
	Oh, now I can't even do that because I've got to go clip it.
	Everybody, I'm going to get to the tips in our locals community.
	Copy, but I'm going to post my notes in our logo.
	VivaBarnesLaw.locals.com.
	It looks like it's publishing.
	Bada bing, bada boom.
	Oh, Barnes is going to be on Mel K's show.
	What time?
	Okay, cool.
	All right, let's get to the tipped questions here.
	He's pumping out the hours for sure, says Carol Meadows.
	And I think there might be a sexy joke in there.
	Oh my goodness, we got...
	We've got Bill Brown showing us pictures of Templeton the hog.
	Okay, view tipped.
	Here we go.
	Patched Rebel asks, Viva flees Canada and its legal system because he believes it to be corrupt and reliable, only to arrive in the U.S. where he finds its legal system to be corrupt and unreliable.
	Now, it's predictably corrupt, but at least, okay, Florida, there's a little bit more state sovereignty, and the taxes are better.
	At least if I'm going to pay.
	You know, if I'm going to have to fund a corrupt government, it should not be with 50% of my income, but maybe 37% of my income.
	That was from Patch Rebel.
	M.P. Schaefer, five bucks, says, I'll give Viva a tip.
	Keep up the great work, sir.
	You don't even need to give me that tip.
	I would be doing this regardless.
	It's just the blessing that it happens to have turned into what a wonderful community we have.
	Dude, we had 38,000 people between YouTube.
	Oh, no.
	I think we had 40,000 people between YouTube, Rumble, and Locals.
	That's 40,000 people witnessing in real time to go talk to three other people.
	That's 120,000.
	Those three people talked to three other people.
	We are spreading.
	Not the truth.
	This is not revelatory information.
	This is just condensing, spreading, sharing.
	People know, and they have a place to go to get the information.
	In as much as you know, walking the streets of Ottawa provided an unfiltered...
	What did they say?
	There was no filter between what we witness and reality.
	That was what W5 faulted me for.
	We are getting real-time, unfiltered information with intelligent interpretation and analysis.
	And the aggregate knowledge of our communities allows us to figure out questions, information, problems, real-time.
	It's wild and it's beautiful.
	So he's pumping out the hours for sure, says Carol Meadows.
	Then we got Carol Meadows.
	Could Wade have been billing for teams meetings with employees covering his law practice?
	Double billing, county and personal practice.
	He was billing for sex.
	I mean, I'll take that bet.
	He was billing for sexy time with Fannie Willis.
	Guaranteed.
	In my humble opinion, hashtag not a guarantee.
	Ms. LaRue says, Viva, when is your new internet Bessie going to get you an interview with Ashley?
	Thanks for all you do.
	I don't push.
	I don't like asking for favors.
	Everyone's busy.
	Everyone's got their stuff and everyone's got their issues and everyone's working on their own stuff.
	So there's no expectations.
	There's no hard feelings.
	It will happen when the stars align.
	Mighty P says, Viva, you keep saying Fanny's in big trouble.
	What do you think the consequences of punishment will really be?
	This is Mighty P. I think she's getting disqualified.
	She's going to be investigated.
	I think she's going to be disbarred.
	I know it's a much less likely outcome given politics and corruption.
	She has to.
	Everybody has seen this now.
	She's undermined her own prosecutions.
	She's undermined her own convictions.
	She's undermined the district attorney's office in Georgia.
	It's going to become an issue of politics.
	Someone's going to run and say, I'm going to defeat Fannie, and I'm going to file ethics.
	I don't think you can run on that.
	I think she's going to IRS tax problems?
	Very likely.
	I really think this is going to be...
	Exponentially worse than just getting disqualified from the file.
	That's what I think.
	I may be wrong because I've been accused of being too optimistic.
	Then we got M.L. Wiles says, Viva Frye, who is Stephen Willis?
	The name was above Fanny.
	On the waveform from the White House.
	I don't know.
	Jeez, I have so many screen grabs now.
	I haven't cleaned up the screen of my computer in a while.
	Freddie York says, Wade finessed his way into the job by promising to leave his wife.
	At least he keeps his promise.
	Bada bing, bada boom.
	Viva and Robert are my favorite podcasters.
	R. Hack.
	And then we got Bill Brown at the top.
	Okay, so now I think we've done everything, people.
	Keep up the great work.
	M.P. Schaefer.
	I just want to read that one again because it's a thank you.
	So I think what I've got to do now...
	I've got to see if there's any more tips, any more rumble rants.
	Then I've got to get up and stretch my butt and not in the...
	Not in the fanny!
	I've got to stretch my ass, but not in the...
	Sorry, that's too much.
	That's crass even for free Viva.
	But let me see what I got more in the superchats.
	The superstar.
	Off topic, if you're interested in...
	Talking about a Canadian healthcare.
	My wife fought cancer for four years.
	She lost a battle in September.
	I tried to talk to you back then, Dave White.
	I'm going to see if I can find you on Twitter or check my...
	My things are open.
	I think my DMs are open, but it goes into a folder that I don't check all the time, and it's obviously spammified and overloaded, and I don't see everything.
	So I'll do my best to look for that, Dana.
	I'm very, very sorry to hear about that.
	Way up north says, how much cash does Fanny have at the house today?
	All of it.
	No, Fanny's dad came in and sat behind Ashley.
	No way!
	Hold up.
	Hold up.
	Viva Fry.
	When did they come in?
	This is Viva Fry Inception.
	Okay, hold on.
	Get past the ad here.
	What are we looking at?
	I didn't notice that.
	Was that towards the end?
	Okay, so let's do this.
	Get ready for some Viva Inception.
	Okay, here.
	Just because it's easier to toggle right now.
	Here.
	Okay, so the hearing was here.
	Okay.
	Okay, so I'm not...
	I'm not...
	Is that fan...
	Is that Fanny Willis' dad behind her?
	That doesn't strike me as me remembering what...
	Okay, so the seats are empty.
	Seats are empty.
	Okay, so we got that one guy.
	Okay, still empty.
	Still empty.
	Ah, there we go.
	So now, but somewhere between there.
	Did he...
	Okay, there.
	There.
	Ah, okay, there.
	There's a list of places that we can do, you know, do banking because they're regulated by the state.
	So now I see me.
	I have to go in person for most of my own transfers.
	They're not something that I can do, like online banking.
	I mean, it's a pain.
	But yeah, so they're highly regulated and we know these were deposited.
	Are we saying that that's Fannie Willis?
	I don't want to get accused of anything.
	I did not remember that that's what Fannie Willis' dad looked like.
	Okay, he's still there now.
	Okay, if that's Fanny Willis' dad, put it on pause here.
	Let me just go see Fanny Willis' dad.
	Fanny Willis' dad.
	Images.
	I don't think that was him.
	I'll double check, but that would have been funny anyhow.
	Tell you who wasn't there.
	Anna Cross.
	Tell you who wasn't there, Nathan Wade.
	Tell you who wasn't there, Terrence Bradley.
	My point was, it was twice the average price that dope Democrat quoted.
	Great stream, sir.
	Thank you very much.
	And then we've got here.
	Hank Jansen, Senator, Island of Guam is capsizing.
	I remember that.
	Like, there's brain farts, and then there's brain sharts, and then there's, like, brain explosive diarrhea.
	Has everybody seen that?
	Oh, no, no, no.
	If anybody hasn't seen that, we're going to play that right now.
	Guam Capsize video.
	It actually happened.
	Where the person was asking a question and thinking that they were the smartest person on earth for asking the question.
	Here.
	Brickhouse Nutrition?
	Okay, fine.
	This is an island.
	This happened, by the way, people.
	Widest level is, what, 12 miles from shore to shore?
	This actually happened.
	And at its smallest level, or smallest location, it's seven miles between one shore and the other.
	Is that correct?
	I don't have the exact dimensions, but to your point, sir, I think Guam is a small island.
	Very small island and about 24 miles, if I recall, long.
	This guy did his research.
	24 miles long, about 7 miles wide, at the least widest place on the island, and about 20...
	About 12 miles wide on the widest part of the island.
	Yes, it's a small island.
	I don't know how many square miles that is.
	Do you happen to know?
	I don't have that.
	I can certainly supply it to you if you'd like.
	My fear is that the whole island will become so...
	Overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.
	We don't anticipate that.
	The Guam population, I think, currently about 175,000.
	And again, with 8,000 Marines and their families, it's an addition of about 25,000 more into the population.
	So that actually happened?
	The whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.
	Can't tell if that was a joke, by the way, but my quick math, because that's how good I am.
	It's 212 square miles.
	I said 240, but that's probably just because the dimensions were off there a little bit.
	So, yeah, that was fantastic, something that actually happened in real life.
	What about the threats to Wade's wife?
	I hadn't heard about those.
	Who is that from?
	Pelican?
	No, Champ du Soleil.
	An instigating factor in the fall of Big Fanny is...
	Oh, so we got here.
	We did it.
	All right.
	If Fanny flees to Argentina, President Javier Malay will greet at the airport screaming Fanny Willis, Afuera!
	Yeah, that's funny.
	That was his famous video.
	Kamala charges.
	Off topic, if you're interested.
	Okay, thank you.
	I got that one too.
	Now let me go back because we probably have a few more on the rumble side and then we're going to wrap it up so I can eat something.
	Go to the post office.
	And then go fishing.
	If you notice, I was playing with a little...
	Check this out here.
	Playing with a little worm because I'm going to go fishing.
	This one I believe I've used.
	Either way, it's actually a fun toy to play with.
	Okay, present.
	Knocked it off here.
	Ashley Merchant.
	Here we go.
	Leave it up to the one...
	Okay, I don't...
	I don't want to get accused of racial anything.
	I'll read the comment.
	Leave it up to the one black guy in the room to take issue with her saying Wade is unqualified.
	LOL.
	Dude, Fannie Willis got up in front of a church, alleged that the only reason they were accusing Wade of anything was because he was black, not disclosing her relationship to him, and lying about the fact that he was being paid the same amount as Floyd, the RICO expert.
	If I was Bradley's, I'd be mad at being squeezed out of the firm where I'd get a third of a $650,000 contract.
	Absolutely.
	And then who the hell knows how they have to squeeze him out, squeeze him out with a fake accusation of sexual assault, where in addition to squeezing him out of the profits, they screw him out of $20,000 in escrow.
	Man, oh God, I would have Bradley on in a heartbeat.
	If anybody knows Bradley, Terrence Bradley, if you're watching, please come on for a podcast.
	We'll do it in person.
	I'll drive up to...
	Not so sure I would actually drive up to Georgia for this one.
	Maybe you come down to Florida.
	We'll meet at...
	We'll meet at the Rumble office up on the Gulf Coast.
	Beautiful office.
	I can stay there for the weekend.
	Take the family.
	Great show as usual, Viva.
	Have a great day.
	Jokel or Joke UHL, thank you very much.
	If I was Bradley Piss, yep.
	Amongstbook.com.
	Wanted to contribute more, but with inflation can only afford Pi.
	3.1415926535897323.
	That's as far as I go.
	Fanny's racist father must be very proud of Fanny.
	That her education of law was a waste.
	LOL.
	That's from under PSI 49. Blues Warrior, thanks for this, Viva.
	The more entertaining and riveting...
	This more entertaining and riveting than a crime drama.
	A thousand percent.
	Mitt Snape says, I'm wondering if Anna Cross did what she did on purpose, throwing the grenade on her way out the door.
	She definitely did it on purpose.
	The only question is...
	Did she think it would be strategically advantageous?
	Did she only do it because Fanny Willis said, you're going to execute that guy politically, judicially, reputationally, because he collaborated with Ashley Merchant, and we don't forget.
	Head of Broccoli says, au revoir, chouchou, you're out of here, have a good day.
	I hear worry about the SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity.
	If judges have judicial immunity, how could they rule against presidential immunity without jeopardizing their own immunity to do their jobs?
	I don't think they can.
	And the issue is that even in cases where judges have been found to have exceeded their judicial immunity, it's really when they are not acting in the capacity of judge.
	Really when they're not acting in the capacity of judge.
	Doing their own investigations.
	Like locking people up and extorting them for their own reasons.
	Like taking bribes to send people to jail.
	You don't get judicial immunity for that.
	So the only way SCOTUS gets out of it is to say Trump was so patently not acting in capacity as president when he did these things.
	Which is a load of shit, by the way.
	Just to say it straight up.
	Oh dear, we got our Mel Gibson spammer back in the house.
	You're gone.
	Okay.
	So that's what I think.
	Great show, Viva.
	I think we got that.
	Great show, great show.
	Okay.
	It was fantastic, if I do say so myself.
	So I'll congratulate me as well.
	I've got to pee.
	Did I pee during the stream?
	I did pee.
	I peed once when I snuck out.
	And let me see.
	And the dog has not pooped this stream.
	So we're going to end the stream with a little pee-pee poopoo talk to end the fanny.
	Everybody?
	Oh, let me see if I can confirm something for tomorrow.
	Let me stick around.
	Did I get anything more?
	Locals?
	You got the notes exclusively there, so enjoy that, and I'm going to go do my summary video.
	Maybe while fishing.
	You will not see me hugging an opossum, USA, now.
	There's a man holding an opossum.
	They're disgusting giant rats.
	I mean, I know they're friendly and cute, and they're useful.
	They look like the rodents of unusual size.
	Just so everybody knows what I'm looking at here.
	Stop screen.
	Share screen.
	This is from our VivaBarnesLaw.com community.
	My two hobbies are smoking marijuana and rescuing stray cats.
	I get the joke.
	The thing literally looked like the R-O-U-S out of Princess Bride.
	The rodents of unusual size.
	Except it was just a smaller version.
	It was a rodent of an unusual size, but it's a marsupial.
	So there's that.
	What was I just in the process of saying?
	Oh yeah, I distracted myself.
	Hold on.
	Twitter.
	DMs.
	Let me see if I can say it.
	can i confirm it Perfect.
	Perfect can start earlier if that gives a bigger buffer.
	See you tomorrow.
	You know who we got for tomorrow?
	Steve Baker, people.
	Steve Baker, the journalist, the blaze journalist that was just arrested.
	Yes!
	Noon tomorrow, Steve Baker.
	He says we got 45 minutes.
	So either we do 12 to 12.45 and I'll continue with the stream afterwards, or if he's got more time earlier, boom shakalaka!
	Oh, dude, we're going to make a difference in this world.
	So Steve Baker is the Blaze journalist who was arrested for his journalizing on January 6th.
	I did a video about it.
	He's got some stupid jackasses telling me, well, he wasn't a credentialed journalist.
	So when the New York Times journalist goes through a broken window, that's fine because they're credentialed.
	I don't want to swear too much.
	Kiss my fanny.
	That's what I'll have to say about that.
	Anybody who makes that bogus argument.
	So tomorrow's going to be amazing.
	Oh, is the Mel Gibson back again?
	I'm going to read some chat here.
	That is not Fanny's dad.
	Her dad is much slimmer and has a whole beard.
	That's what I thought.
	Mel Gibson, Clara TV.
	Attention!
	Mel Gibson, you go band now.
	Hold on, I just lost it.
	Ah, crap, I lost it right here.
	Boom.
	Get out.
	Forever.
	My point was maybe Anna Cross wanted all this to unfold.
	Dude, if that's the level of the revealing of the corruption, then my goodness, they're going down.
	Okay, so tomorrow, it's going to be an amazing stream.
	What day is this day?
	It's Wednesday.
	I don't think I've got anything scheduled for the rest of this day.
	So, post office, pee-pee, food, fish, in that order.
	Maybe not in that order.
	Seriously, everybody, thank you all for being here.
	Locals, are there any more, any new tips that I've missed there?
	I don't have Twitter.
	I did join Locals months ago.
	I really don't know how to get a hold of you.
	David White.
	Well, this is much easier now because I can get your email address from Locals.
	I'll do it right now.
	Forgot the tip, says Devil Dog Mom.
	Thank you very much.
	I'll have to go back and watch since I'm in HST.
	That sounds...
	I don't know what standard time that is.
	It's not quite 8 a.m. here, five hours early, so you're in the U.K.?
	Devil Dog Mom?
	Have you checked X chair?
	Pricey.
	But it's good.
	Yeah, I want to get a new chair.
	I need to because it really hurts my butt, this one.
	M.P. Schaefer says, I'll give a tip.
	Keep up the great work.
	Okay, we're good.
	David White.
	And this is what I'm going to do.
	Okay, I got it.
	I'll email you right now.
	Sorry about that.
	It's not an excuse.
	It's just like...
	Every location for effective communication becomes inundated and not effective at some point in time.
	Alright, people, we're doing it.
	We're done.
	We're going to end the stream.
	Four and a half hours.
	That's one hell of a stream.
	Tomorrow, it'll definitely be noon at lunch.
	The only question is, it might be 11.30, but Steve Baker tomorrow.
	Booyah.
	And...
	Uh-oh, I'm sweating.
	It's so embarrassing.
	Ending the stream.
	Thank you all for being here.
	Enjoy the day.
	And I will see you tomorrow.
	Peace out, peeps.

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