The Megyn Kelly Show - BONUS： Breaking Down Closing Arguments in Fani Willis Disqualification Hearing, with Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, and Phil Holloway ｜ Ep. 736

00:00:00.540 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.140 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.400 We have a bonus episode for you today detailing exactly what just happened

00:00:19.360 with the closing statements in the Fannie Willis disqualification hearing.

00:00:24.060 This is it. We believe this was their last chance to try to convince this judge

00:00:28.320 to disqualify Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade and Fannie's entire office from the prosecution of

00:00:33.500 Donald J. Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia, which could lead to the end of this case.

00:00:40.040 Both sides battling it out now in what? It was about three hours long. My God, the lawyers,

00:00:45.780 they drone, but you're lucky because we cut it down for you to the most interesting,

00:00:50.000 compelling points. We sat through it so you don't have to. Now the decision sits with Judge

00:00:55.740 Scott McAfee. He just said that he expects to issue an answer. That's what he said,

00:01:01.460 a ruling. In the next two weeks, he said he believes it will be two weeks away.

00:01:08.340 Let's break it all down. Joining me now, our legal dream team on this case, Mike Davis,

00:01:13.420 founder and president of the Article 3 Project. Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County,

00:01:18.040 Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located. And Phil Holloway, founder of Holloway Law Group in Cobb County,

00:01:23.080 Georgia. He knows a lot of players in this case. Mike, Dave, Phil, welcome all. All right,

00:01:29.100 so let me start with overall impressions of how that went. Phil, I'll start with you since you're

00:01:33.500 the local. What did you think? Yeah, great to be with everyone here this afternoon. So this

00:01:38.720 argument this afternoon, Megan, it went about like I would have expected it to. You know,

00:01:43.480 you saw the players on the defense side sort of mix it up. They divided their time. Some of them hit

00:01:49.220 some things and some of them hit other things. That's not at all uncommon. But they hit the

00:01:53.760 things that I wanted to see them hit, particularly with the text messages. The point was made, as we've

00:01:59.520 talked about on your show, that the text messages are substantive evidence that the judge can use

00:02:05.520 to decide that Fonnie Willis and Nathan Wade have lied to the court. They even talked about the fraud

00:02:12.660 being perpetrated on the court. That was a big theme. Interestingly enough, Steve Sadow, the attorney

00:02:18.960 who represents former President Trump in this case, made the point that, Judge, you don't actually have

00:02:24.600 to find that they actually did lie. You just need to find that you have grave concerns about the fact

00:02:32.400 that maybe they lied. So he doesn't quite have to go that far. And that gives the judge...

00:02:37.080 Brought forth, he said, the testimony... All you have to find is that their testimony brought forth

00:02:41.820 a true concern about their truthfulness. Keep going, Phil.

00:02:44.780 Yep. And so that gives the judge, I think, you know, a lot of room here. And of course, he's got

00:02:51.160 Robin Yurdy. He's got that testimony. He's got the information from the cell records. He's got lots

00:02:58.520 of things here that he can use to work with. And he said something, though, that I thought was really,

00:03:04.360 really, really interesting at the very beginning. I don't know if you all noticed this. But he

00:03:08.440 basically said about the cell phones, we may not need to even get into all that because I might have

00:03:14.260 enough to go ahead and make a ruling. Any lawyer who hears a judge say, you know, I may not need to

00:03:20.900 hear your evidence that you want to present. I might be able to rule. That's a signal to that lawyer

00:03:26.300 that the judge is already leaning my way. Okay. And so that was a big signal. I don't know what he's

00:03:32.340 going to do. He could completely change his mind. But I believe going into this hearing, Megan,

00:03:37.040 I believe that he was leaning towards disqualifying Fannie Willis and the rest of her team. I don't

00:03:43.720 know about dismissing the indictment, but I believe the defense went into this with the wind at their

00:03:48.880 backs. I thought before I get you guys, Mike and Dave, I did think on the cell phone evidence,

00:03:54.840 you know, the records, he was at her house overnight, at least twice. He visited her 35 times and all that,

00:04:00.240 not to mention all the texts and the messages and calls in 2021 before the affair allegedly began,

00:04:06.080 according to them. It was very interesting because that DA, that assistant DA tried his best

00:04:10.360 to dismiss the cell phone records as much as a DA who uses cell phone records to convict people of

00:04:17.080 crimes all the time could. And he kind of said, I talked to my best friend. We text 30 times a day.

00:04:23.460 It's not unusual. You know what? He didn't explain why on earth Nathan Wade would be doing an

00:04:29.200 overnight at Fannie Willis's house twice when they were allegedly not having an affair.

00:04:34.900 Yeah. The texting and the calling stopped when he got to the location near the, uh,

00:04:39.700 the Yurdy condo in Haightville. And so that tells you quite a lot that, you know, look,

00:04:44.140 there's no need to continue texting when you're already there doing what people do

00:04:48.920 in the overnight hours. He said, he said, you know, they didn't cross-examine him

00:04:54.160 on what he was doing. He admitted to going this area for the Porsche experience and they never

00:04:59.380 cross-examined him to point out exactly what he would have been doing for several hours at a time,

00:05:04.240 omitting the fact that we're all talking about the overnight hours. It's not like,

00:05:10.440 gee, you know, you're at the shopping center. You could have been in any one of these number of

00:05:13.840 stories. It's like, it's from midnight to 4am that it, yeah, we all know what was happening

00:05:19.600 there. You don't have to ask that question. Yeah. That's certainly how it sounds. All right,

00:05:23.340 Dave, let me go with you next since you're coming for at it from the other side. And I think Mike's,

00:05:26.820 uh, probably, uh, closer to Phil, but what was your impression?

00:05:30.680 Yeah. Good to be with you, Megan and Mike and Phil and happy anniversary, Megan. I saw it on your

00:05:35.180 Instagram page. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Doug and I 16 years.

00:05:39.440 It's really impressive. Congratulations. I, you know, I, I come at this obviously from a different

00:05:46.520 perspective, but I, I share your concerns that this was a self-inflicted wound. Like I, I have

00:05:52.260 always thought that this was no conflict. There's no proof of actual conflict, but there is evidence

00:05:58.180 of, of lying to the court. And if you can show lying to the court, then that's the ballgame. And

00:06:03.780 the one thing that Phil said that I'm unsure about is Sedao's comment that you don't have to

00:06:09.420 show lying. Just there's some evidence of chicanery. I, I'd like to delve into that more 0.83

00:06:13.860 because I'm not aware that that's a standard because I have not been proven myself that there

00:06:18.200 is an actual lie. And look, there's smoke, but I'm not sure there's fire here. And I don't know

00:06:23.020 which way the court is going to go. I have said originally Megan with you that I think that this

00:06:28.540 court is going to allow Bonnie Willis to remain, but it's going to dress them both down. And perhaps 1.00

00:06:33.620 there's a way to, to get Nathan Wade off the case without getting funny Willis off the case.

00:06:39.260 But look, there's a lot of shady stuff going on here. And I'd like to believe funny Willis

00:06:44.740 when she testified, but you know, the phone records and the lack of records for the repayment

00:06:51.100 of the cash and Ms. Yurdy. And I thought that Phil's friend, Mr. Bradley really just was so

00:07:00.340 evasive and deceptive on the stand that I didn't know which way that went. It just, I just think

00:07:05.300 the whole thing didn't need to come to this point. They should have just fessed up. They should have 0.93

00:07:09.500 admitted to everything and then recused Nathan Wade and then moved on. But this is a self-inflicted

00:07:15.420 moon. And here we are. Well said, Mike, your thoughts. I think there's no question. This judge

00:07:21.680 is going to disqualify Fannie Willis from this case, along with her not so secret boyfriend,

00:07:28.380 Nathan Wade, along with the rest of the Fulton County DA office. Remember, Nathan Wade submitted

00:07:34.940 a false affidavit to his divorce courts and Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade had eight other attorneys

00:07:41.760 in the Fulton County DA's office submit that false affidavit in response to co-defendant Mike

00:07:48.900 Roman's motion to dismiss. You're dealing with perjury, subvenation of perjury, bribery, illegal

00:07:55.060 kickbacks. Nothing has changed on this key crucial fact that Fannie Willis had an illegal financial 0.99

00:08:03.300 stake in a criminal prosecution. And all of us are lawyers. We all know that is very unethical. That is

00:08:10.560 very illegal. And Nolan's going to buy her story that her Black Panther father told his Black Panther 0.76

00:08:17.500 cub, Fannie Willis, to keep six months of cash laying around the house. She used that, what, 0.98

00:08:22.580 $10,000 in cash? And she has no receipts. And there's no evidence she replenished that $10,000

00:08:28.320 that she supposedly spent on these trips when she split these, when she went Dutch on these trips to

00:08:34.340 the Caribbean and to Belize and Napa and wherever the hell else they went on their, uh, their discovery

00:08:41.280 for the Trump case. One interesting thing about Terrence Bradley is both sides got up and said,

00:08:48.860 he's a liar. They both got up and said, we didn't, we didn't believe him. Nope. We didn't believe me

00:08:53.800 there. They disbelieved him on different pieces of his testimony, but he took the biggest beating

00:08:58.120 today. As both sides said to the judge, this is a lying lawyer taking the stand before you. Um,

00:09:03.640 and I think that was our impression too. Terrence Bradley did not do the right thing. He got up there

00:09:07.720 and lied that he didn't recall, didn't recall, didn't recall the messages he sent four weeks ago

00:09:13.340 about critical matters that have been all over the news. I didn't believe him. It doesn't look like

00:09:18.780 either side really believed him either. Um, I want to go to, I don't forgive me. I don't know which,

00:09:24.380 which defendant Harry McDougal represents. There's so many, but he did a good job. I thought there

00:09:31.120 were multiple lawyers on the defense side of kind of ticking off the number of problems, um, with the

00:09:37.640 case and then ended with a boom. Take a listen to stop 14. There are six different actual conflicts

00:09:44.220 of interest in this case. Any one of which warrants disqualification, but collectively practically

00:09:50.140 compelling. First, the financial conflict that's already been covered. Second, the personal

00:09:56.380 ambition, political ambition. Third, there's a dovetailed or complimentary pattern

00:10:03.600 of deceit and concealment of the relationship and the money. Fourth, the speech at the church.

00:10:12.940 Fifth, the motion for protective order that the DA filed in Mr. Wade's divorce case.

00:10:19.880 Sixth, the way the state has conducted the defense of this motion to disqualify, especially the

00:10:27.180 hearing. They did nothing to correct, obviously perjured testimony. In and of itself, that warrants

00:10:34.700 disqualification of every one of them. The reason they lied and covered it up was to avoid the trouble

00:10:42.400 therein. Boom. He represents Jeffrey Clark. What's his story, Phil? Yeah. So this, uh, this attorney

00:10:50.340 made a very, uh, I think persuasive argument and he, he checked a lot of the boxes that things that

00:10:57.360 we've talked about in recent days, you know, I give this guy an A plus. He's the only guy I give an A plus

00:11:02.800 to, I have to say. Absolutely. Listen, he, he did a great job and, and, uh, it, he makes the very good

00:11:08.560 point. Things we've talked about. If a lawyer is participating in a case and their boss, like when

00:11:15.580 I was an assistant district attorney, if my boss had told me that he wanted me to help further and

00:11:21.340 participate in a fraud on the court, I would have no other choice, but to quit. I would have to resign

00:11:27.620 because a lawyer cannot participate in a fraud on the court. And it's become very obvious when you hear

00:11:35.020 Ms. Yurdy come in and you see the Terrence Bradley texts and you, you have the actual raw data,

00:11:42.460 whether it's in evidence or not, you at the DA's office have all this cell phone data and you know

00:11:48.360 that your boss and you know that her boyfriend have said things to the court that were demonstrably

00:11:54.120 untrue. Uh, you have an obligation at that point to walk away. You cannot further participate in it.

00:12:01.120 So either they don't believe it. Where's Anna Cross? Free Anna. She is, she wasn't there again

00:12:10.900 today, Phil. She was a special prosecutor. She was brought in. She was the one who put Terrence Bradley

00:12:14.900 on the stand originally and then she disappeared. The email that I saw that, that, that I was privy to

00:12:20.960 was one from several days ago, but it was after the state's most recent, uh, well, the response that

00:12:26.040 they made last Friday, she indicated something to the effect that I'm going to be tied up for several

00:12:31.480 weeks with her own cases. Again, she's a private lawyer. You know, how many DA's offices hire private

00:12:38.340 lawyers to come in and prosecute cases in Georgia? It's almost unheard of. I've never seen anything

00:12:43.920 quite like this. So, you know, all that is just part of the big weirdness of this, but for now,

00:12:49.420 she's no longer here. She's not at the state. She's not at the table. She actually handled the

00:12:54.300 examination of, uh, Terrence Bradley the first time he was on the stand. And there was apparently

00:13:00.600 some discussion because when one lawyer starts the examination, the witness, that lawyer's got

00:13:05.820 to stay with it, uh, until that witness is complete. It's called double teaming. Lawyers can't just come

00:13:11.660 in and out, uh, in the middle of a witness. And so the defense was saying, no, no, we can't have

00:13:17.000 Mr. Abadi doing this. It's got to be Ms. Cross. But apparently the judge, uh, let them switch up and we saw

00:13:22.540 Mr. Abadi come in, um, whether or not. And she didn't even sign the next briefs. She's, she's,

00:13:28.620 she's removed her name so far from the pleadings. She didn't show up at either of the hearings that

00:13:33.800 we've had. I, I have real questions about whether we're ever going to see Anna Cross in this case

00:13:38.220 again, or whether she knows something that required her to step down as representative of

00:13:42.780 the Fannie Willis team. She was their lead. She was running herd on this. They didn't want this junior 0.94

00:13:47.160 guy running the show. And we all see why my God, he was terrible. I'm sorry, Mr. Abadi. Maybe you're

00:13:54.440 a sweet, sweet man, but I mean, a few more years in front of juries would serve you really well.

00:13:59.560 Dave Ehrenberg would not hire you. He might put you on the junior baby cases, but he would not

00:14:04.240 put you out in front of America on this case. Dave, you tell me that that prosecution rebuttal

00:14:11.480 was painful. Megan, Mr. Abadi served an important purpose today. He proved to the world why Fannie

00:14:18.080 Willis needed to bring on special counsel. That's why she had to bring on Nathan Wade. Right. So 0.99

00:14:23.700 you're welcome. He's going to say, right. He's going to return to the table, say, you're welcome,

00:14:27.300 Fannie Willis. And to me, the worst part was when they kept having to slip him notes. Like when the

00:14:31.720 client has to keep slipping your notes, like, Hey, you got to say this and that that's not a good look.

00:14:36.060 And the judge stumped him because he was trying to tell the court, you can't, you shouldn't believe

00:14:42.880 Robin Urti's testimony that the affair began in 19 because her lawyer in trying to get her out of her

00:14:49.600 appearance altogether represented to the court that she had no personal knowledge of anything here.

00:14:55.740 And the judge is like, first of all, the lawyer wasn't subject to cross-examination. That wasn't

00:15:01.060 testimony. And I can't use that against Robin Urti. But second of all, what's your theory,

00:15:07.340 young prosecutor, that like, what would have been the incentive for Robin Urti to say to her lawyer,

00:15:13.740 I don't know anything. And then when told, you've got to take the stand to suddenly come up with a

00:15:19.040 dramatic story. It's been going on since 19. I've witnessed it myself. And she told like,

00:15:24.840 if she wanted to get Fannie Willis, she would have said from the get-go, put me in coach. 0.93

00:15:29.680 I'm ready. And the lawyer was so, do we have that cut, you guys? He was on his heels.

00:15:36.480 It's coming in a second. I had secondhand embarrassment for him. You remember the

00:15:40.160 moment, Dave? Did you see it? I watched it and he actually walked back to the, yeah,

00:15:44.840 point taken, your honor, point taken. But then he said, because of the bright lights and the

00:15:50.080 national audience, that was his explanation of why he made that argument, that she didn't want to

00:15:56.440 be embarrassed in front of everything, in front of all the whole world. But it really didn't make

00:16:01.440 that much sense. By saying she didn't know anything?

00:16:03.420 That's right. Exactly. That was the problem. That's why the judge called him out on it.

00:16:08.200 It wasn't a great day for Mr. Abadi. He does seem like probably a nice guy, but

00:16:11.280 he got trashed on Twitter or X by people on both sides. And I think you do see why, as I said,

00:16:19.400 that, uh, finally, we'll have decided to hire on real, uh, special counsel instead of going with

00:16:23.860 him. Oh my God. I know. I mean, Anna cross, she was decent, but she seems to have flown the coop. 0.99

00:16:29.520 Now she's stuck with this guy. Oh, we've got it. All right. Let's play that moment.

00:16:32.760 What I would submit to the court is that Miss Gertie's, um, testimony was nothing more than

00:16:40.560 inconsistent at best, uh, based on, uh, what I referenced to the court, um, earlier as it relates

00:16:46.680 to the representations that were made by her counsel prior to. Are those in evidence? Would,

00:16:53.580 would his responses during a motion to quash, which weren't subject to cross-examination by

00:16:58.460 defense attorneys, weren't even part of the evidentiary record of the hearing? Again, I'm,

00:17:04.220 I'm just kind of puzzled by that. You didn't ask the question of Miss Gertie. What did you tell

00:17:08.540 your attorney before coming here? And then we could have dealt with privilege issues and whatever

00:17:11.520 else. I wouldn't, I mean, I would agree with the court. It's not an evidence, but it was a,

00:17:18.220 uh, a statement by, um, an officer. All right. You get the flavor. That's how it went on and on

00:17:25.100 and on. It was just painful for all of us. Okay. But let's talk a little bit about what the judge

00:17:30.000 said, because of course you guys all know as lawyers, that's, what's most interesting to the,

00:17:34.260 those of us on the outside and to the lawyers in the courtroom to figure out what he is thinking

00:17:38.120 and where he might go. And he had some good, tough questions for team Trump. I'll just,

00:17:44.140 just describe all the defendants that way. And then he had some equally tough questions for

00:17:48.760 team state. And my own takeaway watching the whole thing was this judge is likely to find,

00:17:55.220 he was wrestling with whether they have to prove that Fannie Willis had an actual conflict of interest

00:18:02.240 or whether it would be enough to disqualify her. If there were just an appearance of impropriety,

00:18:08.100 and he seemed to be maybe struggling a little to find an actual conflict of interest, though,

00:18:13.780 I think he probably will find it, but he doesn't seem to have any doubt that there is the appearance

00:18:19.320 of impropriety. And I think he's going to hold that that's the relevant legal standard. Um,

00:18:24.060 appearance of impropriety is enough to get you booted. And, um, and, and that's,

00:18:28.780 that already happened to Fannie Willis once in this case, with respect to one defendant who she was 0.99

00:18:32.640 going after in this case. And that person was running for office and she had campaigned for his

00:18:36.900 adversary. And she got booted off of that prosecution because of the appearance of 1.00

00:18:41.960 impropriety. And the state team, Trump offered up honest assessments that there had been some

00:18:49.560 smaller rulings long time ago that suggested you need an actual conflict, but they were in

00:18:54.300 dick dot, meaning it wasn't an actual holding. It was just like extra wording in, in these opinions.

00:18:58.780 But since then the Georgia Supreme court had actually held appearance of impropriety is

00:19:04.200 enough. And Mike, to me, like if that, if he, that, that legal standard, as you guys know,

00:19:09.800 the legal standard can make or break you. If he goes with appearance of impropriety,

00:19:13.840 they're done. There's no question. If he goes with actual conflict, well, I know what you want and

00:19:21.600 what you believe, but what did you glean from the judge, Mike, on what he'll do if he needs an

00:19:25.840 actual conflict of interest? Well, I'm, I'm, I am concerned about this judge. I mean,

00:19:30.920 this is a Kemp appointee. He works for Fannie Willis, uh, when she was in the Fulton County

00:19:37.260 DA's office, she, when he left the Fulton County DA's office to go be a federal prosecutor and

00:19:43.280 assistant U S attorney, uh, this judge donated $150 to Fannie Willis's campaign. So I think there may

00:19:51.320 be some, you know, personal connection between the two, maybe some affection that he has. And I

00:19:56.520 think that he, you know, he has to have a rock solid case in order to disqualify, uh, Fannie Willis

00:20:03.660 from this case. I think there's clearly an actual conflict of interest well beyond the appearance of

00:20:10.040 a conflict of interest there. There's, there's undisputed evidence that he, that she hired her

00:20:16.520 secret boyfriend, uh, and she, she hired him before Fannie Willis indicted president Trump and

00:20:23.720 18 others. The indictment is the key. She lied about the timing and, uh, when it started in the

00:20:29.400 nature of the relationship, but it's undisputed that she hired her secret boyfriend before the

00:20:34.440 indictment. And she took these trips. Yeah. And she took these trips. She took these trips and her 0.57

00:20:41.120 defenses that she paid him back in cash with the six months of cash she had laying around her house 0.98

00:20:46.100 because of her father's advice, but there are no receipts whatsoever. That's just not credible.

00:20:50.360 Especially when you look at the other lies that Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade have, uh, have, have,

00:20:57.420 have, have perpetuated on the court in this case. And then Nathan Wade's divorce proceedings.

00:21:03.200 Yeah. And that they haven't gotten away with. I mean, it's very clear he lied in his divorce

00:21:07.180 proceeding and the defense was doing a good job raising the fact that when Nathan Wade submitted his,

00:21:12.920 his affidavit, that's like a sworn written statement, not to be confused with his sworn

00:21:17.440 interrogatory answers in the divorce proceeding where he definitely lied and said he didn't have

00:21:21.220 an affair. That's period. It happened. But then he submitted an affidavit in this case saying the

00:21:26.880 affair didn't begin until 2022 and saying, um, she reimbursed me. Uh, and there's a, here's some proof.

00:21:34.680 And he included one set of airline tickets that she allegedly paid for. And they were doing a good

00:21:40.580 job of pointing out to the court that he said, even he said nothing about cash, nothing fell in that

00:21:47.640 affidavit. Like she, she paid me her fair share of everything in cash. The defense doing being very

00:21:54.040 effective at saying those two got together. They came up with a story and that's what you were told

00:22:00.460 this fake story. You know, the judge gets to determine the credibility of witnesses. And when it,

00:22:07.340 when it looks like witnesses are, are, are, you know, getting their heads together and deciding

00:22:12.900 in advance sort of what their stories are going to be, you know, when people, when cops arrest people,

00:22:17.160 they always put them in like different police cars so they can't get their story straight.

00:22:21.340 But it was so obvious, you know, that it was obvious to those of us watching that Fonnie Willis was

00:22:26.460 watching the testimony in this hearing, even though she wasn't supposed to be, she busts in the

00:22:31.880 courtroom, you know, she's mad as a wet hen. She's, she's loaded for bear. It's obvious that 1.00

00:22:37.160 she's doing more than, than just simply obeying the judge's instructions. And so it comes across

00:22:43.360 like they are getting their stories straight. The judge gets to consider that. And I think that for

00:22:49.720 a lot of the reasons we've been talking about, but specifically just the manner in which they

00:22:54.520 testified, he may very well give zero credibility and zero weight to this whole cockamamie story

00:23:02.020 about, you know, paying in this untraceable cash. I mean, that's just probably the worst

00:23:08.220 possible thing they could come up with. They should have just said nothing and been done with

00:23:11.640 it. But to come up with a story about cash, give me a break. Nobody is going to believe that. I

00:23:18.340 certainly don't believe that that makes any sense whatsoever. And, you know, to the point about,

00:23:24.820 I want to make one point about, you know, the judge having donated to, if I can circle back to that,

00:23:29.620 a lot of people in the metropolitan Atlanta area in this last DA's election, we really,

00:23:35.040 really, really wanted to get rid of the last guy because he was a terrible DA and Fonnie Willis was

00:23:40.840 the, it looks like the best shot to, to, to, to defeat him and to get some change in the district

00:23:45.720 attorney's office. I had a yard sign for her in my house, uh, right in front of my, my house. 0.95

00:23:50.300 Cause I live in Fulton County. Uh, but that doesn't mean that I thought that, you know, you know,

00:23:55.360 I think that she's done right here in this case, I've got lots of problems with the way she's 1.00

00:23:59.600 conducted herself and the way she conducts this case. And the fact that the judge may have donated

00:24:03.820 $150 is probably because he also worked for Paul Howard, the previous DA when he was in that office

00:24:10.000 and he knows how Paul Howard was. And he also probably wanted to get rid of Paul Howard. So I

00:24:15.080 don't really factor a whole lot of that in here. And the fact that the judge actually worked with

00:24:20.160 her, uh, I think that probably hurts her more than helps her. Uh, I think, uh, I think that,

00:24:26.120 yeah, I look that a friend of mine, who's also very plugged into this used to work down there.

00:24:31.540 He says to me, and I agree with him, the judge would not have really let them go this far in

00:24:37.740 getting this personal with these, you know, with lawyers, because this is really, really personal

00:24:42.920 stuff. If the judge wasn't really concerned that there was some slimy, shady stuff going on,

00:24:47.880 he wouldn't have let them go this far. So I think he's going to find not only an appearance

00:24:53.520 of impropriety, that's we we've we're well beyond that. He's going to find that there was an actual

00:24:59.180 conflict. He's not going to believe this whole thing about the cash. And you know why? Because

00:25:03.560 he's going to ignore it. He's going to believe that they lied to him in court. He heard Robin

00:25:07.980 Yurdy. She has personal knowledge. He saw the text messages. Terrence Bradley was absolutely certain

00:25:13.620 their affair began before 2022. They've lied to him. He knows they've lied to him. He's going to

00:25:20.040 discount their entire testimony. He's going to believe Robin Yurdy. He's going to believe the

00:25:25.280 text messages. He's going to toss them from the case. The big question that I have, I'm sure that

00:25:30.860 they're gone. But the big question I have is what's he going to do with this indictment? There's a lot of

00:25:36.080 reasons that he should dismiss the entire indictment. That's a big, big lift, though, to ask of a judge.

00:25:42.660 I don't know that he's going to be really ready to go that far. He might. But I think that they've

00:25:48.160 made a very strong case for removal of not only Fonnie Willis, but for her entire office.

00:25:53.180 Let me play some of his the judge's comments. First, the one I'll get I got one that will help,

00:26:00.240 I think, the prosecution feel good. And I've got one that's going to help Team Trump feel good teed up.

00:26:06.040 So the one that might make the prosecution feel good, you tell me, Dave, is he zeroed in for a

00:26:12.080 minute on those Terrence Bradley texts, which there's no question they were diametrically

00:26:16.560 opposed to what he said on the stand. The text to Ashley Merchant, again, for the listening

00:26:20.880 audience, Bradley represented Nathan Wade and had been friends with Nathan Wade and allegedly knew

00:26:26.060 about their affair starting in 2019 and had lots of texts with defense attorney Ashley Merchant saying,

00:26:31.740 yes, it started back in 19 when she left the DA's office and then became a judge.

00:26:35.740 And here are all the people who you might subpoena, who probably know.

00:26:39.680 And he had a bunch of details. And then when he took the stand, nothing. I don't remember a thing.

00:26:43.820 Who? Who am I? Terrence who? Anywho, the judge seemed to be zeroing in on whether,

00:26:51.660 like how damning those texts really are and whether they really impeached the testimony that we heard.

00:27:01.520 I'll let him say it in his way. But I was listening to it thinking, well, this is not great for Team

00:27:08.000 Trump. It's SOT 9.

00:27:10.080 Now we have that and it's in evidence. And what does Bradley do?

00:27:15.580 He knows that he's put himself in a position.

00:27:20.140 And if he testifies truthfully on the witness stand,

00:27:23.740 your honor is in a position to be able to find if you choose to, that both wills and Wade lied.

00:27:31.980 So what does Bradley do?

00:27:35.080 Look, you were an assistant U.S. attorney.

00:27:37.720 You know how this works when you have witnesses in this situation.

00:27:40.840 Mr. Bradley did everything he could possibly do to evade answering questions.

00:27:46.460 No recollection. Couldn't remember. It was speculation.

00:27:51.760 Anything he could possibly say that would cause your honor not to believe that Bradley knew when

00:28:00.420 this relationship started, I suggest they were clear cut wise. And the truth isn't defense exhibit 26.

00:28:09.660 And so if we take that view that he thoroughly impeached himself, that he did not give truthful

00:28:16.260 conduct, what's left standing? Generally, you would see someone who's impeached. Perhaps we have

00:28:24.180 some kind of core that you could point back to and say, that's the time he was telling the truth.

00:28:28.860 In these text messages, is it ever definitively shown how he knew this and that he actually did know

00:28:35.220 it other than just a assertion outright? Absolutely. Usually, if a state has a witness

00:28:41.060 that goes sideways, they've got them locked in. They've sat down with a detective and got a full

00:28:45.160 statement. We don't have that here. But what you have is a text message, which is a prior statement

00:28:51.540 of Bradley that he did on his own that was not given to him by someone else. The only thing that

00:28:59.940 the court has just noted is, how do we know he wasn't speculating? Because you don't have to

00:29:06.200 accept the fact that he wasn't speculating. The cases that I provided, I think, by email yesterday,

00:29:12.880 the first dealing with that, you can disbelieve that testimony and draw negative inference.

00:29:18.300 That's the Ferguson case. On Lee, the other case, you can simply take the prior inconsistent

00:29:23.500 statement as substantive evidence. It has the same value. And that's what I'm asking you to do,

00:29:29.380 to take what was the unprompted statement in Defense Exhibit 26.

00:29:36.180 So what was happening there, Dave?

00:29:39.680 This was the smoking gun for the defense. Mr. Bradley, Terrence Bradley, was supposed to go there

00:29:46.140 and say, yeah, they had the affair beforehand. Here are the text messages. I knew about it.

00:29:52.520 But he then decided to go the other way. And he admitted to essentially lying back then. He said,

00:29:59.820 I was just speculating. So he's either lying now or lying then. It reminds me of Frank

00:30:03.780 Pentangeli or Pentangeli from Godfather 2. Yeah, Pentangelo.

00:30:07.120 Yeah, that's right. That's right. Oh, Michael, I don't know. I think differently now. So

00:30:13.420 that was the smoking gun and the smoking gun misfired. And that is the greatest reason. If you

00:30:18.840 said, Megan, what's the number one reason why the state should feel confident? It's because

00:30:24.240 the biggest witness for the defense misfired. It was a flop. And now they really don't have much to show

00:30:32.160 an actual conflict, except for Miss Uri, who has been, according to the people who support the

00:30:38.180 state, discredited because of her bias. And you have the phone records, which we don't know what's

00:30:43.700 going to happen with them. And you have the cash, which, yeah, it smells bad, feels right. But there's

00:30:50.160 no proof that that wasn't the case, especially when he had the father, the Black Panther, who came in 0.71

00:30:55.500 and said, yeah, that's how I taught my daughter. So I'm not sure it gets the level of actual conflict.

00:31:01.420 And here's the last part. I think the best thing that has been said so far, Megan, is that this

00:31:07.420 will turn on the standard. If the judge says that it depends, it needs to have an actual conflict,

00:31:13.620 then I think Fannie Willis stays. If he says it needs to be an appearance of conflict, then she

00:31:17.960 goes. If the judge says we need to prove that there was a lie, then I think she stays. If it's just,

00:31:24.400 well, is it look bad, some nefarious conduct here, then I think she goes. It depends on the standard

00:31:29.820 that the judge adopts. He asked them as well about, not only did he say, what's the standard?

00:31:35.700 Is it actual conflict or an appearance? But then he said, proven by what measure? Like,

00:31:41.140 I feel like you, Dave, in your recitation are requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt

00:31:44.840 that it happened. That's not the standard. The lawyers seem to agree that it's preponderance

00:31:50.100 of the evidence. They have to convince the judge it's 51% more likely, 49% less likely,

00:31:54.800 that they, that they had this affair before she hired him and that they engaged in this illegal

00:31:59.340 sort of exchange of money without her disclosing anything. And I think they're there. Preponderance

00:32:04.900 is the easiest legal standard there is. They don't have, all they have to prove is that Terrence Bradley

00:32:10.380 in these texts was saying exactly what Robin Urti is saying and what we believe, which is that the

00:32:17.140 affair began before. And if you look at these texts and the judge was talking about admitting the

00:32:20.740 entire texts, all of them, which we talked about yesterday, he didn't necessarily have,

00:32:24.840 but now he may have them. Um, and the audience may be familiar with these now, but here's just a

00:32:30.480 couple of examples. Uh, do you think it started before she hired him? Merchant asks Terrence Bradley.

00:32:34.960 Absolutely. Now the defense, the state tried to say it's implicitly speculative. She says,

00:32:39.840 do you think, do you think it started? And so absolutely is only, this is what I think.

00:32:45.560 He ignored a bot day, the state's attorney, the very next line by Terrence Bradley,

00:32:49.560 which is it started when she left the DA's office and was the judge in South Fulton.

00:32:54.620 He knows it's not speculative. He knows. And then we go on. Here's just a couple of others. Um,

00:33:00.680 her whole motion alleging it had been going on long before she hired him.

00:33:03.780 Anything in this thing that's not accurate looks good. He responds. And then I talked about this

00:33:08.220 with the audience when the text broke. Um, he's, he volunteers to her. You need to subpoena

00:33:15.500 the original security detail that she had when she first became DA. When was that? 2020. That's what

00:33:24.720 that's Terrence Bradley telling her, you got to get the originally guys. He says it twice,

00:33:29.280 get the original detail and current, but you really want the guys who were there when she was initially

00:33:35.240 elected. Then finally in those text messages, those, you know, the 31 pages of them we have here.

00:33:41.660 Um, he says he doesn't know the name Robin Urte, but he's trying to think of people who might know

00:33:48.080 about the affair and when it started. And you can hear him thinking, gee, this might be a way to get

00:33:54.020 it. How about you do an open records request of all people hired when she took office and who were

00:33:59.140 fired around June of 2022. If you get that, I'm going to be able to give you a name. Finally,

00:34:03.740 she finds it. And he said, she hired a girlfriend. It was like a bestie. It was her place. They stayed

00:34:09.240 at. This is a man who long before 2022, that was all prior to 2022 and prior to her hiring him.

00:34:15.820 Um, he's remembering they were staying at the same home together and she finds it with that public

00:34:21.820 records request. Is it Robin Bryant Urte? And he says, that's her. That's the East point apartment

00:34:28.100 person. She was fired and goes on to say, she's her bestie. Be careful. She's probably still loyal.

00:34:36.440 This is not a guy who's just speculating. He remembers they were in the same apartment together.

00:34:44.640 This woman knows about the affair, but she's probably not going to give it up to you. And lo and behold,

00:34:50.100 she did give it up, Phil. I mean this, if the judge takes a look at the whole text messages,

00:34:54.680 like all of them, it's even more damning than the defense brought out on Terrence Bradley and what

00:35:00.620 he knew. Yeah. The whole discussion about that and that a body was trying to, he was trying to make

00:35:06.180 the point that we don't know, uh, how he, he has this knowledge that he purports to have, but clearly

00:35:12.440 he does. Uh, if you're telling Ashley Merchant and look, these two were collaborating together.

00:35:18.400 He was trying to help Ashley Merchant until very recently, he was trying to help her put together

00:35:24.680 this pleading that was as accurate as it could possibly be. And that had as much useful information

00:35:30.460 because he wanted to help her, you know, have a, have a good motion. He told her, go be great. You

00:35:36.100 know, you're a great lawyer. So go be great. And so he tells her who to find. He helps her find Robin

00:35:42.380 He suggests that she contact the original security detail because they know about the

00:35:47.980 affair. And so when you look at all of this in its entirety, and even a body said, look,

00:35:53.480 I'd need to, the rule of completeness means all these things need to be considered. The,

00:35:58.460 the text messages together show that he, you know, he's got personal knowledge. And I think,

00:36:03.300 uh, it doesn't explicitly say I've got personal knowledge, but it's a very reasonable inference,

00:36:08.540 um, that you could make. And when we're talking about the standard of proof that needs to be

00:36:13.800 applied in a courtroom, which is, you know, like a beyond a reasonable doubt. Well, that's the

00:36:17.960 criminal conviction standard. We're obviously not there, uh, preponderance of the evidence. You

00:36:22.520 know, it's just like the scales just go one way, just a little bit over the other. So you've,

00:36:27.400 you've got the text messages, you've got Bradley's demeanor in court. Let's not forget that the judge

00:36:32.980 gets to consider that as well. Uh, and there may be more trouble coming down the road, but,

00:36:38.120 but that's another story. Uh, and then you've got the, the cell data. So you've got all of this

00:36:44.260 together. I think clearly tilts those scales just, just even if ever so slightly, but I think it's

00:36:50.000 maybe a lot more than slightly. Uh, it, it tilts the scales in favor of this affair beginning much

00:36:57.600 earlier than Nathan Wade said on the stand. And then he said in his sworn, uh, affidavit that he

00:37:03.620 filed with the court. And if, if he's lying about that, the judge can ignore all of his testimony,

00:37:09.880 every bit of it, same for Fonnie Wade or Fonnie Willis, every bit of it, he can ignore it. And

00:37:15.020 then what's he left with? He's left with yourity. He's left with the substantive evidence that is

00:37:20.500 the prior inconsistent statements on the text messages. Are they perfect? No, they're not

00:37:25.280 perfect, but that, that goes to weight, not admissibility. Those text messages.

00:37:29.560 That's right. That's what the defense was saying. They're saying they corroborate. That's what the

00:37:33.580 defense is trying to say. It doesn't rest or fall on those text messages, but they are corroborating

00:37:38.620 evidence to what Ms. Yurty said. Here's the other thing, Mike, when I listened to the judge,

00:37:44.560 you know, cause you're always trying to read tea leaves. He did get into just how credible Fonnie

00:37:50.700 Willis might be. Um, it was just like a hint of it. Listen here in Sot 10.

00:37:56.760 Those are the things that this court can rely upon and say, based on those, again, I find an

00:38:05.180 appearance of impropriety. Where would be the limiting principle? Um, the district attorney

00:38:11.480 signs every indictment assigned to this courtroom. Does that mean she's off every case? No, it would

00:38:16.480 be when that, if I found that she's untruthful, is that what you're kind of suggesting that you don't

00:38:21.680 have to find again, I'm not saying you have to find she was untruthful or the way it was untruthful.

00:38:27.000 You don't have to make a finding of fact that they lied. All you have to do is make a finding of

00:38:31.440 fact that you have genuine, legitimate concerns about their credibility, about their truthfulness.

00:38:37.940 And once you find that, then you can apply register and, and, uh, Edwards.

00:38:44.100 Well, but it's the same principle though. If I have genuine concerns about her truthfulness on a

00:38:49.000 particular occasion, how do those not spill over into every criminal case a district attorney

00:38:52.860 brings? Well, it's because she testified under oath. And so did Mr. Wade. They didn't have to

00:38:59.040 testify falsely. They could have testified truthfully. They could have indicated that

00:39:03.940 the relationship, the timing was in fact, before Mr. Wade was hired. They chose not to. And in that

00:39:10.520 sense, that dishonesty, that constitutes a violation of their ethical responsibilities. This is not signing

00:39:17.420 an indictment. This is not filing a pleading in which both sides have their own positions.

00:39:23.440 This is a requirement that every witness has to tell the truth under oath. And if they don't tell

00:39:29.700 the truth under oath, or there's a significant concern about their credibility, then they're

00:39:35.260 violating their ethical rules. And as anyone will tell you, as your honor already knew from when you

00:39:40.440 were a prosecutor, prosecutors are held to a higher standard.

00:39:45.860 So Mike, what was interesting there was the judge seemed to be asking himself, if I find the district

00:39:53.460 attorney of Fulton County lied to me under oath on the witness stand, how bad is it going to get?

00:40:01.460 How many defendants are about to come in and say, I want to blow up my case, my plea deal,

00:40:07.940 my everything, because the DA is a proven liar. And you could see sat out, dodged. His answer was

00:40:14.740 not responsive to what the judge was asking, but the judge was asking that for a reason. What did

00:40:19.140 you make of that? Well, I don't think the judge even knows, needs to go that far. I don't think

00:40:24.120 he needs to decide whether Fannie Willis' credibility is implicated in every case. I think that the lawyer

00:40:32.320 was correct in arguing that Fannie Willis came in and testified under oath in this particular matter,

00:40:39.240 and she's not being truthful in this matter. And so this doesn't necessarily, I don't think it has

00:40:46.040 to spill over to every case before the Fulton County DA's office. He can decide on this particular case

00:40:54.220 that Fannie Willis was not being truthful. Nathan Wade was not being truthful. And they got

00:41:00.480 eight other attorneys in the Fulton County DA's office to submit untruthful statements to this

00:41:07.020 judge. And so this office should be disqualified. What did you make of it, Phil? I just found that

00:41:13.720 whole exchange. The judge seemed to be looking for a, get me out of a situation where every criminal

00:41:19.360 conviction she's gotten is going to get challenged. Give me a quote, limiting principle

00:41:23.400 that I can sort of, just like the Supreme Court does. They say, we're going to go the narrowest,

00:41:27.740 tiniest route so that we don't open up the new floodgates on law. He's going to find whatever

00:41:32.620 we find by the narrowest line of reasoning. He doesn't, he seems to be looking for somebody to

00:41:37.760 give him, okay, it's limited here because she was talking about her own love life in a case where she

00:41:42.320 hired her lover. It doesn't apply to all other cases where she wasn't hiring her lover and then

00:41:46.080 taking the stand and giving the oath and all that. Well, I think the judge just has to make his ruling

00:41:50.780 and let the chips fall where they may. Now he doesn't, he doesn't want to have to invalidate,

00:41:55.700 you know, every indictment. He doesn't want to open up the floodgates to all this kind of thing.

00:41:59.960 And I don't blame him. I mean, who would, because there's a lot of cases that are in that pipeline

00:42:04.760 that need to need to be dealt with, but he has to rule with the information that he's got on this

00:42:12.200 case. And so if he can find some narrow basis, he doesn't, let's just say he wants to, let's say he

00:42:19.000 wants to grant the defense motion. He could easily say, I'm not even going to address the issue of

00:42:24.080 whether or not they lied. I'm going to go ahead and say there's an appearance of a conflict of

00:42:28.460 interest and that's it. Okay. He can limit his ruling to that and he can avoid the concern that

00:42:34.200 he gave. I would have answered the question, by the way, Mr. Sadow did a very good job. I would

00:42:38.740 have just said, look, judge, I'm not concerned about all the other cases. That's your job. I'm concerned

00:42:43.980 about this case and my client and him getting a fair shape. This is about fundamental fairness.

00:42:49.080 This district attorney has not provided fundamental fairness. And without that, the system doesn't

00:42:53.840 work. You guys can figure out what to do with your DA. She's your problem. I'm just concerned about

00:42:58.960 this particular case. But the judge, I think he's going to rule for the defense. I think he's going

00:43:04.080 to find a way because he's no dummy. He's going to find a way to limit his ruling so that he doesn't

00:43:10.100 have to jeopardize all of the other cases. Now, that doesn't mean that the lawyers in the metro

00:43:15.920 Atlanta area who represent those defendants aren't watching this and aren't going to raise the issue

00:43:21.620 when they present their cases to the other judges in the circuit, because there's a lot of them.

00:43:27.400 And so this issue for Fannie Willis is only going to get worse. It is not going to get better.

00:43:32.860 And I think that she made a fatal mistake by not recusing herself early on. The first rule

00:43:42.200 when you're in a hole is to stop digging. She didn't do that. She kept digging. She kept digging. 0.75

00:43:48.260 She kept digging. And when she busted in there like a wildcat wanting to testify because she's 1.00

00:43:53.740 really, really hopping mad, she wanted to vent. She wanted to call people liars. It was not a good

00:43:58.960 look. She looked unprofessional. She came across as not being truthful. And she shot herself in the 1.00

00:44:05.220 foot in terms of credibility going forward with all other cases that have her name on those

00:44:11.100 indictments. Here's another, forgive me. I, my notes, I'm going through my notes. It was the guy

00:44:16.040 who showed up after Gillum. My notes read next guy. So with apologies to next guy. I thought next guy

00:44:23.640 did a good job. He, he ticked off the argument pretty well. He said, look, she was personally

00:44:29.420 benefiting from her position, the job and the scope of the indictment. Cause the more work, 0.89

00:44:33.560 the more he got paid, the more they see the world. We know Wade paid at least $17,900 toward this

00:44:40.900 relationship. That doesn't even include dinners, day trips, et cetera. So the numbers likely higher.

00:44:45.780 She paid him $1,400 for airline tickets. That's the only proof we have beyond her verbal testimony,

00:44:52.340 but all the wads of cash, this in-debt woman allegedly had sitting around her apartment, 1.00

00:44:56.720 even though she said by her own words, she was quote broke a couple of years earlier.

00:45:00.920 He said, Ms. Yurty, Robin Yurty's testimony stands. She saw them kissing and hugging. Don't

00:45:06.480 know whether they had sex before 2022, but they're the ones who decided to go right to the sex talk.

00:45:13.560 Whatever, Wade and Willis, that's a red herring. He was like, that doesn't dictate when the

00:45:18.240 relationship began, the romantic relationship between them. You know, don't be so focused on

00:45:22.780 the sex. Okay. There can be love without the sex. That was basically what he was trying to say.

00:45:28.420 Then he says, we can question Richard Rice. Sorry, Richard. Then he said, we can question

00:45:34.380 Terrence Bradley's temporary amnesia after Gabe Banks, friend of Nathan, whose wife works for Fannie,

00:45:42.320 happened to call him after it looked like he might be helping the defense. He said,

00:45:49.180 this was important to me. He said, your honor on the question of Nathan Wade and how much money he

00:45:54.360 gave Fannie net net. You asked an earlier lawyer, how much to be material? It was actually a good

00:46:01.380 question. He asked it of the first guy merchant, Ashley merchant's husband is there. And, um, he said

00:46:06.280 how much money would be improper. If you, if you do the math on what he actually paid for him and

00:46:11.900 what they testified, she paid back in cash. You still have, uh, over $9,200, $9,200 and $9,247 to be

00:46:22.860 exact. If it was $6, that would still be improper. Would it be improper where it's a per se disqualification

00:46:29.700 if someone, you know, buys their boss a stick of gum? Is that per se disqualifying? Cause there's

00:46:34.600 no materiality requirement. Well, no, I, I don't, I don't disagree that it may not meet a materiality

00:46:41.140 requirement, but it's a personal benefit. I won't say that giving back a gum is, is just justification

00:46:46.640 for disqualifying a disreturn. I think that's part of the issue judge. I think it's a fact based 0.97

00:46:50.960 inquiry by you. And the, the, the lawyer, John merchant struggled a little. And then the judge

00:46:58.640 kind of cross examine him. Like there's gotta be some materiality standard because what if I buy

00:47:02.540 somebody a stick of gum, they've got to declare it or pay me back or I'm, I'm compromised. And

00:47:08.280 the John merchant gave him that like, no, not a, not a stick of gum. And so then he said to this

00:47:16.120 lawyer, you asked John merchant about materiality clearly by any standard $17,000 is enough, but Fulton

00:47:25.580 County has told us that it's far less than that, that it's a hundred dollars a year. She said, she

00:47:32.320 twice signed certifications that she received no gifts. I think this is Phil, is that what they're

00:47:38.140 talking about? That she has to disclose her gifts more than a hundred dollars and she never did it. 1.00

00:47:43.460 Yeah. This is a form that goes out to all, you know, the, the, you know, the top officials in

00:47:51.000 Fulton County, all the judges, um, they all have to do it as well. You have to disclose these gifts.

00:47:56.080 Um, and part of the record that's been made, these, these forms that she signed were, were attached as

00:48:03.980 exhibits to this motion to disqualify. And it shows that she didn't declare any gifts and the form

00:48:10.180 itself defines, uh, the gifts that says you can, it's not that you can't get gifts. You can't get it

00:48:15.680 from a prohibited person. And a prohibited person is somebody who either is trying to do business with

00:48:21.060 the County or who is, that means a contractor. That means Nathan Wade. Okay. And so if you get

00:48:26.200 a gift from Nathan Wade of more than a hundred dollars, you're supposed to, you're supposed to

00:48:30.860 put it on that form. Now in earlier, uh, proceedings and in, in another format, she has claimed that she

00:48:37.080 doesn't think that applies to her because she is a constitutional officer. She is not an employee per se 0.99

00:48:43.740 of the County. In other words, she's not somebody that's hired by the board of commissioners that

00:48:48.200 oversees, um, some department like the, you know, the wastewater department or whatever that hands

00:48:53.880 out contracts. She takes the position that these rules don't apply to her because she's an elected 1.00

00:48:59.160 constitutional official. Nevertheless, the County says that she does, and they want her to fill out

00:49:04.620 those forms. And when she did, she didn't declare any of these things. So if the judge has the

00:49:10.080 point is, the point is Dave, that it, that even if they apply to her, they don't, it sets a standard

00:49:15.400 for what the officials in Georgia think is a material amount of money that would be changing

00:49:19.620 hands between, you know, a public official and an outside contractor or constituent. And they set it

00:49:25.380 very low at a hundred. And this is what he went on to say the following. Listen to this. Her explanation

00:49:30.140 about cash does not stand to reason. Anyone who's ever been at a money laundering trial. Uh, and when

00:49:36.160 this cash thing is used, we laugh. I thought of you and I thought of this judge, you're a prosecutor.

00:49:42.360 This judge was a prosecutor. He was an assistant U S attorney and a DA. Do you think that's true?

00:49:46.760 That statement? Yes. And I used to work in the money laundering area when I worked at treasury.

00:49:51.800 So yeah, that's why I had to laugh, but I do have experience when it comes to these gift forms. We all

00:49:56.180 have a version of them in Florida as the DA, I have to submit my own gift forms. And what happens is

00:50:01.900 if I am in a relationship with someone and you give gifts back and forth and I'm reimbursing,

00:50:08.280 I'm giving cash and it's almost Dutch. It's almost even Steven, you don't have to fill out a gift form.

00:50:13.680 Even if he paid for a cruise for me, I wouldn't have to report it. If I then gave him half the

00:50:19.880 money in cash. And so along with her explanation, even though it may be far fetched, it comes with the

00:50:26.240 benefit that she does not have to fill out that form. Dave's hiding cash. I think we've just

00:50:33.080 gotten an admission. He's gotten gifts and he hasn't disclosed. No, no, no, never. Just kidding.

00:50:39.280 Mike, what about the lawyer went on to say the following? The only explanation she gave was

00:50:44.560 sometimes I go to Publix and I withdraw an extra 50. We've all done that. When you go to the grocery

00:50:49.940 store and you pay for your bill, your bill's a hundred bucks, and then you can withdraw cash right

00:50:53.900 there. And you say, add another 50 bucks on there, but it's, there would be a transaction record.

00:50:58.520 Like that's all knowable and you would see it. There would be a receipt of it if you wanted to

00:51:02.940 produce such a thing. And there would be a lot of receipts of it. If you had what's half of $17,000,

00:51:10.720 you know, $8,500 stocked away in cash from your little $50 public fund. Um, and he said they didn't

00:51:20.100 show it with any, any documentation. They didn't show one withdrawal of $50. This is something you've

00:51:25.620 been saying from the beginning. Yeah. I mean, there would be like close to 200 of those $50

00:51:32.140 withdrawals from Publix. If Fannie Willis were telling the truth about following the advice of

00:51:38.360 her black Panther father and keeping six months of cash laying around the house, like a drug dealer 0.92

00:51:44.280 or a prostitute. I mean, it's just absurd on its face, this whole argument she's making.

00:51:51.180 She's lying. She's clearly lying. She's clearly perjured herself with the court to come up with

00:51:57.420 this bogus explanation. Like you guys said, why wouldn't they have put this in the affidavit to

00:52:03.040 the court, this whole cash theory in the affidavit? Yes. Very relevant.

00:52:09.180 Yes. That's a very good question. The defense did a very good job of calling out Nathan Wade.

00:52:13.460 This is your big chance. You're about to get kicked off this case. You're being publicly

00:52:17.140 humiliated. So is your girlfriend. Why wouldn't you put in the affidavit? She reimbursed me. This

00:52:21.860 isn't much ado about nothing. She gave me half the money. She's given me nine grand almost in cash.

00:52:27.820 That's how we operate. Nope. Didn't pop up magically until they took the stand. And we know he already

00:52:34.180 lied under oath. We know for a fact he lied in his divorce proceeding and there's no reason to believe

00:52:40.280 he didn't lie in this proceeding too. What about his affair with Fannie Willis? It's exactly the same

00:52:44.920 subject matter. Both times. He definitely lied about it under oath in his divorce proceeding.

00:52:49.040 And we believe he definitely lied about it in this proceeding here. I showed you a little bit

00:52:53.980 about of a bate. I feel that's all the audience needs to see. We've represented his attempts pretty

00:53:00.540 well, but we're not in the business of boring people. Um, what was interesting was Sadow got up there

00:53:05.460 and gave rebuttals weren't allowed, but the, the, the team Trump had reserved five minutes just to sort

00:53:10.140 of get up and say what they wanted to say at the end. Here's a, here's a little bit of how it ended.

00:53:14.120 It was pretty good. The only way that Wade can walk, I'm sorry. The only way that Bradley can walk

00:53:19.660 away from the very little time. So I'll skip that. Let's go to something motive. That's an issue.

00:53:28.460 Whose motive in this case is the strongest Bonnie Willis, Nathan Wade, because if they,

00:53:40.160 if they testify truthfully on every point, what happens if the relationship started before November

00:53:50.000 1st, they get disqualified. Who has the best motive of anyone to lie? They do. Who has

00:53:58.360 the most at stake to lie? They do. Who wants to stay on this case for whatever the financial reason

00:54:05.600 may be? They do. So I guess it's Sadow. He was very good, very effective. And that was the final

00:54:15.180 word. Um, can, can we spend just one minute on the other argument? Because we really haven't spent a lot

00:54:20.280 of time on the second argument to get her booted. And that has to do with her public statements,

00:54:25.960 her statement before the church saying they played the race card. Why are they going after the one 0.80

00:54:31.620 black attorney I brought in? He's good enough for the white attorney in Costco, but he's not good 0.97

00:54:35.740 enough for this jurisdiction. And, um, Oh, do we have it? Yeah. I think, uh, yeah. Yeah. Is it

00:54:43.240 saw 22 team? I think it is. Yeah. Listen, listen here. This, this is, this caused a lot of headaches

00:54:49.220 for her. Why does commissioner Thorne and so many others question my decision in a special

00:54:55.340 council? I appointed three special council. This is my right to do paid them all the same hourly rate. 0.78

00:55:03.320 They only attack one. First thing they say, Oh, she don't play the race card now, but no God, 1.00

00:55:11.080 isn't it them who's playing the race card when they only question one? Why are they so surprised

00:55:17.860 that a diverse team that I assembled your child can accomplish extraordinary things? God, wasn't

00:55:26.780 it them that attacked this lawyer of impeccable credentials? How come God, the same black man 1.00

00:55:33.400 I hired was acceptable when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate?

00:55:41.080 Oh, y'all ain't hear me. Why is the white male Republicans judgment good enough, but the black 1.00

00:55:48.580 female Democrats not? Okay. So we haven't given this enough attention, but the defense is also saying

00:55:56.900 that's a disqualification right there, that you're not allowed to impugn the defendant publicly in this

00:56:03.680 way, suggesting the defense says that they're racists or sexists, or they said they played the rate,

00:56:10.100 she played the race card and the God card. Like I'm God's child. And also that she was out there

00:56:14.680 going, I get convictions in 95% of the cases. Telegraphing says the defense, they're guilty.

00:56:22.460 I was surprised at how much airtime the defense gave that argument at this thing. It's suggested

00:56:28.840 to me, they actually think they're onto something. I don't know if they are. The judge seemed to be

00:56:35.100 saying, Hey, the, you know, or the, the, the prosecutor kept saying the only cases in which

00:56:39.160 DAs get disqualified Phil for doing these kinds of statements is when they're out there going,

00:56:43.300 he's guilty. He did it. And he was pointing out, um, like it has to be that egregious. So what did

00:56:49.660 you make of that second argument? Yeah, I think it's a good argument. Actually. I don't think it has

00:56:54.000 to be that egregious. When she went down to that church, uh, she was talking, it was, it was in

00:56:59.140 response to Ashley Merchant on behalf of Mr. Roman. It was in response to that filing. And so what

00:57:04.940 she's doing is she's saying these things that are derogatory about Michael Roman. Okay. And so these

00:57:11.620 people sitting in those pews, this is the jury pool. This is the actual jury pool, uh, that people

00:57:18.620 in the Fulton County Superior Court, they get their jurors from, you know, is from this area. So she's

00:57:23.920 down there in the well of the church, uh, in a house of God. And she's, she's saying these negative

00:57:30.200 things about Michael Roman, who she's also prosecuting. She's calling him a racist, uh, and

00:57:35.800 all these other things. And it was improper. You're not supposed to try your case on the courthouse

00:57:41.880 steps. And that means, uh, you're not supposed to defend motion. Uh, when you have a motion filed

00:57:48.740 against it, you're not supposed to go and, uh, argue your motion before the church on Sunday.

00:57:54.720 You're just like, you're not supposed to, you know, argue your case to a jury outside of the

00:57:59.620 courtroom. The same thing applies. I think it's a very good argument, but it doesn't stop with the

00:58:04.560 church, Megan. It's, it's more than that. It's the stuff in the books. It's the stuff in all the

00:58:09.520 other media appearances. She had like thousands and thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars 0.96

00:58:14.800 that were spent on a media monitoring company. So she could boost and monitor her public profile

00:58:21.780 as this case proceeded. She sent them, she signed the contract with them right when she started this

00:58:27.580 prosecution. It was so that she could become famous so that she could watch her star rise because it's 0.97

00:58:34.760 part of her political ambition. She's using this case, not only to enrich herself financially, 0.74

00:58:40.960 she's doing it to enrich herself politically. She's getting herself ready for whatever she thinks the 1.00

00:58:46.800 next step is in her political career. Here's another one. Uh, this is an interview she gave in

00:58:52.520 September, 2023. Listen, it's been very troubling. I've become very private about my family because of

00:59:00.440 the threats. Um, I have 20 year olds, you know, they've doxed them. They've doxed my father. They've,

00:59:06.140 um, explain to people what that means. So what doxing is, and in particular, just recently on a

00:59:10.680 Russian website, y'all figure out why Russia would be interested. Um, they put the information,

00:59:17.140 not only of me and my home address, but also some of my loved ones addresses, um, said a lot of racial

00:59:22.520 things. I've been called the N word so many times that I don't even think I hear it anymore. Um, but a lot

00:59:28.040 of ugly and nasty things about me, but just with the purpose of you should go and intimidate and 0.78

00:59:33.040 threaten this person and their family because of certain prosecutions.

00:59:40.000 Hmm. Okay. So that's, that's what led Sedao to go in there. It was really more about,

00:59:47.120 he was focused on that church speech, but they focused on all of her extrajudicial statements,

00:59:52.280 all of her out of court statements, but here, listen to Sedao trying to make the point,

00:59:55.120 how out of line she was in SOT 7.

00:59:57.140 It was a calculated determination by Ms. Wills to prejudice the defendants and their council.

01:00:05.160 How so? By making an issue out of the fact that the person that was challenged in the Roman motion

01:00:11.620 was black without telling the public or the church members or anyone for that matter, that the reason

01:00:20.620 that Mr. Wade was being challenged was not because he was black had nothing to do with race. It had to

01:00:28.760 do with the relationship that had been alleged and later admitted to by

01:00:34.780 Ms. Merchant. Now that was a violation of the professional rules of conduct. It was a violation

01:00:42.700 of 3.8 G. There's no question about it. Can you think of anything more that would heighten public

01:00:52.440 condemnation of the defendants than alleging that defense counsel and the defendants were making

01:00:59.340 their motion based on race and religion? That's as bad as it gets in Fulton County.

01:01:07.440 Hmm. What'd you make of that, Dave?

01:01:08.980 I think it's a lousy argument to get someone disqualified. I think that's an argument to

01:01:14.780 have someone possibly sanctioned by the bar. I don't think it should be sanctioned, but

01:01:18.900 it's a legitimate issue before the Georgia bar. But to disqualify her entire office because 1.00

01:01:24.700 of her comments at the church, I think that is a bridge way too far and it's not going to work here.

01:01:30.440 They do have some strong arguments that perhaps there was some lying going on and that could bounce

01:01:34.600 them. But as far as bouncing them, because she was telling the church without mentioning the

01:01:40.820 defendant by name and without saying he's guilty, but by saying that it is interesting how the same

01:01:46.440 special prosecutor who is now being condemned, who was getting paid twice as much when he worked for

01:01:52.300 a white Republican. It's interesting. No one had a problem then. Yeah. I know that is a difficult

01:01:58.180 conversation to hear, but it does not warrant disqualifying her entire office from this case

01:02:04.960 and reassigning it to another prosecutor in a different circuit. I think I agree with you on

01:02:10.380 that. I don't think that's their strongest argument at all. It's probably why it was second. I would,

01:02:15.140 and then I, as I said, I was surprised to see it take a such a major role at this hearing,

01:02:18.640 but we'll see whether the judge was persuaded at all by that. Okay. So I think we've covered

01:02:24.520 everything. Um, I think we're all on the same page, which is, I don't know, what's the percentage?

01:02:29.680 Let's go do it that way. Cause I think we all think there's disqualification is likely. Um,

01:02:34.600 what's the percentage odds, Phil, that it happens that she and Nathan Wade and her office get booted.

01:02:42.620 Yeah. Well, if she gets booted, everybody beneath her gets booted. So I'm probably at around 80 to 85%. 0.65

01:02:49.200 I would say, I think the odds are pretty good. I do think the judge is going to do it. I think he's

01:02:54.400 going to find the narrowest possible grounds to do it. Judges like to take the easy way when they

01:02:58.920 can find one and I don't blame them, but I do think it's about 85%. How about you, Mike?

01:03:06.120 If this judge does his job and follows the law, it should be a hundred percent.

01:03:12.260 Okay. Should be. I mean, I see your point so far. I've liked judge McAfee, but I see your,

01:03:18.380 your point is yes, he's a Republican, but he's, he was appointed by somebody who can't stand Trump,

01:03:23.360 a Republican who can't stand Trump. This is a problem for Trump is like, he's got Democrats

01:03:26.920 who can't stand him. Then there's a contingency within the Republican party, like never Trumpers

01:03:30.760 or people just don't like Trump that can't stand. So it's like, you need to find almost just like

01:03:35.700 an open-minded person to try your case. I know so far, this judge, I think deserves the benefit

01:03:40.780 of the doubt. I'm not worried about that $150 payment for the reasons Phil said. So we'll see.

01:03:44.920 I mean, we have to see how he reasons. All right, Dave, bringing it in, um, third base here.

01:03:49.180 What do you, what are the percentage odds that Fannie, Nathan and Fannie's office go?

01:03:54.160 I'm going to split hairs here. I think Nathan Wade, 80%, he gets bound 85%, 90%. He gets bounced. Um,

01:04:03.120 but as far as Fannie Willis, I think 50, 50, and you may be wondering how does one get bounced,

01:04:08.340 but not the other. I think the judge could, uh, could split that hair and actually say that

01:04:14.180 for the appearances of impropriety, for all these reasons, he should not be part of the case.

01:04:18.640 Fannie Willis, you need to remove him from the case, but because I have not established that

01:04:22.200 there has been an actual conflict involving you, I'm going to allow you to remain on the case,

01:04:27.080 but Nathan Wade has to go. I know that's an unusual decision, but I think he has to go.

01:04:32.360 And I think there's a 50, 50 chance that she does as well.

01:04:35.840 Hmm. All right. You heard it here. Um, if he, if, if he says they're both out and her office goes to

01:04:41.620 fell, there's been conflicting. I've seen different opinions on whether the attorney general of

01:04:46.820 Georgia, who's a Republican will decide who takes the case. And then you said there's this special

01:04:51.440 prosecutorial board, like overseers who decide. So what happens? The law changed on that a couple

01:04:57.620 of years ago. It used to be the attorney general. Now it goes to the prosecuting attorneys council of

01:05:02.320 Georgia. It's a state agency, uh, that will have to first off decide, you know, if they're going to

01:05:09.440 assign it to somebody. And if so, who the Bert Jones is our Lieutenant governor. He was going to

01:05:14.960 be one of these defendants, but Bonnie Willis had, uh, supported his opponent prior to the election. 0.99

01:05:21.060 In fact, um, either donated or participated in a fundraiser and a different superior court judge

01:05:26.540 says you should have known better than that. That was really dumb. I'm going to disqualify you,

01:05:30.600 uh, from anything having to do with Bert Jones. Now, Bert Jones is the Lieutenant governor of

01:05:35.540 Fannie Willis's office has referred that matter to the prosecuting attorneys council and still

01:05:39.820 nothing's happened. If this case is so tainted by virtue of this conflict of interest, um, that I

01:05:47.260 think the judge is going to find any other prosecutor who they can find that might even want it. And

01:05:52.640 that's a big question. They're going to have to start over because it's, it's so tainted from the

01:05:57.760 very beginning. It's structurally unsound that another prosecutor is going to have to look at all the

01:06:02.820 evidence and decide, Hey, do we even want to go forward? And so, uh, I think that as a practical

01:06:08.560 matter, even if the judge doesn't dismiss the indictment, if he kicks Willis and company off

01:06:13.820 this indictment, I think the case languishes and dies on the grapevine because the prosecuting

01:06:19.600 attorneys council, they, they do a great job, but they're not going to find anybody else that really

01:06:23.760 wants to pick this up. I, that's just my opinion, but, uh, I think that's, what's going to happen.

01:06:27.720 Mike, what happens to the people who have pled guilty that who have already pleaded guilty,

01:06:33.220 you know, the, in this case, what a lot of viewers are writing in saying, you know, you've got Sidney

01:06:37.960 Powell, you've got, um, what's the name of the blonde lawyer. I can't remember. She cried when she 0.90

01:06:43.080 Jenna Ellis, right. You've got a couple of others. So what happens to them? Does anybody know that answer

01:06:49.900 to that? Well, they'd have to file a motion to withdraw. And here's the thing. If, if they file a

01:06:55.660 motion to withdraw, okay, it's going to have, it's going to go to judge McAfee, but if, if Willis is

01:07:00.840 off and there's no other prosecutor, who is the other side that you get to come to court to, to

01:07:06.520 address that motion? I don't know. We are in uncharted territory here, but I do know that right

01:07:13.180 about now, after all of this, people that are watching this, those people who have entered these

01:07:16.960 pleas of guilty are probably regretting it. And I'm just waiting for the first one to come along and

01:07:22.440 file their motion to withdraw, because I guarantee it's coming. At least one of them is going to do

01:07:26.700 it. Ashley Merchant should wind up on the cover of, you know, ABA, whatever lawyer of the year.

01:07:34.920 I mean, already she deserves it, but certainly if this case gets kicked, these two get disqualified. 1.00

01:07:39.380 This woman deserves some sort of a medal for the legal work she's done. It's not every day you manage 0.98

01:07:43.820 this kind of a victory if she gets a victory, but I do feel already it's been a win for the defense. 0.60

01:07:48.020 All right. Last but not least, this is for you, Dave and Mike. I got to give credit where it's due.

01:07:53.960 Mike, you were right. The Supreme court did take the appeal from team Trump on immunity. Dave,

01:08:01.660 you didn't think it would happen. You, you, I kind of, you convinced me that they wouldn't want any

01:08:06.580 part of it. They would just let the court of appeals decision striking down Trump's argument stand and

01:08:10.960 say, we got enough worries. And Mike, you said, no, they're going to take it and they are taking it.

01:08:16.920 So how do you feel about Trump's chances on the merits once they actually take it up?

01:08:24.720 I think the Supreme court is going to establish that the president of the United States, any

01:08:30.180 president of the United States is immune from criminal prosecution for his official acts.

01:08:35.260 Just like federal judges are immune, just like members of Congress are immune. Then the Supreme court

01:08:41.140 is going to read man, this case back to judge Chuck in at the end of June. And she's going to have to

01:08:47.280 have an evidentiary hearing on what allegations against Trump or as president and which allegations

01:08:54.880 against Trump are in his personal capacity. For example, not calling the DC national guard fast

01:09:01.500 enough is clearly as president and you know, deciding whether to fire his attorney general

01:09:07.880 is clearly as president. And remember the Supreme court is deciding a separate case on this obstruction

01:09:15.260 of justice that the Biden justice department's bringing. I think that 80% of this case against

01:09:21.500 Trump, there's January 6th case against Trump in DC is going to be dismissed on the pleadings before

01:09:28.160 any trial begins. And there's no chance this is going to get tried before the presidential election.

01:09:32.800 That case is imploding even more than the Georgia case is imploding. I mean, there's so many 0.99

01:09:37.620 massive threats to the January 6th federal court prosecution, which brings me to Mar-a-Lago and your

01:09:44.620 jurisdiction, Dave, um, that put, put it in perspective for me. The fact that team Trump just went in there

01:09:52.020 and said we wanted, I think August 8th, very early August trial date, the prosecution there wanted,

01:09:58.160 July 8th. It was basically a month apart prosecution in the Mar-a-Lago documents case said

01:10:02.560 July team. Trump said early August. And what do you make of those dueling requests and what do you

01:10:10.120 think will happen? Well, Trump actually wanted the Mar-a-Lago documents case to take place on the

01:10:15.940 31st of never worry, but since he had to, uh, since he had, since he had to actually establish a date,

01:10:23.720 the court said, no, you got to give us a date. He established that late August date,

01:10:27.100 because I think he wants to use it as a block from judge Chutkin being able to actually make that

01:10:32.300 January 6th trial happen before the election. And, uh, just to address my friend, Mike,

01:10:37.580 congratulations to Mike. He got it right. I got it wrong about the granting of cert, but

01:10:42.180 Mike also must say, he did think that the court would push the hearing date past the election

01:10:48.380 instead of the sort of expedited date. I put expedited in air quotes of April 22nd. So

01:10:54.240 Mike is mostly right. Not, not, uh, altogether. Right. And I was completely wrong.

01:10:59.720 And I'll admit it here. Noted, noted. Yes, that's right. I was trying to say this the other day

01:11:04.680 that like, if they, cause some people were like, they're in the tank for Trump. I'm like,

01:11:08.000 they were, if they were really in the tank for Trump, like that's, let's save him. They would

01:11:11.500 have, they wouldn't have expedited any arguments. They would have said, we'll take this up next term

01:11:14.980 and really kick the can way down the road until Trump could potentially become the president

01:11:19.580 again. Uh, in any event, I think, I think Trump's going to lose that case when it actually gets

01:11:24.700 heard on the merits though. It's possible he could do a little better than he did at the court of

01:11:29.200 appeals. Maybe they'll just like give a little immunity for certain acts, which right now that

01:11:32.940 they said doesn't exist. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for watching that thing. That was not

01:11:37.880 the most exciting piece of this case. It was not like real housewives. No, we needed,

01:11:42.140 we need a little bit more housewives today. Uh, so thank you for making it exciting, 1.00

01:11:46.160 interesting and thought provoking as always. Mike, Dave fell all the best.

01:11:51.320 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Always happy to be here.

01:11:54.980 Okay. When we get the decision and we do believe the judge said it would be two weeks. So I take him

01:11:59.740 at his word. Uh, we of course, we'll bring it to you. We'll bring back our legal panel in the

01:12:03.820 meantime, have a great weekend. I'll see you Monday.

01:12:09.920 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:12:16.160 Bye.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - March 01, 2024

BONUS： Breaking Down Closing Arguments in Fani Willis Disqualification Hearing, with Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, and Phil Holloway ｜ Ep. 736

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