The Megyn Kelly Show - EXCLUSIVE： Ashleigh Merchant Responds to Fani Willis Accusations, Reacts to Ruling, and Previews What Happens Next

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

00:00:12.100 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live from the Caribbean today.

00:00:18.180 We're on the spring break of the Kelly Brunt family. And as you guys know, we've done a couple

00:00:23.040 of special episodes that I wasn't exactly planning on doing. I thought we'd be spring breaking with

00:00:28.080 the kids, but I'm thrilled to bring you today's episode as a special release because we have an

00:00:33.400 exclusive today with defense attorney, Ashley Merchant, who's become a superstar, not only in

00:00:40.860 the United States, but here with Megyn Kelly Show, viewers and listeners, since we've been following

00:00:46.580 her amazing behavior as an attorney since the beginning of January. Well, prior to that as

00:00:52.460 well, but really she became a star starting then. She is a partner at the Merchant Law Firm. She's

00:00:58.760 been in practice for over 20 plus years and we all saw what she did. She's the person who took down

00:01:06.420 Nathan Wade in this case against Trump and almost took down Fannie Willis. And honestly, Fannie's

00:01:12.480 troubles are not over. So she has Ashley Merchant and eventually the other defense attorneys to thank

00:01:18.280 for that. She's our guest exclusively today. Ashley, so nice to meet you.

00:01:24.740 Thanks. It's nice to meet you.

00:01:26.160 It's been so fun watching you. Can I just tell you for a couple of reasons? The audience knows

00:01:30.320 whenever we have a, in particular, a woman behaving badly in the public eye, I'm not shy about calling

00:01:35.940 them out because sometimes I feel like womankind takes a hit when a woman has high expectations and

00:01:40.880 falls down in the job. You're the opposite of that. I've been watching you. You've made me so proud.

00:01:45.660 You're smart. You're confident. You lived up to everything you promised this judge you would

00:01:49.620 deliver. If I got to the point, not knowing you at all, but I got to the point where if you said

00:01:54.260 it in court, I believed you. I knew you were going to deliver on it. Then exactly the opposite with

00:01:58.660 your opponent. So thank you for representing and congrats on, while I know it didn't work out

00:02:03.820 perfectly the way you wanted it to, you can't deny this whole effort was pretty successful for you in

00:02:08.780 the defense. Yes, definitely. And I appreciate that. That's sort of my goal to, if I say it in court,

00:02:14.340 I have to back it up. And, you know, I want to make sure that when I walk into court, judges, the

00:02:18.180 public opposing counsel knows if I say something, it's the truth and it's gonna, I'm gonna be able

00:02:22.320 to back it up and prove it. So I appreciate that. Yes. Credibility is everything for a lawyer. And

00:02:26.840 that's one of the reasons why this effort against Fannie Willis was so successful in my judgment,

00:02:31.300 because while she's still on the case, I mean, we have a, we have a court order. I actually tweeted

00:02:36.060 this out the other day, absolutely devastating saying the following about her. I feel like this

00:02:42.920 order, while it keeps her on, it's not good news for Fannie or any other lawyer looked at looking at

00:02:47.540 this. Here's for those of you who missed it, what the judge said in his order that made her choose

00:02:53.780 between herself and Nathan Wade staying on the case. Describing her behavior as concerning,

00:02:58.080 a tremendous lapse in judgment, unprofessional, finding she made bad choices repeatedly,

00:03:02.440 created an odor of mendacity and the appearance of impropriety. As for Nathan Wade has now been

00:03:07.460 forced out. He found he indicated a willingness to wrongly conceal his relationship with the DA.

00:03:12.480 That questions remain about whether the DA and Wade testified untruthfully. And he found DA

00:03:17.920 Willis's public statements attacking the defendants in her church cast racial aspersions that were

00:03:22.800 legally improper, created dangerous waters and may have ancillary prejudicial effects yet to be

00:03:28.300 realized, underscoring the danger of public comment by a prosecuting attorney. Last but not least,

00:03:32.440 he noted the reasonable belief that the DA is not exercising her independent professional

00:03:37.180 judgment, totally free of any compromising influences and encouraged at least five different

00:03:42.060 ethical boards and groups to consider the many unanswered questions in this case. My God.

00:03:46.780 So what was your takeaway after reading all that, but the judge not bouncing her?

00:03:52.660 I was shocked. I was very surprised. But reading that order that you just read, I mean, if as a lawyer,

00:03:59.020 if someone wrote those words about you, that's, it's not a good thing. So that would, that would very

00:04:04.360 much upset me if that order had been written about me. But, you know, I was surprised that the judge did

00:04:08.760 not go all the way. He sort of played it down the middle, you know, split the baby, very Solomon-esque

00:04:13.680 of him. Um, so that was a little bit surprising, but I do appreciate that he made those factual

00:04:18.700 findings. Um, obviously we think that it was an actual conflict of interest. We think that it just,

00:04:23.300 the appearance is enough. Um, but I don't think that the fight is over. We're going to file an appeal

00:04:27.500 and we're going to continue to pursue this and hopefully, hopefully get what we saw in the

00:04:32.340 beginning. And that is a neutral prosecutor to actually look at this case from a neutral,

00:04:36.640 non-political, non-biased lens.

00:04:38.520 Hmm. We're going to get into that because she's still talking, even though the judge threatened

00:04:43.040 to gag her, she's still out there talking in a way that sounds very pointed against Trump and

00:04:48.700 the other defendants and very political. She's running for reelection, but that doesn't allow

00:04:53.540 you to make anyone's individual case political or to comment on it over and over. She can't stop

00:04:59.840 herself, Ashley. It's amazing how she seems to sort of own her bias. Have you seen the latest

00:05:06.120 remarks she made at this women's event? No, I haven't, but I'm still, I still haven't gotten

00:05:11.480 over the church remarks and, you know, Megan, when someone says that Jesus himself told them

00:05:16.620 to prosecute this case, how do you defend against that? I mean, literally that's when I hear these,

00:05:21.360 I'm like, how, how do you get into court and say, okay, well, well, she's got Jesus on her side.

00:05:26.180 He literally, she's saying, told her to bring these charges against my client. That's, that's insane.

00:05:32.140 I've never dealt with that, you know, and we're in court and they're talking about,

00:05:34.440 oh, well, there's no case that guides us. Of course there's not. Nobody says this,

00:05:38.280 this doesn't happen. People don't take to the pulpit and, you know, say that, that Jesus has

00:05:44.080 told them to prosecute, to bring these charges, that she's doing God's work, that she's following

00:05:49.480 his playbook, you know, asking for guidance since she is following his plan. I mean, that's just,

00:05:55.080 that's a very interesting take and a very tough thing to, to guard against, but no, I haven't heard the

00:06:00.600 most recent remarks at the, at the women's day event. I'd love to hear that.

00:06:04.520 I'll give you, I'll give you a little sample. She, this was an event, it was held on March 10th.

00:06:10.440 So it was before the ruling, but she knew she was in hot water and might get bounced and was not

00:06:15.300 showing a lot of discretion in the way she spoke about herself, her role and so on. You tell me who

00:06:20.900 she's talking about here in sought three. Okay. Sexually assaulting politicians. Uh, I don't know

00:06:50.040 that, that sounds like somebody who's been in the news. And then once again, she decided to raise

00:06:56.420 color, her, her race as an issue, uh, in discussing her detractors. By the way,

00:07:02.800 she specifically mentioned conservatives, but here's a bit of it in SOT 4.

00:07:08.960 I hope every day they call her name. They understand for a black woman,

00:07:15.460 threats and lies will never deter or lurk. I hope they know, I don't care what they say or do.

00:07:24.400 I'm going to still be standing here doing what is right for my community.

00:07:31.340 So is she always like this, making everything about race and getting personal on the defendants

00:07:36.720 she prosecutes? Yes. But I, I mean, she has been like that most of her career. I've got to say that

00:07:42.800 this did surprise me. Um, she's known me for 20 years. She knows I'm not racist. She knows that

00:07:48.440 I'm not all of those things. So it did surprise me that she had those personal attacks. Um, you know,

00:07:53.300 when, when the, the church speech, you know, Martin Luther King weekend came out, we have a family chat

00:07:58.760 as a lot of people do. I'm sure, you know, a family chat where your kids are chatting, you know,

00:08:02.560 texting and my 14 year old daughter literally texted the family chat. And so this, this lady is on TV

00:08:08.000 calling mom and dad racist. Like, does she know that? Um, and that was the first thing, you know,

00:08:13.080 the conversation in our family, we're the last person, people that you would call racist. And so,

00:08:19.500 you know, I had a lot of community outreach from that. Um, a lot of people from the community said,

00:08:24.700 you know, I can't believe that that's just, that's not who you are. You know, that's such a far stretch

00:08:28.940 from the truth. So that was surprising. Um, you know, there's, there's folks out there that maybe

00:08:33.880 could be called racist, but, but we're not one of them. So that was really surprising,

00:08:38.260 particularly since she knows me and she's known me for so long.

00:08:41.300 We have a little bit of those church remarks. Let's take a listen.

00:08:44.760 Why does commissioner Thorne and so many others question my decision in a special council?

00:08:50.580 I appointed three special council lists. Is my right to do paid them all the same hourly rate.

00:08:57.260 They only attack one. First thing they say, Oh, she don't play the race card now. But no God,

00:09:06.220 isn't it them who's playing the race card when they only question one? Why are they so surprised

00:09:12.340 that a diverse team that I assembled your child can accomplish extraordinary things? God, wasn't it

00:09:21.440 them that attacked this lawyer of impeccable credentials? How come God, the same black man

00:09:27.860 I hired was acceptable when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate?

00:09:35.400 Oh, y'all ain't hear me. Why is the white male Republicans judgment good enough, but the black

00:09:43.060 female Democrats not?

00:09:45.220 So those are the remarks to which you were referring impugning, not only you, but your

00:09:50.700 client too. I mean, that's, that's what the judge really had a problem with. And this guy's

00:09:54.900 freedom is potentially in her hands and she's making it a personal beef with him about race

00:10:00.600 because you filed a motion to disqualify her.

00:10:03.500 Right. There's so much there in that clip that you just played. There's so many different issues.

00:10:08.360 Um, the, the one that, you know, when I first heard it, I said, well, she's lying. And you would

00:10:14.580 think if you're going on a church pulpit that, you know, is going to be broadcast. I mean, this is

00:10:19.800 essentially her first public remarks after my motion was filed and she doesn't tell the truth.

00:10:24.620 The third person on this case did not make the same rate as the others. And, you know, that's the

00:10:29.840 first thing that stuck out to me. I mean, the, you know, facts matter, words matter, the truth

00:10:34.660 matters. And that was patently false. So, you know, especially since I was called a liar so many

00:10:40.540 times and things that I said was patently false. If I'm going to get on national TV and talk in a

00:10:46.100 church to God, I'm going to make sure that I've got the facts right. And John Floyd, the third

00:10:51.300 prosecutor on this case is not paid the same rate as the others. Plus the, the work is very

00:10:56.380 different. And I've analyzed this. I've lived with this for almost six months. So I know these records

00:10:59.980 like the back of my hand, you've got three different prosecutors billing very different

00:11:04.640 amounts, doing very different work. Nathan Wade bills sitting there. So he's bills sitting in

00:11:11.300 court watching John Floyd or Anna cross do work. They don't bill sitting watching him do work.

00:11:17.880 So that was one big distinction. Second, they're not sleeping with her. So that's a big distinction.

00:11:23.320 Third, they're not all being paid the same rate. And fourth, their qualifications are extremely

00:11:28.120 different. I have known all three of them for the better part of 20 years. And so, you know,

00:11:33.180 race doesn't play into any of those factors. And so all of those things were left out of it. So

00:11:37.140 that was the first takeaway I got from that church speech.

00:11:40.700 What, there are a lot of people watching this right now who are feeling incensed. They see

00:11:45.840 how political she is. Well, she tried to play the race card. We expect this to keep going as this

00:11:51.940 prosecution keeps on. And they're feeling kind of bummed out, Ashley. I've heard from a lot of them

00:11:57.300 since the judge's ruling. I'm sure you are too. But how do you see the import of what happened

00:12:03.360 here? You know, you finding this story, moving to disqualify the evidentiary hearing, like where

00:12:10.220 are we today versus January 1st before you'd filed any of this? I love that question because that's

00:12:17.020 what I think about often. Before we filed this, none of this was known to the world. So there was a

00:12:22.400 small group of us that knew this, but the world didn't know this. And so, you know, there was a

00:12:27.160 very different image of this prosecution and a very different image of the DA's office. And, you

00:12:33.760 know, one of the things that Ms. Willis has always run on is transparency. And that is one of the

00:12:40.080 guiding principles that I practice by is transparency. I'm very transparent, which is, you know, I'm a defense

00:12:45.160 lawyer, so I don't have to be transparent, but I am, and I believe in transparency. And so, you know,

00:12:49.760 bringing this to the public and bringing this to the court was very important to me. So if you look

00:12:54.480 at where we were at the beginning of January, nobody knew when I filed this that they were

00:12:59.600 actually having an affair and that he had taken her on all of these lavish vacations. When we filed

00:13:05.080 the motion, everybody said, oh, well, she doesn't have proof. She didn't put proof in the motion,

00:13:08.760 you know, which is typical. And it was hard because the motion's pending, so I can't really speak publicly

00:13:12.880 about it. But, you know, that's how we file motions, you know, proof comes in the actual evidentiary

00:13:17.900 hearing. So we have to allege enough to get an evidentiary hearing, and then we actually put

00:13:21.980 the facts up. So, you know, that was difficult. Then when she gave this church speech, I didn't

00:13:26.100 know how she was going to respond. Is she going to admit to it? Is she going to deny it? Is she

00:13:29.620 going to step aside? What's going to happen? But then she admitted to it. And so then it became

00:13:34.100 an issue of when it started, which before I filed the motion, you know, that wasn't even an issue.

00:13:40.060 It's sort of like we switched the focus from all of the conduct to when it started. And I still,

00:13:46.460 I go back to the original motion. I don't know that it necessarily matters when it started. I

00:13:51.560 still think that it reaches the standard of impropriety that requires her to disqualify.

00:13:57.600 I don't know. I mean, we spent a lot of time fighting over when the actual affair started,

00:14:01.540 but I've never thought that that was a big issue. I mean, you know, definitely it's more

00:14:07.100 damning if it started before she hired him, but they renewed the contracts three times. So,

00:14:12.760 you know, they were definitely undisputed in a relationship when she renewed these contracts

00:14:18.360 and the contracts kept getting from more and more money. I also think that if you, if you hide

00:14:24.040 things you're doing, that usually is an indication that they're not something you should be doing.

00:14:29.760 You know, and people hide things for different reasons, but when you're a public official and you

00:14:33.920 know that your life is going to be scrutinized, you have to be extra cautious. You know, I've never been

00:14:39.780 a public official. I don't have a desire to be a public official, but if you are a public official,

00:14:43.660 you've got to keep records of things. Why you would pay cash to a man that you are sleeping with,

00:14:50.420 and you are also paying in what is undisputedly one of the largest criminal cases in our legal history

00:14:57.340 is beyond me. And so I think the public is, is right to question how this is allowed to go on.

00:15:04.220 It's, it's absolutely reckless at a minimum. We know she did that. So why doesn't bouncing him

00:15:11.580 off of the case cure it? That was never what I imagined happening because there is law in Georgia

00:15:19.200 that says if one person in the, in the case is, is bad, the whole case is bad. So, you know,

00:15:24.560 and we saw that with, um, pre-indictment with Burt Jones, who is, um, our Lieutenant governor in

00:15:29.520 Georgia and Ms. Willis and her whole office had a conflict. She had the conflict, but the judge in

00:15:35.420 that case, a different judge, Judge McBurney kicked the entire office. And the law that he followed

00:15:40.240 said, if she's got a conflict, the whole office has a conflict. So in my opinion, that's what the

00:15:44.940 law says. It says, if Mr. Wade has a conflict, the whole office has a conflict. Um, and I, and I do

00:15:49.960 think the judge in his order was, was telling her you should step aside. Um, but obviously that's not

00:15:57.180 going to happen. Um, he just wasn't willing to take that next step and say, you have to step aside,

00:16:02.020 but I don't think that you can split, split the baby like this. I've never thought that you could

00:16:06.480 split the baby. I thought it was all or nothing. I know you're in a tough position because you now

00:16:10.660 have a criminal case in front of Judge McAfee that you have to try presumably all the way to

00:16:15.280 conclusion. So he's your judge and you have to be respectful. And I get it. I've been there.

00:16:19.560 However, um, what, what do you think his motivation was in ruling the way he did? Because

00:16:26.780 we've had a lot of people, our audience, and we've had experts come on the show to say,

00:16:31.940 this was political. He's running for reelection. The district went 73% for Joe Biden. And there was

00:16:38.060 no world in which this judge was going to get reelected if he bounced Fannie Willis off this

00:16:42.740 case. What do you think? You know, I don't even have to answer that just to this judge. I can answer

00:16:48.200 that to judges in general. If they have the choice of not deciding, that's what they do.

00:16:53.020 Um, and that just tends to be, you know, what, what happens, you know, if the, if they can push

00:16:57.560 it back on the parties, um, to make the decision, that's commonly what happens. And I think that's

00:17:01.960 what we saw here. We saw the safe play. We saw, okay, well it's bad, but I'm putting it back on you

00:17:06.980 to do, I'm putting it back on you, Ms. Willis to make the tough decision. Um, either you go, he goes,

00:17:12.320 or I invite you both to go is what, how I read the order. Um, hoping that, that she would do the

00:17:17.800 right thing. And we see that a lot. We see that with judges a lot. That's, that's the safest, um,

00:17:23.140 route to take, um, to split the baby. And that's very common. And that's, you know, most of the

00:17:27.760 time that is justice to be able to, you know, make the parties figure it out on their own. But as we've

00:17:32.660 seen in this case, that's not going to happen. Um, she, for some reason, very, very much wants to

00:17:39.540 continue on this case. Um, you know, which is surprising. I can tell you in, in 20 years of

00:17:44.840 practice, I've never once seen a DA who had a motion to disqualify, not voluntarily disqualify.

00:17:50.180 Um, if there were any grounds, never, never had it happen a couple of times, which is how I know

00:17:54.700 the process, you know, for another district attorney to be appointed. Anytime someone has said you've

00:18:00.360 got a conflict and you need to be disqualified, the prosecutor's office is like, okay, bye. Like,

00:18:04.700 good. You know, cause it's less work for them. Um, you know, and why, why be fighting that the

00:18:10.760 entire prosecution? Why be trying to prosecute? Cause she, well, you answer the question. Cause

00:18:15.840 I mean, it, to me, it seems clear she wants to be a star. She's, she's using this case to make

00:18:20.440 herself a celebrity. 100%. I mean, her office found, and this was one of the things, one of the details

00:18:27.600 that kind of got, we got lost in the mix. Cause it didn't have a ton of relevancy to our motion.

00:18:31.440 So we couldn't focus on it, but she used $10,000 of taxpayer money to hire a media monitoring

00:18:36.840 company. It's called critical mention. I mean, that's that, when I saw that, I was like,

00:18:40.760 and, and the emails that are attached to it, they're clearly looking to, to put a dollar value

00:18:47.160 on her publicity. And there's only one reason for that. She wants to do something further

00:18:52.600 politically. Um, I mean, that was just so obvious to me. And if I, I don't live in Fulton County,

00:18:57.980 I live in an adjoining County, thank goodness, because if 10,000 of my tax dollars went to a

00:19:03.360 district attorney paying to monitor her own media, I would be absolutely livid, particularly in Fulton

00:19:09.720 County where it is a third world country in that jail. It is awful. Um, it's, there's just so many

00:19:16.340 problems in that County. And I used to live in Fulton County. You know what else? It's like,

00:19:18.820 there's a, there's a simple way of monitoring your media mentions and you just put a Google

00:19:22.400 alert on yourself. I don't recommend it. It's very depressing, but if she really wants to see the

00:19:27.920 coverage of her name out there, she can do that. You don't need to pay, spend taxpayer, you know,

00:19:33.600 $10,000 in order to find out what people are saying about you. She clearly is using it. And

00:19:38.820 those comments that we just played, just show it. I mean, she went to that women's event thing

00:19:42.720 and got a heroine's welcome. And then they replay it. I'll show you on Friday after Judge McAfee's

00:19:47.940 ruling, which allowed her to remain on the case, that same group put out this video celebrating her

00:19:54.100 like she's the second coming. Um, here, let's watch some of it. You can see they're celebrating her.

00:19:59.020 They're playing Beyonce that like, look, Fulton County elected her. And I don't know, is, is there,

00:20:06.320 she keeps playing the race card. So I'll ask you whether it's relevant. Is, is it a racial thing?

00:20:10.760 I imagine Fulton County is predominantly minority. Is she, is she trying to tap into some sort of racial

00:20:16.900 grievance there by continuously bringing this up? I think so. And, and, you know, I think it's important

00:20:22.380 to look at the history of her office. You know, she's, she's a new prosecutor, but she,

00:20:27.100 her first big case was the YSL case, um, which is the, it's a, it's a racketeering case against a

00:20:32.760 rapper named Young Thug. That case is still pending. That case actually divided the community

00:20:36.980 in Fulton County, um, a lot because she used rap lyrics and is, is still using rap lyrics and took

00:20:43.440 the stance of using rap lyrics against those gentlemen who were charged in that case. And that

00:20:47.700 was a very controversial decision in the black community in Atlanta. And so I feel like part of

00:20:53.160 this is her politically, um, trying to, to regain that community that might have not been happy

00:21:00.560 about what happened, um, in the YSL case. So I do, I definitely think it's political and I think

00:21:05.960 she's got higher political ambitions, which, you know, surprised me. I knew her when I was a public

00:21:10.480 defender and she was a line DA. Um, and you know, it, it surprised me because it, you know, how there's

00:21:16.800 moments that you remember in your career where someone said something to you and it's sort of profound

00:21:20.060 and it sticks with you. I have one of those with her. Um, we were, this is probably 15 years ago.

00:21:25.600 We were, I was a young public defender. She was a young prosecutor and I had filed a motion on a

00:21:30.320 double jeopardy and I won on appeal. Um, you know, and I was still kind of unsure of myself and,

00:21:36.520 you know, felt bad shaking things up. And she said, don't ever feel bad about defending your client

00:21:41.080 because if you don't defend your client and you don't do everything that you need to do,

00:21:45.100 my convictions won't stand and I can't do my job. And I said, you know, that's a really good

00:21:49.660 perspective. And I've always viewed it that way. Um, so, you know, being attacked and these attacks

00:21:54.160 have been personal, um, being attacked was sort of surprising to me because all I'm doing is

00:21:58.880 defending my client and she knows me and knows that I'm not racially motivated, um, knows that I'm not,

00:22:04.640 you know, biased against women or anything like that. So it is kind of surprising. Um,

00:22:09.500 and not biased against Nathan Wade. I mean, they pointed out in their opposition to your

00:22:13.220 motion that you campaigned for him, I guess when he was running for judge, but you had supported

00:22:18.640 him. Obviously if, if his race or status as a man were a problem for you, you wouldn't have done

00:22:25.060 that. I didn't think that inured against you. I thought it was the opposite, but of course she's

00:22:30.100 enjoying trying to lead people to believe that because it, it helps her. Um, it's, it's a low,

00:22:36.000 it's a low blow and we've watched it. All right. I want to ask you some questions about

00:22:39.640 the hearing, if you don't mind, because we all watched it. Um, I all, apparently I only watch

00:22:44.940 your hearing and your case from the Caribbean because I was actually, I was set up for vacation

00:22:50.440 over president's day. Yeah. Actually, it's been a very nice, uh, turn for us this past couple of

00:22:54.840 months. It was freezing in Connecticut. Anyway, um, there we, we sat in the Bahamas and I listened

00:22:59.760 to this whole thing and I watched every minute of it. And I had a couple of quick, key questions.

00:23:04.240 I'm amazed that the judge completely dismissed Robin Urty, who didn't want to be there. If I wanted to

00:23:09.060 sink Fannie Willis because she forced me out of the DA's office as the, as Fannie alleged,

00:23:13.460 I would have come running to your courtroom. I would have said, Ms. Merchant, how can I help you?

00:23:17.540 I can't wait to sink her. She's terrible. But you had to subpoena her. You pointed out she was

00:23:22.460 terrified to get up there when she actually was forced to testify. She was very laconic,

00:23:28.180 very short answer. She was not volunteering anything. And I found her very credible. The judge said,

00:23:35.460 I can't, I'm paraphrasing, but like, it wasn't filled out. Like it wasn't, her testimony wasn't

00:23:41.020 filled out. I can understand that criticism because I too wanted her to offer more detail.

00:23:45.880 I wanted to hear like a narrative answer. So what are your thoughts on his, him dismissing

00:23:51.020 her testimony and how her testimony went? I was surprised that he dismissed her because I thought

00:23:56.260 she was by far the most credible witness that took the stand. Um, and I was disappointed because I

00:24:00.760 could have made it more flowery, you know, gone into salacious details about what she had seen

00:24:05.640 them with. Um, and it's crazy because I was under attack for doing that. So, you know, I'm getting

00:24:12.140 right to the facts. I'm bringing a witness and that's, you know, that's just kind of my styling

00:24:16.080 court. I'm one of those people where I don't, and it's, it's from trying jury cases. I try not to

00:24:21.060 waste jurors time, you know, so I get to the meat of it and then I get out. Um, and that's just my

00:24:26.000 style, but with Robin, you know, she was, she was very hesitant to come forward. She had a lawyer.

00:24:31.440 I think, I think all of this context is important. She had a lawyer who filed a motion to quash

00:24:35.600 and re litigated that right before she testified that lawyer who was a very pleasant and wonderful

00:24:41.060 person is a Fannie Willis supporter. So, you know, you've got someone, all of the lawyers that did

00:24:46.500 these motions to quash, you see their names on her campaign flyers regularly. So, you know, she's

00:24:51.880 Robin Yeardy hired a lawyer who is literally on Fannie Willis's campaign flyers as a supporter,

00:24:58.420 trying to keep Robin Yeardy off the stand. You know, Robin didn't have a beef to come. She didn't

00:25:05.560 want to be a part of it. Um, you know, she always said, I'll tell the truth. But the other thing that

00:25:09.820 I think a lot of people don't understand is that hesitant witnesses will not talk to the defense out

00:25:13.680 of court. So, you know, my interactions with her were through her lawyer and, you know, somewhat

00:25:19.200 limited. So I don't have the ability when someone doesn't want to come and testify for me to get

00:25:25.740 all of these flowery details. Um, you know, I got, I got what I needed from her and then she was

00:25:30.620 unequivocal. You know, she, there was no doubt in her mind and she was her best friend.

00:25:35.580 She said no doubt. Okay. He said it ultimately, in addition, while the testimony of Robin Yeardy

00:25:40.060 raised doubts about the state's assertions, raised doubts, uh, it ultimately lacked context and detail.

00:25:46.240 And then he went on to say, but even after considering the proffered cell phone testimony

00:25:51.040 from defendant Trump, along with the entirety of the other evidence, neither side was able to

00:25:55.300 conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the relationship evolved into a

00:25:58.800 romantic one. I mean, that's just, I mean, with respect to the judge, that's the biggest lie in

00:26:02.960 this opinion. That's the biggest lie that he, that he wrote that that's just not true. Neither

00:26:07.240 side was able to conclusively establish. And there's a little trick there. There's a trick,

00:26:11.080 like a sleight of hand conclusively established by a preponderance of the evidence, which is it?

00:26:16.780 That's, that's almost holding you to two different standards there. The correct one

00:26:20.440 is preponderance, 51% more likely than, than, than not. And he's, he wants conclusive 51%. You

00:26:27.700 absolutely got there. This is the only mention of Yeardy or the cell phone records, which show him at

00:26:35.600 her house overnight. So what was he doing there? Right. Right. And, and Yeardy, you know, there

00:26:42.220 wasn't really any motive to lie. So she didn't work for the DA's office anymore. She has her own

00:26:46.260 career. This wasn't, you know, this wasn't like a, she'd been there 20 years and was fired. I mean,

00:26:51.480 she had literally come on to work for her best friend to help her with media. And then they just

00:26:57.600 had a disagreement and she was demoted. And so she left. It wasn't like this was this, this huge,

00:27:03.040 you know, blowout between them. Everyone's saying disgruntled the left-wing media. You saw

00:27:08.020 disgruntled, disgruntled, disgruntled. She wasn't disgruntled. She didn't look disgruntled. She

00:27:12.620 didn't want to be there, but you know, a lot of that was, she doesn't like my client and doesn't

00:27:16.780 like our side, you know? So she told me, she's like, I don't want to help you. You know, and a lot

00:27:22.060 of the witnesses like that, a lot of them did not want to help me, did not want to help my side.

00:27:26.280 And so, you know, I have to talk to them and say, but the truth is the truth. You know, you have to,

00:27:30.440 you, you have to tell the truth. That's what you've got to do. And that's what I kept telling

00:27:33.960 her, despite her not wanting to help my side. You know, she said, I'll tell the truth.

00:27:39.620 That's amazing. I see your point that you did get hit and Fannie Willis hit you for, you know,

00:27:44.880 probing the details of her personal life. And yet here you decide discretion is the better part of

00:27:52.100 valor. Like there's no reason to get into the really salacious details and it gets held against you.

00:27:58.360 I wondered if in the moment, you know, since she was a hostile witness to you, she was there under

00:28:03.760 protest, you know, sometimes as the lawyer, you're like, I've got my admission. I'm just going to move

00:28:08.860 on because I actually don't know what I'm going to get. If I push more, I don't want to screw up my

00:28:13.240 record. Right. And that's true. And, you know, there was a lot, there's a lot more that Robin

00:28:19.160 Yerdy wants to say, um, that was not relevant to this case. And so I was trying very hard to not,

00:28:24.700 you know, it's ironic. I was trying very hard to not turn it into a circus because she's got

00:28:29.340 different issues with, with Ms. Willis's office and her prosecution of other cases.

00:28:35.060 Yeah. Isn't she a whistleblower and something else?

00:28:38.140 She has, um, somewhat, you know, she's not one of, as far as I know, she's not one of the named

00:28:42.820 whistleblowers. It's actually, you know, testifying or anything like that, but she is to a certain

00:28:47.620 extent. And, you know, that stuff wasn't relevant to my case. And so I was trying very hard to just

00:28:51.960 stay focused on the relevant issues in my case, um, which is why we didn't go into all the flowery

00:28:56.780 details and things like that. Do you think at some point, Robin, your team might sit down with

00:29:01.680 somebody, let's hope it's me. Um, and actually just tell the story. I mean, there's nothing

00:29:05.480 prohibiting her from telling the story other than what the threat of Fannie Willis or the threat of

00:29:11.860 helping Trump. I think it's Fannie Willis is very, um, powerful in the Atlanta area. And I think

00:29:21.080 just from talking to a lot of witnesses, they did not want the scrutiny. Um, they didn't want

00:29:26.360 what happened to me to happen to them. Um, you know, they just don't want that. And as you see,

00:29:32.200 it's very easy to charge someone in a criminal case, you know, and I'm not commenting on this

00:29:36.680 case in particular, but everybody knows, you know, you can indict a heme sandwich. And so the person

00:29:40.400 that you don't want to get in crosshairs with is arguably the, you know, the highest ranking law

00:29:44.720 enforcement officer as an attorney, you know, in the state past the attorney general. I mean,

00:29:48.820 Fulton County is the largest jurisdiction we have. So I think it's reasonable that people

00:29:53.240 don't want to get in her crosshairs. Um, you know, and I think there's a lot of that going

00:29:58.000 on. Yeah, that's scary. Well, of course that that's the perfect lead into Terrence Bradley.

00:30:03.380 OMG. What? I mean, okay, let's start at the beginning. I didn't realize until the hearing

00:30:12.980 that he was the tip off to you on the fact that this affair began the way I had read your motion

00:30:20.660 filed. I think January 6th was it, it led me to believe somehow that maybe it was Nathan Wade's

00:30:26.180 ex-wife, Joycelyn or her lawyer who maybe gave you the heads up, but it turns out it was Terrence

00:30:32.300 Bradley, Nathan's former law partner. And we've seen from those full text messages between you

00:30:38.520 and Terrence Bradley, how helpful he wanted to be, how much he knew about the affair,

00:30:43.740 how many leads he wanted you to follow. And then it was a one 80 when he got on the stand. So tell

00:30:51.360 us your experience with Terrence Bradley. You know, I'm still shocked. Um, when I look back at it,

00:30:57.660 you know, looking at him, but I could tell from his testimony, you know, when he by his eyes and when

00:31:02.020 he looked at me and said, I'm trying to save my law license. Um, that was one of the only times he

00:31:05.700 directly looked at me during his testimony. And I think that was him telling me like, I'm, I'm sorry,

00:31:09.840 but I'm trying to save my law license here. Um, and you know, but it was disappointing because he

00:31:14.660 came to me and he knew, you know, my role in the case. He knew that I represented one of the

00:31:19.320 defendants in this case. He knew I represented Mr. Roman. Um, and so he came to me and initiated

00:31:24.120 this contact, um, you know, and I, but I know Terrence and I knew Terrence and, you know, I very much

00:31:28.780 like Terrence, um, as a colleague, a professional colleague and a friend, um, you know, our kids have gone to

00:31:33.780 school together. Like, you know, it's, it, it disappoints me greatly. Um, I am surprised.

00:31:38.820 I'm still surprised because I thought that he would tell the truth on the stand. Um, and, you know,

00:31:44.860 we had many conversations. Those texts are just sort of a small snippet of it, uh, you know, a timeline,

00:31:50.380 but there's many conversations. And I went and I pulled back my phone records, you know, I'm like,

00:31:54.720 am I crazy? Did I, you know, did I, did I dream up all these phone calls? And so I pulled up my phone

00:31:59.640 records. And I'm like, Nope, it follows exactly my timeline, um, of all the times we talked about it.

00:32:04.600 And, you know, I'm not the only person that he told about it. He told, um, another lawyer in the

00:32:09.260 case, um, who represented Mr. Chesbrough told him about it and told some other folks, um, as we've

00:32:14.260 seen from some subsequent filings, um, a district attorney in Cobb County told, told her about it.

00:32:19.680 So, you know, I was very surprised, um, by the privilege argument because I'd never heard that.

00:32:26.220 Um, I never heard that until Mr. Wade and his friend called, you know, a friend of Mr. Bradley's.

00:32:31.800 That was the first time I'd heard the word privilege. Just to clarify for the audience,

00:32:34.740 meaning that when Terrence Bradley got on the stand, he's, he claimed everything he knew about

00:32:38.660 Nathan Wade's affair with Fannie Willis was privileged. And meanwhile, he'd been talking,

00:32:42.500 he was like the town crier about it prior to the moment he actually took the stand. So there was a,

00:32:46.860 there was a divergence there between his behavior and what he was claiming when he hit the stand.

00:32:51.280 Keep going. Great. And you know, not surprising because if it's, if it's privileged,

00:32:55.360 then you know about it, you know? So he's saying, Oh, well, I didn't know it's speculation. Oh,

00:32:59.620 but it's privileged. It's like when the privilege didn't work, we switched over to speculation.

00:33:03.640 Um, you know, which is it it's, it's confusing. Um, but the thing with this privilege term where it

00:33:10.660 first came about was when Nathan Wade actually called Terrence's best friend and, you know,

00:33:15.840 said, Hey, remind him about his privilege. And so that was the first time that this whole,

00:33:20.160 oh, wait, it's privilege sort of came in. And I think that's when he had that threat almost that,

00:33:25.360 Hey, I'm coming after your law license. Um, and when Terrence took the stand and said,

00:33:29.060 I'm trying to protect my law license, that, that told me everything I needed. You know,

00:33:32.960 at that point I said, okay, I've got to switch. And I think you could even see my demeanor switch at

00:33:36.140 that point. Um, from, Hey, Terrence is my friend to Terrence is someone who lied to me and is lying on

00:33:42.560 the stand. Um,

00:33:43.740 Right. It was clear. I mean, it was clear to everybody that he was lying on the stand,

00:33:47.480 including the judge. The judge put absolutely no weight on his testimony. And so he got what

00:33:51.320 he wanted. Nathan Wade got what he wanted, um, and, and getting him to shut up when it mattered.

00:33:55.980 But the text messaging I thought was very damning, very damning. Why would he, I mean, he said

00:34:02.580 absolutely that he knew when it had begun, that it had begun prior to when they had testified to on

00:34:07.040 the stand and that it had begun after she left the DA's office as, as you point out a line,

00:34:12.340 I just want to line not L Y I N D A a line L I N E D A. She later, I would, I would submit became a

00:34:21.660 lion DA, but in any event, um, so that was back in 19. So one of my audience members, I read their

00:34:27.960 emails, Ashley, and they, one of them wanted me to ask you whether you wish in those text messages,

00:34:33.720 you had established the foundation for his personal knowledge. Since that was what the judge said,

00:34:39.120 he didn't see any foundation for, like, this could have been speculation by him. It could

00:34:42.660 have just been like, yeah, I think they did. And, and we don't know how he knew or if he really knew

00:34:47.580 at all. Right. I, and I wish I had, because I talked to him about that in person and on the phone.

00:34:53.180 Um, you know, when I filed the response, the second, um, not the first filing, but then they responded

00:34:59.040 and said, okay, we were in a relationship, but it didn't start until after he was hired. Then I

00:35:03.740 called Terrence literally sitting at my desk in the same office and said, okay, this is what they

00:35:08.480 filed. I need to respond. Let's talk about it. And that's when he told me about like the garage door

00:35:12.360 opener and things like that. And he explained things, um, with sensory details, you know, like I saw this

00:35:18.060 and he told me about this. Um, and that, you know, those details, I wish I had captured in text,

00:35:23.280 but at the time I didn't know that I needed to, because I didn't think that Terrence would ever,

00:35:27.040 um, you know, claim up and claim this, this privilege theory. Um, so, you know, yeah,

00:35:32.160 going back, I wish I had gotten a lot more details, but I didn't know.

00:35:36.240 So he gave them to you in person. Like, do you sitting here today, do you have any doubt that he knows

00:35:40.980 as a fact, he knows that they did begin the affair prior to when they claimed?

00:35:45.680 No doubt. I have no doubt that, that, I mean, he told me details and, you know, as lawyers,

00:35:51.080 we learn to get sensory details. You know, one of our jobs, it's like we become sort of a lie

00:35:55.500 detector test almost, um, you know, that we can tell when people have sensory details when they

00:35:59.900 don't, you know, and he was just telling me certain details and, you know, I, part of what we do is we

00:36:05.040 try to match up facts. So he's telling me things early on, you know, telling me about the Yurdy

00:36:09.920 apartment, for example, he's explaining it in detail. And then when I finally find Miss Yurdy and I

00:36:14.880 confirm the apartment, I'm like, okay, well, you know, Terrence was telling the truth. Um, you know,

00:36:20.080 all of those details match up the same thing with when they met. Terrence told me about when they

00:36:24.160 met at this conference. And then I went and subpoenaed the records from the conference and

00:36:28.600 verified that he was speaking at that conference and she was in attendance at that conference.

00:36:32.980 So, you know, all of those details matched up from what he told me, which led me to believe he was

00:36:37.940 credible. Hmm. Do you think your friendship with him is over?

00:36:42.080 I don't know. I haven't seen him since, um, you know, I, I don't, one of the, one thing that's

00:36:49.480 very important to me is to tell the truth. Um, and so that's hard to get over, you know, tell the

00:36:53.820 truth. And I feel also like I was sort of put in an uncomfortable position where I'm on essentially

00:36:58.340 national TV being called a liar, um, you know, by the state and he's letting that happen. And so

00:37:04.680 that's, that's kind of hard to get over. Um, because my credibility is one as a lawyer is the most

00:37:10.800 important thing to me. Um, if I'm not sure, or I don't, you know, have credible basis for something,

00:37:15.440 I'm not going to open my mouth or I'm not going to allege it. There's a reason I waited so long

00:37:18.820 to file this. Um, I wanted to triple check things. Um, you know, so that's kind of disappointing,

00:37:23.700 but there were a lot of people that said things in this case that were disappointing to me that

00:37:27.680 I'm surprised by. And I think my friendships with them will forever be tarnished.

00:37:31.260 Well, that leads me to Nathan Wade and Fannie Willis. Do you believe they lied on the stand?

00:37:35.600 Yes, I definitely believe they lied on the stand. And I think there's a material fact.

00:37:41.660 Right. I think about a material fact, I think they had motivation. Um, I mean, Nathan's testimony

00:37:47.340 was just, I know it wasn't as salacious, but it was, it was incredible. Um, you know, literally

00:37:53.820 pause. It was literally incredible. Um, the long pauses and, you know, I went back and I reviewed it and

00:38:00.400 a lot of it was, he would not answer the question. And so I would ask again, and he still wouldn't

00:38:07.520 answer the question. He was very vague. And I, I, you know, reading it, I'm like, oh, well,

00:38:11.660 he's trying to make sure he doesn't lie on the stand. Um, so, you know, I'm not sure if he lied

00:38:15.800 or just avoided the question, but there was a lot of avoiding the question. And then I'd have to ask it

00:38:19.460 a third time and they would argue, ask and answer. And I would get, you know, that would be

00:38:23.400 sustained. I'd have to move on. So there's a lot of questions that I actually didn't get an answer to.

00:38:28.460 Um, and that to me, I remember this, it was very frustrating. Do you feel the judge was protecting

00:38:34.400 them? You know, it's one of those things when, where you're, you're in it, you just get frustrated

00:38:39.520 because how many times you're going to ask the same question and they're not going to give an

00:38:41.980 answer. Um, so, you know, I was frustrated. Um, I don't think I got an answer, but I don't think I

00:38:48.380 was going to get an answer. And I think that's why the judge said, you need to move along, you know,

00:38:51.680 because when you ask something three times and they keep deflecting, you're clearly not going to get an

00:38:55.460 answer. Um, I think we would, but these were material questions and material matters that go

00:39:03.240 right to the heart of disqualification. I can't believe that he let them get away with it. And

00:39:07.620 my only thought at the time was he knows, like, he knows what the truth is. So he's not really

00:39:11.820 letting them get away with it. This isn't a jury trial. The judge gets to make the decisions. And yet

00:39:16.580 in the end, he seemed to run cover for them. That's, I mean, look, I think he's a good judge. I like the

00:39:21.820 guy, but I completely think he protected his own hide in this decision. He, he wants to remain a

00:39:27.100 judge. And he was afraid. This is my judgment of ticking off the voters in Fulton County. And so he

00:39:33.140 found a way to, he could telegraph to all of us that he does know he knows they lied. He knows this

00:39:37.920 all is corrupt. And yet he gets to stay on the bench and he wants us to be the problem of these

00:39:42.920 five other entities. And I don't know whether that's going to happen or not. That's one of the

00:39:46.720 questions I want to ask you. But before I get to that, let's talk about Nathan Wade's resignation,

00:39:51.200 because, you know, you're saying you believe he lied on the stand. I do too. And Fannie Willis

00:39:56.060 too. And here's, so after the judge's order, one of them was forced to step down and to no one's

00:40:01.620 surprise, it was Nathan Wade. I wasn't surprised at least that she, she made him leave instead of

00:40:07.520 herself. And he, he says in his letter in part, okay. As directed by the order today, I hereby offer

00:40:13.240 my resignation effective immediately. Although the court found that the defendants failed to meet their

00:40:19.160 burden of proving that the district attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest.

00:40:23.260 I am offering my resignation in the interest of democracy in dedication to the American public

00:40:29.820 and to move this case forward as quickly as possible. Amazing to me, Ashley, he, he makes it

00:40:34.560 sound like this is just, they won, but he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. It's another

00:40:39.860 lie. He's forced off. He or she were forced off this case. It is not quote in the interest of

00:40:46.880 democracy. It's pursuant to court order. I know, I know. And it goes along with this

00:40:53.580 theme that you saw when they were testifying on the stand, particularly Ms. Willis about,

00:40:57.340 you know, my client's interests are contrary to democracy. You know, these are the, these are

00:41:01.460 extra, extra judicial statements that are prejudicial. You know, your, your interests and

00:41:07.400 mine should not, they're not in controversy. You know, we all want justice. And so him saying

00:41:15.020 that, that it's contrary to democracy is just yet another dig against my client's right to a fair

00:41:19.540 trial. Yeah. And, and not, and once again, a failure to acknowledge it was his own behavior

00:41:25.880 that led to this decision. No responsibility has been taken whatsoever at all. I mean,

00:41:31.680 even to this moment, he was forced off and he doesn't even issue an apology for his terrible

00:41:36.820 behavior or acknowledge the, you know, the, the criticisms of the judge that he just outlined in

00:41:42.240 that long, you know, tweets that I, I reread that after I posted it, nothing. Can you believe there's

00:41:48.080 absolutely no responsibility taken by these two? I mean, there's still even, and it's, it's shocking

00:41:52.940 because the testimony didn't take any responsibility. All it did was try to flip it back on. You're the

00:41:57.280 bad person, you know, you're the liar. And I'm sitting there thinking, wait, you've hid this.

00:42:01.640 You've gone to great lengths to hide this from the public and from the court and from the county

00:42:06.340 and from the taxpayers, you know, you, you lied on your campaign disclosures or your, you know,

00:42:11.080 financial disclosures. There's county disclosures that say any gift over a hundred dollars. And it

00:42:15.700 doesn't say it has to be like an actual, you know, money transaction. It can be something for a benefit,

00:42:21.580 you know, going on vacation, going out to dinner, getting a ride, whatever you have to disclose it.

00:42:25.600 You didn't disclose it. You know, you clearly hid this. You didn't go to the county attorney.

00:42:30.040 You didn't go to the board of county commissioners and say, Hey, I'm going to pay him,

00:42:33.300 you know, a million dollars. And I just want you guys to be okay with that. Or I want to let you

00:42:37.660 know, um, didn't do any of that. You know, you're hiding it. You're hiding it because it's wrong.

00:42:42.440 And then you turn around and say that I'm the liar when you've admitted to 90% of what I've said.

00:42:50.040 So clearly I'm not the liar here. Um, I just think it's just deflection, not taking personal

00:42:55.240 responsibility. Um, it's very upsetting. It's very unfortunate. I think the public deserves better.

00:43:00.620 The taxpayers in Fulton County deserve better. I mean, this is taxpayer money. This is not

00:43:04.660 their money. And, you know, lawyers don't get to bill like this. This is not something that's

00:43:08.440 normal. Normally we have a client that would say, Hey, this bill is ridiculous.

00:43:13.840 Yeah. I lived that life too. I practiced for 10 years. Every phone call, it has to be down to the

00:43:18.960 second. You don't bill for 10 minutes. If the phone call was six, otherwise somebody, usually my law

00:43:24.120 firm would come back to me and say, Hey, make sure we don't round up. You know, we've got to be really

00:43:28.460 super careful, but as you pointed out of the hearing, she was, she was rubber stamping every

00:43:33.580 one of his submissions. Another fact, the judge ignored in his ruling. Right. And it's, it is a

00:43:39.080 lot of money. You know, they argued, Oh, well he made more money in another County. That's not,

00:43:43.000 this is a lot of money for a public official to be paid on a case where there's arguably no need.

00:43:48.860 And so, you know, I think it's also important to understand how rare this is. This does not happen.

00:43:54.500 Um, DAs regularly, if they need outside help, they get it from this organization called PAC,

00:44:00.540 which is Georgia's prosecuting attorneys council. They have staff attorneys that are there to help.

00:44:05.980 If you need help, um, that are paid government salaries, um, you know, paying some, paying an

00:44:11.180 outside prosecutor doesn't make sense. And it's not typical. The attorney general's office does it in

00:44:16.640 civil cases, but that is very specialized and that's for very specialized types of law, you know,

00:44:21.700 healthcare law, things that are, that are specialized in the attorney general doesn't

00:44:25.380 have actual staff that can handle. Um, but a prosecuting counsel like this, they don't ever

00:44:30.440 hire outside lawyers and pay them hourly. He was essentially working full time for the DA's office,

00:44:35.880 but he was able to, to have an outside practice, which, you know, if you were an employee of the DA,

00:44:40.360 you wouldn't be able to have, um, he couldn't be an employee of the DA because of their relationship.

00:44:45.080 So, you know, she couldn't have hired him as an actual employee. She had to hire him under this

00:44:49.860 contract basis because they couldn't have an affair if he was an employee. So, you know,

00:44:53.540 they're doing all of this stuff to circumvent the law. And then when they get caught there,

00:44:57.260 their answer is to claim that, you know, I'm racist and a liar. It's just, it's incredible to

00:45:02.640 me. And right. Exactly. And a liar. That's what she said. As soon as she took the stand going after

00:45:07.420 you as having absolutely no foundation for even bringing this motion. And then we of course saw the

00:45:12.040 Terrence Bradley texts, which told a very different story and heard from Robin Urty and saw the cell

00:45:16.680 phone records and so on. I, on the subject of Nathan Wade. So he goes on in this letter saying

00:45:21.320 seeking justice for the people of Georgia and the United States and being part of the effort to

00:45:26.320 ensure that the rule of law and democracy are preserved has been the honor of a lifetime.

00:45:32.460 I mean, I have to tell you, Nathan Wade, uh, making sure that the rule of law has been upheld

00:45:38.300 doesn't sit right with me. Not a, not a lawyer who clearly lied under oath in his interrogatories.

00:45:45.300 And then in that affidavit submitted in your case, and then on the stand, I got him for at least

00:45:49.920 three times committing perjury, which our audience knows at this point, Ashley, you can't do as a

00:45:56.160 civilian, but you really can't do as an officer of the court. It's a double sin. And it happens to be

00:46:02.080 a crime. And, and as for the first lie, the first lie answering the interrogatories, that's not Megan

00:46:07.480 Kelly's opinion or Ashley Merchant's opinion. That's a fact. He lied in his divorce interrogatories. So

00:46:12.520 what could happen to him now? Cause that's one lie we know for sure he told under oath. So what,

00:46:20.540 what happens now? Nothing. You know, unfortunately I think practically probably nothing, but there are

00:46:27.120 lots of people that are investigating. Um, I know that, you know, that the judge put in his order,

00:46:31.440 several different organizations, um, you know, the state bar, a lot of people are like, Oh, is the

00:46:35.340 state bar going to do something? The thing that I think is unique about the state bar is they only act

00:46:40.320 if someone files a complaint and follows through on the complaint. So they don't do their own like

00:46:45.700 independent work early on in a case. Um, if it goes to a trial, which is way later on a case,

00:46:51.120 then they would do some independent work, but they don't investigate. That's not their job.

00:46:55.180 Um, they just review things that are filed. So, you know, someone else would have to do all the work

00:46:59.500 for them to actually pursue it. And that's unlikely. Most people don't do that. Um, the other bodies that,

00:47:05.420 that could investigate, they don't have a whole lot of power over Nathan Wade. So, you know,

00:47:09.200 the attorney general in Georgia could investigate, that would be wonderful if they would decide to

00:47:13.240 investigate because this is public money. Um, I think that the taxpayers probably want to know

00:47:18.040 why so much money was spent on someone who could just send a resignation letter. And now the case

00:47:23.340 can move on and it can go forward with publicly funded prosecutors who are, who actually take a

00:47:28.580 salary. You know, there, there was never an answer to why you needed outside counsel for this.

00:47:33.360 And that's, you know, if I was a taxpayer, that's what I would want to know. Why did you need Nathan

00:47:37.660 Wade? Why could you not hire someone to be a Fulton County government employee and make,

00:47:42.640 you know, $150,000 a year, which is what most of the prosecutors on this case make.

00:47:47.360 Why do you need to hire someone else and, you know, pay them these exorbitant amounts?

00:47:53.560 Mm-hmm. Because she really wanted to see the world. Uh, she wanted to go to Aruba. She wanted to go to

00:47:58.480 Napa. And I mean, Hey, I'm in the Caribbean now. I highly recommend it. I'm sure she really loved

00:48:03.100 her trips here, except I'm like, I paid for it with my own money. Yeah. And wanted to work with

00:48:09.440 her boyfriend. You know, it's like, I work with my husband, but I'm in private practice. I love

00:48:13.040 working with my husband, but we are in private practice. You know, if you want to work with

00:48:16.780 your loved one, you can't do it in public practice. Like you just can't do it when you work for the

00:48:20.880 government. There's rules against that. There are ethical rules against it. He goes on, or she goes on

00:48:25.320 to respond to his resignation letter saying, okay, I accept it effective immediately. I compliment you

00:48:30.740 for the professionalism and dignity you have shown over the last 865 days, as you have endured threats

00:48:37.560 against you and your family, as well as unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation

00:48:44.500 as a lawyer. Uh, you know, I think that's another veiled reference to you, Ashley, what do you make

00:48:50.440 of, you know, Fannie Willis and to some extent, Nathan Wade here actually playing the victim of this

00:48:56.360 unfair witch hunt? Oh, well, that was, that was what they played the entire time. You know, they played

00:49:01.580 the victim the entire time and tried to meet, make me out to be the villain, um, which is disingenuous. If

00:49:07.460 they wanted to try to prove these allegations were false, they have the mechanisms to do that. They have

00:49:13.240 all the, produce the texts, produce their phones. We couldn't subpoena her phone data because she's got some

00:49:21.200 government, you know, control over all of her phone data. Give us the data, put it under seal. You

00:49:26.420 know, if you want, it doesn't have to go out to the public, put it under seal. So, you know, it's just

00:49:31.060 unfortunate that they had the ability to disprove all of these allegations, but instead pulled the

00:49:35.940 race card, pulled the victim card, all of those things. Right. They didn't for a reason. Honestly,

00:49:40.320 it's like, I'm sure you and Steve Sadow, attorney for Trump text often you're, you've got co-defendants

00:49:45.240 in a big case. If somebody alleged you were having an improper affair, you would just produce all

00:49:49.320 those text messages. Have a look, go ahead. Yeah. They've always had the ability even to just have

00:49:56.260 them reviewed in camera. Even if you don't want them to go out to the world, you could produce

00:49:59.140 them in camera. They refused. And there's a question about whether there's any way we can

00:50:03.560 still get those. I'll pick that up when we come back from a quick break. Don't go away. Ashley

00:50:07.100 Merchant stays with us. So Ashley, the question of the substance of their texts, if we could see the

00:50:16.040 substance of those text messages that you guys know happened, you had the number, the frequency,

00:50:21.980 thanks to Nathan's records, but you didn't have the actual content. And I can't help but think

00:50:26.740 they're deleting right now like mad because there's no pending proceeding exactly. Although

00:50:32.220 there is an appeal filed, so I'm not sure if they could delete at the moment. But if you could see

00:50:37.520 them, that would put to bed this thing once, once and for all. How, who could get them? The attorney

00:50:42.880 general, if the, if he opens up in a criminal investigation, what about the state Senate,

00:50:47.820 which I, we watched you testify in front of, do they have subpoena power where they could subpoena

00:50:53.040 the actual text messages so that we could see if we have a lying, a perjuring felon as the DA of

00:50:58.760 Fulton County? So I think just in case these texts were deleted, I think a search warrant would be the

00:51:04.260 safest bet. I mean, some people could get them with a, with a subpoena, but a search warrant is how they

00:51:08.400 get them against my client. I mean, I'm a defense lawyer, so they, you know, they get texts against my

00:51:12.300 clients all the time. So I know exactly how they do it. They subpoena their cell phones or subpoena

00:51:16.880 their records. If you have the phone, the easiest way to do it is to take the cell phone and hook it

00:51:21.660 up to a machine called celebrate. And they have it in the DA's office. I've got the purchase order for

00:51:27.340 them. They have it at the city of Atlanta police department. They use it regularly. I have cases

00:51:32.140 pending right now where they have hooked my client's phone up to a celebrate machine. And that, you know,

00:51:36.920 it essentially makes a forensic copy of the entire phone. So it makes a copy of all the texts,

00:51:42.340 makes a copy of photos, makes a copy of things like that. You can set parameters. So they could

00:51:46.820 hook it to this machine and say, we want copies of all the texts from this date to this date.

00:51:51.400 So let's say they wanted to just prove that, you know, the relationship didn't start until when they

00:51:55.580 said, you know, March, 2021, whatever it is, you know, whatever date they came up with.

00:52:00.560 Right. So let's, so get all the texts before that, you know, we don't need all your salacious texts

00:52:04.640 while you are dating, you know, that you have alleged you're dating. How about we get all the

00:52:08.180 texts before that? Hook it up to that machine and give us those texts. What are you hiding?

00:52:12.100 What is it that you don't want people to see? And you can do it under seal. So that's easy. They've

00:52:17.340 got the machine. They've got the equipment. They, even if they're deleted, they can hook it right up

00:52:21.600 to that machine. A search warrant would get it. So if the AG wanted to investigate, they could do a

00:52:26.020 search warrant for the phones and do the same thing. They have the same equipment, same access.

00:52:30.700 They use it all the time. This is the same type of data that is used, that was used in the January 6

00:52:37.300 prosecutions. Same thing that's being used in the YSL case pending here in Atlanta. Same type of thing

00:52:42.800 that the attorney general in Georgia is using to prosecute what we call the cop city protesters.

00:52:47.820 It's another racketeering case that's going on locally. So this is something that's used regularly

00:52:51.980 and it's easy to do. It doesn't cost any money. Yes, it's an intrusion into privacy, but I can tell you

00:52:57.260 if someone is telling the world that I did something that I didn't do, I'm going to hook

00:53:01.500 my phone up. And you can see that in my texts. I was unfortunately didn't know how to do it at

00:53:08.560 first and I didn't know quite frankly, I would need to, but I figured it out. I was able to-

00:53:13.180 You turned over everything. Yeah. No, you turned over everything with Terrence Bradley and were

00:53:17.440 under no obligation to do all that. And that showed your sides of the texts as well. Why wouldn't

00:53:22.760 they? Honestly, somebody said I had an affair and I didn't have the affair. And I was in this

00:53:25.880 kind of a situation where my job and a case and my reputation depended on it. I say, judge, here

00:53:30.500 you go. You can see my dumb ass text with Nathan Wade, where we just talked about the legal system

00:53:34.720 or going to the movies as platonic friends. There's only one reason that they wouldn't show

00:53:39.480 the ones from 2021. And we know what it is. So what is the story with the attorney general?

00:53:45.000 It's a Republican, but you know, Georgia's getting more and more blue. That's why Stacey Abrams

00:53:49.880 still thinks she's governor. So is this person likely to pick up this investigation? Is there,

00:53:57.280 you know, cause the left is thrilled. The left is thrilled. She lived to fight another day. So

00:54:00.680 there'll be pressure on him not to do it from the considerable blue voters in Georgia.

00:54:06.440 Right. It, you know, it's, it's hard for me to guess on that because I live in this moderate world,

00:54:10.720 you know, I'm kind of in the middle and I just want, I just want justice. I just want due process.

00:54:14.920 I want transparency. So I hope that the attorney general will. Um, but I, I don't know, you know,

00:54:20.760 the, the political outcome of that. Um, I'm not sure if they will investigate it or not. I hope

00:54:25.300 that they will. And I think a lot about, what about filing the motion? Cause Phil Holloway was

00:54:28.760 on the show on last Friday and he was saying, there's a way for you guys to file a motion before

00:54:33.240 judge McAfee saying, we believe that two officers of the court perjured themselves, committed felonies

00:54:39.200 in your courtroom. And as officers of the court, we're bringing this to your attention. And, but

00:54:43.320 only if he finds that there is probable cause, what a, I can't remember what the standard was

00:54:49.560 before which he could refer it to the AG. It was a considerable standard though.

00:54:55.560 Yes. And I'm still investigating, um, you know, some of the subpoenas that I sent for the evidentiary

00:55:01.300 hearing, some of the business records are still coming in. So, you know, we've recently got new

00:55:05.900 records, um, you know, from another travel agent. And so I'm digesting all of those. Um,

00:55:11.660 you know, I, another thing other than the phone records is the credit card statements. Um,

00:55:16.340 Ms. Willis could have given credit card statements, you know, she gave one, um, which to me says there

00:55:20.840 was only one, you know, one time that she actually paid for travel with a credit card, which, you know,

00:55:25.080 anyone that travels knows you, you kind of have to have a credit card. You can't really book hotels.

00:55:28.860 You can't do any of that stuff without a credit card. Um, so that's sort of surprising. So if,

00:55:33.000 you know, if I was being accused of something and I had credit card statements to show that I wasn't

00:55:37.800 on trips with Mr. Wade or that I had paid for things, I would be producing those credit card

00:55:42.000 statements. So I think it's surprising. We haven't seen those, but that's something that can be

00:55:45.740 subpoenaed as well. Um, but Ms. Willis has this, this protection on her. And so whenever we try to

00:55:51.840 subpoena any of her records, all of these red lights go off and everything is shut down. So we only

00:55:57.800 were able to subpoena Mr. Wade's records because of her position. She's got certain

00:56:02.560 protections up. And so when we subpoena the records there, they're saying, no, we're not

00:56:06.820 giving you these records. Um, and so we would have to, what about, what about the, the Georgia

00:56:11.200 state Senate? Cause they can subpoena Nathan Wade's substantive text messages with her.

00:56:16.180 Oh, I, and I hope they do. I hope they subpoena those. And I hope that they subpoena them and

00:56:20.280 question them about all of these, you know, create a timeline because you know, I was working with

00:56:25.520 limited ability as a defense lawyer, you know, all I have is the right to subpoena, but they've got much

00:56:30.340 broader power and mine had to be relevant to my case. So, you know, at the beginning,

00:56:34.400 mine was not relevant to perjury. Mine was relevant to the allegations in my first motion.

00:56:39.620 So now if they've got subpoena power, they can subpoena anything that's relevant to a perjury

00:56:43.680 inquiry, which are the texts, which are the, you know, the, the records from the, um, credit cards,

00:56:49.280 things like that, travel records, they can subpoena all that. So I hope that they do. Um, you know,

00:56:53.940 and I know that there's some investigations at the federal level, they've got subpoena power.

00:56:58.020 So if they want to, they can subpoena all of those records. And I think it'll paint a much

00:57:01.900 better picture of what was going on here. They need to do it. We're going to call Jim Jordan's

00:57:06.260 office this week and find out because he's been investigating what she's been doing with federal

00:57:10.660 money that we've given to her and whether it's being used properly, not, not in connection with

00:57:14.700 this case, but in a sort of different lane. Um, but it's related. I mean, do we have a felon

00:57:20.540 running the Fulton County DA, the DA's office? Do we, or don't we? I mean, this is what she says.

00:57:25.040 She says she's the greatest DA ever. She's the best thing to ever happen to Fulton County.

00:57:29.320 Here she was at that woman's event. I'll give you another soundbite. Well, let's watch.

00:57:32.380 When he saw me with sincerity, he asked, Fonny, are you okay? And I said, I'm good. And then

00:57:39.860 he asked what I believe to be in genuine concern. He said, do you regret running for DA? I was

00:57:47.420 literally shocked at the question. I am sure I looked at him like he was crazy. I said,

00:57:53.900 are you kidding? I'm the best DA this county's ever had. Let me tell you how much I don't

00:57:58.540 regret it. Wednesday, I went in real. I'm on four more years.

00:58:03.700 Years. Four more years.

00:58:06.420 Do you think she's the best DA Fulton County's ever seen?

00:58:10.080 You know, it's all in perspective. She ran against Paul Howard. And, you know, I supported

00:58:16.320 her against Paul Howard. And there were a lot of issues with Paul Howard. So, you know, that is,

00:58:21.320 sometimes elections are the lesser of two evils.

00:58:24.720 Low bar is what you're saying, at least in the recent past when it comes to the DA's there.

00:58:29.980 Okay. So what about the appeal? Because I know now you guys have tried to get an immediate appeal of

00:58:35.720 the judge's order, refusing to disqualify her. He did not, in his order, denying your motion to DQ,

00:58:43.220 give you that permission slip the way he did when he struck six counts of her indictment the day or

00:58:49.540 two before. And in that order, he said, I'm going to give you a permission slip if you want to take

00:58:53.440 this up right away. Interlocutory appeal, meaning before there's been a trial, before there's been a

00:58:57.660 final judgment. So you need a permission slip for this too. Do you think you're likely to get it?

00:59:02.960 I'm not sure, you know, because he did give the hint in the prior order that he was going to give

00:59:07.500 that. I think he probably will give us permission, but how it works in Georgia is we now then have to

00:59:12.760 get permission from the court of appeals also. So I'm not positive if we'll get that, but hopefully he

00:59:18.100 will. And if it gets denied and you have to try this case to completion, you'll raise it again,

00:59:24.520 I imagine, as an appellate issue. I mean, this isn't something that you're going to drop.

00:59:28.660 Right. No, we would definitely, if my client was to get convicted, we would definitely raise it as an

00:59:32.200 appellate issue. But I don't think it'll get that far. You don't. Why? I don't. I don't think my

00:59:37.900 client will get convicted. I think he's innocent. And I think that the case against him is weak at

00:59:43.500 best. Can we talk about that a little? I think most people don't even know who Michael Roman is.

00:59:48.820 I mean, we've studied up a little bit on him because of this case and he's gotten very interesting.

00:59:54.000 And there have been some of the left who have been trying to malign him. Oh, he's a Democrat. I mean,

00:59:58.160 he's a Republican operative. He engages in dirty tricks for a living. Of course, that's what's

01:00:03.320 really happening here. More dirty tricks against poor Fannie. Explain a little bit about who Michael

01:00:08.840 Roman is and why he's been dragged into this case. So two things. The first thing is that you pointed

01:00:16.000 out, a lot of people did speculate that he was behind all of this. And it's ironic because he wasn't

01:00:21.620 at all. So that was kind of surprising to hear that. People say, oh, well, he's the one investigating

01:00:26.980 this. And he's not, you know, he has no ties to Georgia. The other thing is he, his role,

01:00:32.080 just to answer your question, and he was the election day campaign chair. So the national

01:00:38.040 election day campaign chair. So sort of coordinated efforts around the country on election day. That

01:00:43.120 was his job in the campaign. And so he's more of a logistics person than anything. You know,

01:00:49.460 works with a lot of the lawyers, the campaign lawyers funneling, you know, hey, do this,

01:00:54.460 do that, get this here, get this from point A to point B. That's really his job. His job was not,

01:00:59.480 you know, like any of the lawyers to review anything, to analyze it, to, you know, draft

01:01:05.380 anything. It was really just logistics. So, I mean, so far we've seen many people take

01:01:12.940 pleas in this Georgia prosecution from Sidney Powell to Jenna Ellis and others. Is there any

01:01:18.960 chance Michael Roman will take a plea? We were offered a misdemeanor probation early on and

01:01:24.940 essentially any misdemeanor he wanted to pick and rejected that. So I think, you know, that's about

01:01:30.180 as good as it can get. So I think it's very unlikely that it'll take a plea. And it doesn't surprise me

01:01:35.600 that the others took a plea, quite frankly. You know, it's a very large expense and it's very stressful

01:01:41.660 to stand trial. I think most people could not. I mean, if you think about it, if someone said,

01:01:47.080 you know, you, you know, you're almost retirement age, you can spend your retirement funds paying a

01:01:52.740 lawyer and sitting in a two-year trial, or you can go see your grandkids. I think most of us would cut

01:01:57.260 our losses and go see our grandkids. You know, even, even on principle's sake, you know, the 20-year-old

01:02:02.620 me would probably fight on principle. The 50-year-old me would say, I want to go play with my grandkids and

01:02:06.360 enjoy the money I've amassed, you know, versus paying a lawyer to do a case like this. And you

01:02:12.580 got to understand, RICO cases take forever. So, you know, this case, you could easily be in court

01:02:17.880 for a year. And I think it's completely reasonable that these lawyers didn't want to have to spend all

01:02:23.180 of their money and all of their time fighting a case like this in court. So, you know, pleas are

01:02:27.940 oftentimes cutting your losses. And I think that's what we saw with the pleas that we we've had so far.

01:02:32.200 Well, so now thanks to this motion, we've delayed this trial by three months, at least. And, you

01:02:38.260 know, her pursuit of Donald Trump and Michael Roman and the others. And that, I mean, is there

01:02:42.940 any chance whatsoever this case now gets tried before the election in November?

01:02:47.060 No, but I never thought there was a chance for that anyway. You know, it's just too big. And that's

01:02:52.240 on the state. You know, they're the ones that chose to make this case really large and have not

01:02:56.320 agreed to sever anybody out. If they really wanted to try people, they could have narrowed it down.

01:03:01.220 When you make it this large and you've got this many defense lawyers and defendants that you've

01:03:06.360 got to get into a courtroom together, there's no way to try it quickly. There's just no way.

01:03:10.820 And that's part of the strategy behind these racketeering charges. You know, the bigger you

01:03:15.140 bring it, the harder it is to get lawyers who will take these cases. Because, you know, imagine not

01:03:20.400 being able to take any other case for two years because you're in trial, you know, to wear people

01:03:24.620 down. And so the logistics of the case made it impractical that it would ever be tried before

01:03:28.880 November anyway. I know that Ms. Willis keeps saying in court, you know, we want to, you know,

01:03:32.760 we want, don't want delay. We want to push this. You know, if they didn't want delay, they would

01:03:36.700 have had the discovery ready the day that the case was indicted. They would have handed over the

01:03:40.380 complete discovery that day. And they would have, you know, worked to separate the cases out into a

01:03:45.840 manageable group. You know, let's try this group, let's try this group, and then let's try this group.

01:03:51.220 If they had really wanted to push the case, it could have been done that way. And it wasn't.

01:03:54.860 None of that has happened. So what would you, have you given any thought to what happens as a

01:03:59.860 practical matter if Trump wins? And what happens with the Georgia case? It's not like the federal

01:04:04.900 case where, cases, where he can just pull the Department of Justice off of the cases and they

01:04:09.740 go away. This case doesn't go away necessarily, especially against your client. Like maybe she's

01:04:16.660 going to have to pause before going after the sitting president of the United States, you know,

01:04:20.660 if he wins. But she doesn't have to pause going after Michael Roman, right? So it's,

01:04:25.120 have you given any thought to what happens? Like, let's say she does get a trial date of,

01:04:28.900 I don't know, December 2024 or February 25, and Donald Trump is the sitting president. What do you

01:04:34.560 think that means? I mean, just, you know, taking out my role in the case, just thinking of that as

01:04:41.360 just a normal human, that's impossible. You can't have the leader of our country

01:04:45.660 in trial for two years. I mean, that's just, you know, to me, just, just as a citizen,

01:04:52.280 that makes absolutely no sense. It just doesn't seem practical. So legally, though, putting my

01:04:59.840 lawyer hat back on, the governor, obviously, in the state of Georgia could have some control over

01:05:04.920 that. You know, our governor and we have certain clemency powers and things like that. So there are

01:05:09.740 some things that could happen behind the scenes. It's unprecedented, though. I mean,

01:05:13.000 it's definitely unprecedented. I can't even imagine how the Secret Service could secure

01:05:17.840 the Fulton County Courthouse. I mean, it's just, it's a nightmare. I mean, it literally makes my

01:05:22.920 brain almost explode even thinking about it. I know. Okay. I have two other follow-up questions

01:05:27.140 on the, on the hearing and all that. Where is Anna Cross? What happened to Anna Cross? My position is

01:05:32.540 she's with Kate Middleton somewhere. I, I'm not sure we're ever going to see them again.

01:05:37.180 I'm not either. And, you know, I've known Anna for a very long time and have an immense amount of

01:05:42.020 respect for Anna. Um, being in court with her when she was slinging those allegations,

01:05:46.360 the mudslinging, it, it was surprising, um, because it's not Anna and we have respected each

01:05:51.680 other for many years. So when she disappeared, it did not surprise me either. Um, you know,

01:05:57.340 sorry, I should have pointed out to my audience. I think they know, but she was one of the other

01:06:00.280 special prosecutors brought in with Nathan Wade. It was this, um, other guy, Floyd, the RICO

01:06:04.740 specialist, Anna Cross, who handled most of the hearing and then Nathan Wade. But after Terrence

01:06:09.740 Bradley took the stand and we clearly believe lied and the judge believed lied, she disappeared.

01:06:14.620 And as a lawyer in the court, you're not allowed to suborn perjury. You can't put a witness on the

01:06:18.520 stand. She, he was her witness. She disappeared. She suddenly had a professional conflict in her

01:06:23.060 private practice rather than spending her time on the biggest case in the nation, or at least one of

01:06:26.840 the four. And we know, we all believe we, I mean, me and my guests, but we, we believe that, um,

01:06:32.000 she flew the coop because she realized she was part of something that was unlawful, but that's a,

01:06:36.280 that's speculative. So keep going. We have conflict rules. So, you know, the, the rules dictate where

01:06:42.260 you go win and an evidentiary hearing takes precedent over other things. So, you know,

01:06:46.860 if she wanted to be there, I would imagine that she could have filed a conflict. I did that. I had

01:06:51.600 conflicts with other cases and I filed a conflict letter and made sure that I was at this case.

01:06:56.440 Um, you know, so, so I, she disappeared by the time Terrence Bradley, um, she got back up there.

01:07:01.960 Yes. Which, and you know, that's very rare. You don't split up witnesses. So, you know,

01:07:06.680 she had questioned Terrence Bradley to begin with, and then Adam Abate took over and finished. And

01:07:12.360 that's, that, that doesn't happen. You know, they had to get special permission to do that.

01:07:16.060 It's all very sketchy. Okay. And also I want to ask the judge said in his order,

01:07:20.480 it may very well be time to gag Fannie Willis. He made that clear, given her out of court statements

01:07:25.760 about racism and so on. And now she doubles down on May, on March 10th at this women's forum,

01:07:30.720 um, going on about these sexist, racist politicians and others. So do you expect that the defense will

01:07:37.340 move to gag her? I think it's a possibility. You know, I hate gag orders personally. Um,

01:07:43.320 just, you know, I, I believe in transparency, but at this point she has, she is jeopardizing my

01:07:48.320 client's right to a fair trial. And, you know, by making statements, you know, some of the statements

01:07:53.120 I referenced earlier that, you know, God has told her to do this and she's making every move based on,

01:07:57.720 you know, what he's telling her, um, you know, that my client's interest is contrary to democracy.

01:08:03.140 Um, those are things that are, are not allowed, you know? And so I had hoped that she would stop

01:08:08.460 making those, but I think we may get to a point where we have to do a gag order. If it continues,

01:08:12.760 um, the one thing that, that the law says is if she makes those statements, then we're permitted

01:08:18.220 to make statements to counter them. So, you know, what we end up getting into as we get into a public,

01:08:23.100 you know, contest of, you know, Oh, you're racist. Oh, I'm not racist. You know, and that's not really

01:08:28.300 what we should be doing. That's not where we should be trying this case, but that's unfortunately

01:08:32.280 where we are trying it right now. And so that then puts the burden on the defense lawyers to publicly

01:08:37.300 go against what she said. Um, the cleaner thing would be to do a gag order, you know, which,

01:08:43.000 which again, I'm hesitant. I hate doing those, but it is definitely the cleaner thing. I hope that

01:08:47.260 she would just keep it, um, fair and not continue to comment on my client's guilt, not continue to

01:08:54.140 comment on, you know, her motivations in doing this. Um, it's, it's unfortunate to say.

01:09:00.220 Um, when you filed this motion, you filed it alone and then slowly, but surely, as it became clear,

01:09:06.000 you were onto something, the other defendants joined in. I have to tell you, I thought that was

01:09:11.140 very interesting as a, as a former, you know, as a recovering female lawyer myself, not to make it all

01:09:17.140 about gender, but I, I don't know, to me, I thought she's, she's a whippersnapper. You're,

01:09:22.640 it's not like you're 20, you know, you're, I think 46 years old, but you, you dragged them to the,

01:09:28.580 to the water and sure enough, they started drinking it. The defense attorneys, I feel Ashley may have

01:09:34.560 looked on you a little skeptically and sure enough, it ultimately forget the way I'm putting it, but you

01:09:41.860 got a scalp that never would have been gotten had it not been for you. So can you just talk about

01:09:48.740 that process? Like you were the one who found this and what was the reaction of the defendants,

01:09:53.700 the other defendants and the lawyers? Yeah. And, you know, you can see that in the responses. Um,

01:09:59.040 I think that the, the week after I filed this, the judge had a hearing and he asked the other

01:10:03.420 defense lawyers if they were joining it and they said they weren't sure, you know, they were still

01:10:06.320 looking, investigating it. So I think it's, you know, I think it's pretty common public knowledge that

01:10:10.920 they weren't, you know, joining from the beginning. Um, and I thought a lot about that

01:10:15.520 and filing motions like this are hard. Um, the repercussions are difficult, the repercussions

01:10:21.580 professionally, the repercussions with other clients, with other cases. Um, you know, we have

01:10:26.620 to factor that in. I am of the mind frame that, you know, I'm, I'm sort of like a method actor,

01:10:31.140 you know, I like, this is my case and this is my client and I'm going to do whatever I have to do

01:10:35.520 in this case to protect my client's right to a fair trial. So I, I am able to sort of block all

01:10:40.820 of that out on purpose and block out the professional and personal ramifications of

01:10:46.180 filing a motion like this. Um, but it is a difficult thing to do. And so, you know, I never

01:10:50.920 fault any lawyer who is skeptical of joining in something that, that is so, um, potentially

01:10:57.000 damaging. Well, I faulted them. I faulted them because I'll tell you exactly what happened.

01:11:01.960 They were like, look at, I don't know, she's doing some weird motion. She's going to bring

01:11:05.300 their personal lives into it. We don't want anything to do with this. And then they got up and tried

01:11:10.260 to look like the big boys at the hearing and like, Oh, now I'm going to handle it. It's

01:11:14.040 like, no, this wasn't your idea. You shat on it publicly. Everything that's happening is

01:11:19.480 due to Ashley merchant. That's what happened. Okay. That's my take with all due respect.

01:11:23.200 They did a good job when they ultimately got interested, but let that be a lesson to you

01:11:26.720 boys. Uh, she knew what she was talking about and you should have had more faith in her right

01:11:30.780 from the start. Cause that's the biggest progress anybody's made on the defense side in this

01:11:35.160 entire case. Uh, and Fannie Willis has been disgraced as a result of this motion and the

01:11:40.620 hearing and her own behavior, her own choices, what she did. All right. Before I let you go,

01:11:46.000 um, can we just spend a minute on you? I'd love to know just a little bit more about you.

01:11:49.760 Are you from Georgia? Where'd you grow up? No, I'm actually from Florida. So I grew up,

01:11:54.380 um, on the beach. I'm a beach girl grew up in Clearwater beach. And then I went to the university

01:11:57.800 of Florida and I met my husband in law school. And so he had taken a job here in Atlanta and we ended up

01:12:03.440 here. Why'd you go to law school? Um, I went to law school because I really believe in standing

01:12:10.800 by anybody, you know, in their time of need, um, you know, helping someone who needs help

01:12:16.300 and I'm not a math person. So, you know, I certainly wasn't going to be in the medical

01:12:20.420 field or anything like that. Um, and I, I love, I was a political science major. I love the constitution.

01:12:25.660 I love the rule of law. Um, I love ethics. I know that sounds crazy, but you know, I just,

01:12:30.960 I love the transparency of ethics. So that's something that was really important to me.

01:12:35.460 Um, you know, in college, I, I did Senate and government and rule of ethics, um, things like

01:12:40.660 that. So, you know, that was always important to me and I love law school. I love the constitution.

01:12:45.180 I love fighting for the constitution. And that's one of the things that I liked about being a defense

01:12:49.240 lawyer is, you know, I'm, it all goes back to the constitution for me. And so that's sort of my

01:12:54.100 moral compass. You know, I love the history of our, our legal system in this country and that,

01:12:58.900 that sort of backs it up. And I have daughters now, you know, I want them to see me fighting

01:13:03.220 for what's right. Um, I want them to see me fighting for people who, you know, sometimes

01:13:08.860 I'm not as lucky as defending Michael Roman, you know, a person who I believe completely

01:13:12.400 is innocent of these charges. Um, sometimes I represent people who are guilty and I am there

01:13:17.400 defending them and helping them in their weakest moment. And I believe firmly that people are more

01:13:22.820 than the worst thing they've ever done or the worst thing they're ever accused of doing.

01:13:26.060 And so, you know, that, that sort of guides me and I want my kids to see that.

01:13:30.340 How old are your daughters?

01:13:32.160 I have a 14 and a 16 year old, two girls, so they know everything.

01:13:35.780 That's exciting. So they're really actually able to watch the coverage and see what you're doing,

01:13:40.580 which is, which is great. But I'm curious as time, I'm kind of always curious when I see a,

01:13:44.800 like a strong, articulate, fierce woman out there, not somebody who's saying it about themselves

01:13:48.900 all the time, like Fannie, but somebody like you, how'd you get to be like this? Like,

01:13:53.400 what are you, what were your parents like? What were you like as a kid? What, what were

01:13:56.300 you straight A student? What, what gave you your confidence?

01:13:59.640 Um, you know, I think I've actually built the confidence as an attorney and it's, it's,

01:14:03.780 it's crazy because you get beat down so much in court and I, you know, you know, you practice law.

01:14:10.380 Judges are mean, they're brutal. Um, opposing counsel are brutal. You just get treated like crap so much

01:14:16.100 that you stop caring about being treated like crap. I know that sounds awful, but you know,

01:14:20.840 I, I regularly, and I, I mentor a lot. I'm, I'm blessed and honored. You know,

01:14:24.520 one of the biggest honors of my career is I'm the president. I just became the president of the

01:14:28.300 Georgia association of criminal defense lawyers, which is huge to me because it's, you know,

01:14:33.040 it's kind of lonely being a defense lawyer because you're not in a big law firm, you know,

01:14:36.880 you're not in a DA's office. So I love that. But one of the things I regularly tell people is,

01:14:42.140 you know, we get treated like crap anyway, so you might as well fight, you know, like I'm not

01:14:48.280 going to get treated any differently. Um, but you know, I think that that, that gave me a lot

01:14:52.920 of confidence. Um, and I'm an only child, so, you know, I got a lot of attention and you did a

01:14:59.100 moot court in law school. That was a favorite of mine too. And I do think that's, that's big.

01:15:03.180 I did. And that's, you know, that's how I met my husband. We actually competed together.

01:15:06.820 Oh, no way. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. It's very good for a young woman in

01:15:10.760 particular. That's why I love law school for most people. If you could afford it, you know,

01:15:15.000 it's so expensive now, but it's such a confidence builder and it develops skills that you could use

01:15:19.460 for a lifetime. Even if you don't wind up practicing law, it gets you on your feet. Um,

01:15:24.980 not in the way Joe Biden is now lying about having done when he was in life. There was,

01:15:28.780 there was something from the, from the her transcript H U R where he alleged he was called

01:15:34.600 on in torts class, Ashley, and he didn't know the case. He hadn't done the homework. And yet

01:15:38.640 there he was for 20 minutes on his feet, basically holding court, his moot court laws. I'm like,

01:15:43.640 Oh my God. Okay. That's it. None of that happened. But in general, torts, contracts,

01:15:49.400 moot court law school, I do think it's a confidence builder, even if you're not good at it.

01:15:54.120 It is, you know, and Megan, that's my dad always told me, you know, go to law school. You're a

01:15:58.200 woman. I mean, that's one of the things he always said. If you go to law school, you're always going

01:16:01.280 to have that. If you decide to get married, have kids, and you don't want to practice, you will always

01:16:07.060 have a job if you have a law degree. And that was one of the things he said, you know, if,

01:16:10.340 if you want to do that, that's great. Go stay at home, you know, but that way,

01:16:14.500 if everything falls out from under you, you always can go get a job if you've got a law degree.

01:16:19.040 So, you know, I said, my mom said the same thing to me about typing. So I think our parents had

01:16:23.540 different standards. Well, hold on. I actually, you know, my parents were big on typing and I'm not

01:16:30.200 going to lie. I've been big on that with my kids too, because I took a typing class. And I think that

01:16:34.140 was by far the most valuable class I took in all of high school. It does help. Honestly,

01:16:38.420 to be the fast typist is actually quite valuable. All right. So let's jump forward to, let's say

01:16:44.920 what's, we're in March of 24 right now. Let's go to June of 25. I'll try to pick a date far out

01:16:51.180 enough that maybe the case will actually have been tried. At that point, if the case is ongoing or has

01:16:58.360 just been wrapped up, is Fannie Willis, the district attorney trying the case, or was she the district

01:17:03.900 attorney recently trying the case? I would be shocked. I'd be shocked if it goes that far,

01:17:10.140 if she is still the district attorney and it still happens. It's just, you know, look at all the issues

01:17:15.100 that this case has been brought with from the beginning. You know, we've got several charges

01:17:19.720 that were just dismissed last week against one of the defendants. We've got a couple other motions

01:17:24.260 to dismiss pending that we still haven't had rulings on. There's a lot that can happen between now and

01:17:29.140 then. You know, so I just, I'll, I'll believe it when I see it, if we actually get to trial and I,

01:17:35.560 you know, I'd love to try the case. Like I'd love to try this case. But if we do try it, I don't want

01:17:40.400 to try 20 other cases at the same time. That's one of the things that's frustrating about racketeering

01:17:44.940 charges, you know, cases. So she should, she should not get too comfortable in that DA's seat.

01:17:50.080 I don't think so. I mean, she's got two challengers, which, you know, that was surprising. And

01:17:54.180 you know, the thing with, with this job is I don't know that there's a ton of people that

01:17:59.440 were lining up to qualify. It's a difficult, it's a difficult position. And that office has had

01:18:04.160 controversy after controversy, you know, with her predecessor. Now there's issues with the jail,

01:18:09.240 there's issues with backlog, there's issues in Fulton County with mismanagement. You know,

01:18:13.440 I used to work for Fulton County, used to live in Fulton County. So I feel comfortable saying that.

01:18:17.460 My husband does civil rights litigation. We've, we've settled a number of cases against Fulton County.

01:18:22.500 Um, so the, the issues with that County are very widespread.

01:18:28.420 So you said you believe she and Nathan Wade committed perjury, which is a felony in Georgia.

01:18:33.920 Should they be prosecuted?

01:18:35.900 Oh, I think they should be prosecuted. I think they should, I think it should be investigated.

01:18:39.540 Um, you know, lying to the court is if, if, if someone lies to the court and that's allowed,

01:18:45.520 it undermines our entire system of justice. And when you've got someone who is trying to put

01:18:50.940 somebody in jail for essentially lying and that's what, that's what my client's charged with

01:18:55.160 essentially, and you're lying, that is a red flag. But you know, one of the things that we do as a,

01:19:01.560 as a defense bar, and I think a lot of people miss this, if you're going to prosecute my client

01:19:06.480 and you're going to put them in jail, you have to follow the law to do it. And that's my job to

01:19:10.880 make sure that you followed every single step, because the only way that we can have any faith

01:19:14.880 in the outcome and any faith in the process is if the law was followed the entire time.

01:19:19.300 And it wasn't in this case from the getup, it was not followed. And so that's a problem. You know,

01:19:25.420 the entire process is tainted because of that.

01:19:28.620 Are there any other potential crimes here? We've had some speculation that

01:19:31.860 she admitted to a few of them when she took the stand. What's your take on that?

01:19:36.300 Oh, I definitely think so. I think, um, so there's a federal statute called honest services fraud

01:19:40.540 and, you know, the, the appellate courts, the district courts, the federal courts have sort of

01:19:44.980 diced that statute up a lot, but that's the typical, um, kickback, you know, crime, the honest

01:19:49.880 services. And the premise is basically that the public is entitled to honest services by their

01:19:55.720 elected officials. And so by her paying her boyfriend, he's exorbitant amount of money.

01:20:00.160 Was she giving the public the honest services that they're entitled to? So I think that the federal

01:20:05.900 government could investigate that. Definitely. Um, I still think that there were, there were

01:20:10.740 issues in Fulton County, you know, with their statutes, her, her defense is that I don't have to

01:20:15.400 follow any, um, Fulton County laws because I'm a constitutional state officer. Um, I disagree with

01:20:21.920 that. So I think that she could be held accountable for those. I think there's disclosure issues that she

01:20:27.480 has not, um, you know, not adequately disclosed all of the things that she was given. Um, and I,

01:20:33.900 and it's my understanding there's some campaign finance things. Yes. I was, that's what I was

01:20:37.380 going to ask you about. What about the campaign finance possibility? She talked about using

01:20:41.220 campaign finance funds for personal use, which is a hard no under the law. So do you think there

01:20:47.640 might be something there and who would be the person to look into that? Is that again, AG?

01:20:51.840 We have an, we actually have an election ethics board. Um, so they're the ones that would look

01:20:56.580 into that at the state level. And I think that they, they definitely should be looking into that.

01:21:00.560 Um, it was very troublesome to hear that you took a loan from your campaign. I can also tell you as

01:21:05.580 a person who regularly donates to campaigns, um, anytime someone says that they used campaign

01:21:11.960 funds for something that's improper, that's, you know, I would be hesitant to donate to that person

01:21:17.080 ever again. So essentially she's saying that she used campaign money to reimburse Mr. Wade.

01:21:24.000 If I were a donor, I would be very upset about that. Um, if I gave her money, I might want my money

01:21:28.520 back, um, something like that. So I think that she may have some issues with that as well, but there's,

01:21:33.080 you know, there's a plethora of things that could be charged in this case. Um, false swearing, um,

01:21:38.820 filing false, you know, false pleadings, because I believe some of the pleadings that were filed were

01:21:43.500 false. Um, you know, she had Mr. Wade do the affidavit. I believe that was false. Um, you know,

01:21:49.380 just a ton of things. If someone wanted to investigate and you know, what's crazy about it is how broad

01:21:54.500 our racketeering statute is here in Georgia, all of those things could be charged as racketeering.

01:21:59.860 So you can take all of these things, which seem minor and piece them together and put them into

01:22:04.800 a racketeering indictment. That's exactly what she did. All right. Last question. Uh, will Scott

01:22:11.120 McAfee withstand his challenge from this left wing judge who wants to replace him on the bench? And if

01:22:18.220 he doesn't, who gets your case? Right. That's a good question. I think it'll end in a runoff.

01:22:24.980 They've got three people in that race. So how we work here in Georgia is in a judicial race,

01:22:29.380 you have to have a majority. So when you have three, you pretty much always end up in a runoff.

01:22:33.460 So I think we're going to see a situation where it's a runoff runoffs are very hard because the

01:22:38.620 voter turnout is very low. So the people who tend to, to turn out for the runoffs are a certain type

01:22:44.520 of voter. So that would help judge McAfee, I believe. Um, if history, you know, repeats itself,

01:22:50.020 that would help him. So the issue is going to be who fundraises the most and who can stick it out

01:22:54.480 to that runoff. I think that's what we're going to see in this case. Who's the third person. I know

01:22:58.760 the left wing rainbow push guy who just got in. Who's the third person there. So it's, she's

01:23:03.440 virtually an unknown. She's a staff attorney for judge Melanie Leffridge. So that's another judge in

01:23:08.280 Fulton County. She's actually her staff attorney. So, but she is an African-American female, um,

01:23:13.520 not super, you know, name, like, like the other, um, gentlemen, Mr. Patillo, not, you know,

01:23:19.320 not publicly known, but, uh, you know, decent reputation. I don't know her, so I can't really

01:23:24.620 say, you know, legally. And I don't know that a lot of, but that's interesting. So he's, so he is

01:23:29.740 running to keep his seat against two prominent or one prominent and one successful, um, African-American

01:23:36.300 opponents being asked to disqualify this African-American female DA who plays the race card

01:23:42.920 any day ending in Y. And he's a Republican. I mean, it's just, I mean, that's, that's a dynamic

01:23:48.400 underlying this entire thing. Some of our audience pointed it out. I saw it too. He was asked to do

01:23:53.840 something very courageous and he failed. He did not do it. It was a big thumbs down for me on judge

01:23:59.140 McAfee, who I thought had been relatively fair, a little weak in that hearing, but relatively fair.

01:24:04.200 He's young. Hopefully he'll get there, but so far I'm giving you a thumbs down, sir. Ashley merchant,

01:24:09.240 you're getting the double thumbs up. Thank you so much for coming on for all of your great work.

01:24:14.660 And we will continue to watch you and see what happens in this case. Thank you so much, Megan,

01:24:19.580 for having me. It's a pleasure. Oh, all the best. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on

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01:25:10.200 MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's Sirius XM.com slash MK show and get three

01:25:18.400 months free. Offer details apply. Joining me now, Phil Holloway, another star as a result of this case,

01:25:30.340 although he was a star before, but unknown to us. Phil Holloway of the Holloway Law Group. So Phil,

01:25:36.040 Ashley Merchant, laying it on the line in very honest terms, she believes that these two perjured

01:25:41.640 themselves. She believes that they did commit a felony and that they ought to be investigated.

01:25:46.720 But she's got even her doubts about whether it'll actually happen. She mentioned the bar complaint

01:25:51.320 that could happen. Anybody can file one of those. They don't make it public normally unless you have

01:25:55.720 to get a leak to know it happened. And you are reporting that it has happened against Fannie Willis

01:26:02.280 and then maybe Nathan Wade too, but will it go anywhere? Yeah, that's always great to be with you. And that

01:26:08.140 was a great interview with Ashley. I think it was, it was very telling and it's always good to get that

01:26:13.060 behind the scenes perspective that only she, you know, can bring to this ongoing discussion. Yes,

01:26:19.100 there's been, to my knowledge, at least one really, really well-written substantive complaint filed

01:26:26.660 with the State Bar of Georgia with respect to Ms. Willis. But I would certainly be surprised if

01:26:32.660 there's not many others that have also been, any person can file a bar complaint. So I'm sure

01:26:37.620 they've, they've received a lot because there's a lot of people that are unhappy, particularly residents

01:26:42.060 of Fulton County. They're unhappy with how their district attorney, the person that they may have

01:26:47.260 contributed to and voted for has, has comported herself in office. You can, you really just need

01:26:52.860 to look no further than her unprofessional conduct in court when she took the stand and testified,

01:26:59.520 irrespective of any odor of mendacity that she may have left behind when she got off the witness stand,

01:27:05.720 but just the way she carried herself, calling Ashley Merchant a liar. And, and as we have talked about,

01:27:11.920 and as she talked about, there was merit and there was substance to her filings. The media came out

01:27:18.600 immediately, went after Ashley and said, you know, there's no proof. She's offered no proof of the

01:27:24.020 affair. And lo and behold, they admitted it. They had to admit it because it was true. Ashley's not

01:27:29.480 going to put something in a pleading, Megan, unless she's got a good faith basis. But if I'm,

01:27:35.480 and I know Ashley really well, she has more than a good faith basis. She has proof. She's got the

01:27:41.780 receipt. So she's not going to launch that kind of nuclear missile, so to speak, into this case,

01:27:47.680 unless she can prove it. Now the bar complaint that I'm privy to, and I've got a copy of the

01:27:53.560 whole thing. I posted a lot of it on my X feed a few days ago. But all of it actually, except for

01:28:01.080 identifying information and personal information, but it is very, very well written. And it goes through

01:28:06.320 the professional rules of conduct for attorneys in Georgia. And it's got a complete table

01:28:11.660 of contents where it articulates very clearly which standard she's alleged to have violated

01:28:17.940 and in what way. But you really need to look no further than perjury because perjury, in addition

01:28:23.460 to being a crime, if you violate your duty of candor to the court, that in and of itself

01:28:29.720 is a disbarrable offense. And we don't have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt in this context.

01:28:36.000 I think the language that the judge put in his order about the odor of mendacity and the questions

01:28:42.480 that he has about the truthfulness of Fannie Willis in this case, that could be enough to really

01:28:49.720 cause a big problem for her. But the issue with the bar is it takes so long. This kind of thing is

01:28:56.260 not going to be resolved anytime in the near future. And of course, we're going to have an election

01:29:01.280 before I think any bar complaints could reasonably be resolved. So I agree with Ashley. There are

01:29:09.300 things that can happen, but each thing is limited in scope and it may take some time to see exactly

01:29:17.060 what kind of repercussions, if any, Fannie Willis is going to face for her purpose.

01:29:22.420 Unless the attorney general gets involved, in which case things will start moving and probably pretty

01:29:27.040 quickly given his power to, uh, you know, get search warrants to actually get to the bottom of

01:29:31.920 this. And I would say to the attorney general, Chris Carr, right? Isn't that the Republican attorney

01:29:35.800 general there? It's time. There can't be two systems of justice depending on skin color, depending on

01:29:41.720 your gender, uh, depending on how defensive you get on the stand and how much self-promotion you do.

01:29:49.060 She has gone after, I guarantee you, defendants for less, with less proof than we have against

01:29:54.800 her. Who's going to police the police woman. She's the chief law enforcement officer for Fulton County.

01:30:01.460 Who's going to hold her to account when she's allegedly committed a felony. It's up to him.

01:30:07.340 Does he have the guts to do it? Yeah, it is. It is up to him. And there's another thing to consider.

01:30:13.240 Of course, you talked about the state Senate here in Georgia that is investigating all this. It's too late

01:30:19.620 for there to be any change, you know, that would apply this year. But next legislative session,

01:30:25.260 I'm expecting to see some legislation, uh, pass the Georgia legislature, probably be signed into

01:30:31.780 law by the governor that allows, uh, for more substantive policing of the police, if you will,

01:30:38.840 or in this case, the chief prosecutor, uh, not only in Fulton County, but anywhere else in the state of

01:30:44.520 Georgia where something like this may happen. Prosecutors, as we know, have immense power and

01:30:50.020 it is almost unchecked. That's why they can get away with all the things that, that they do get

01:30:56.700 away with, uh, you know, and I'm not saying that a hall prosecutors are bad people like this, but there

01:31:02.280 are abuses in the system. They are well documented. I'm sure there are, but we, we, you know, we're

01:31:10.720 ignoring the elephant in the room, which is, this is a black woman in a predominantly black County

01:31:18.800 and to, for this white Republican judge to have disqualified her would have been extraordinary, would

01:31:26.780 have been politically risky and would have greatly upset the crowd that showed up at that international

01:31:32.040 women's day celebration of her and treated her like she was Beyonce. We, that one as well. And that

01:31:38.740 was a great, uh, piece that I saw during Ashley's interview. There's also lots of videos circulating

01:31:45.320 about the stir caused among the churches in Atlanta after Fonnie Willis made that famous,

01:31:51.800 now famous, you know, church speech, the one that judge McAfee referenced in his order, that was

01:31:57.660 straight up jury tampering. Those people who were sitting in those pews, that's, that's where the jury

01:32:04.200 comes from. They are the citizens of Fulton County. And so she's literally preaching to the potential

01:32:09.880 juries, jurors in Fulton County. It's conduct that in my opinion is just reprehensible. If that alone,

01:32:17.400 I think did not get enough attention from judge McAfee in his order. She should have been disqualified

01:32:22.720 for, for that alone, not to mention anything else she did in the courtroom, but that speech

01:32:28.120 was reprehensible. A prosecutor should not take the pulpit in a church to stir up public opinion

01:32:34.440 against and play the race card. That's what she did. She played the race card. He made the judge saw

01:32:39.920 it too. And yet what we heard from the media in the wake of her surviving, thanks to judge McAfee's ruling

01:32:46.880 on Friday, spins this whole thing on its head. It says her race and gender were used against her.

01:32:54.820 I'll give you an example. Simone Sanders on MSNBC, uh, on in sought six, the former president of the

01:33:02.780 United States of America tried to steal an election. The DA Fonnie Willis is seeking to hold them

01:33:10.440 accountable. And because she sought that accountability, they, the former president and

01:33:16.020 his little friends, his allies, uh, Ashley Merchant, the attorney for one of those individuals,

01:33:21.200 they then tried to distract us with salacious gossip. We all have a duty, I think, to remind

01:33:28.400 people about what this is really about. And, and frankly, if, if Fonnie Willis was a man named Frank,

01:33:33.960 I don't believe that they would have been able to distract us. It is a little sexist. It's a little

01:33:40.400 racist. A little sexist, a little racist. And then you have the last panelist jumping in. I'm so happy you

01:33:47.240 said that. And they agreed that this is sexist and racist to be going after Fannie Willis in this

01:33:53.460 manner and trying to distract America with quote, salacious gossip. Maybe you could refresh our

01:34:00.520 memory, Phil, and how we got to that point. Yeah. Well, first off, there's not a racist or sexist

01:34:06.620 bone in Ashley Merchant's body. And the same for Steve Sadow and the other lawyers who I know

01:34:11.800 personally that participated in this, this is not about Willis's race. This is not about her gender.

01:34:17.400 This is about her behavior. This is about her conduct and the choices that she made to, to funnel

01:34:23.560 a no bid contract with my taxpayer money to her boyfriend so that he could then carry her all around

01:34:30.540 the globe, spending lavishly on her to enhance her lifestyle and to enhance her political, um, star

01:34:38.980 that she's hoping to continue to rise through all the media appearances and everything else. This is

01:34:44.440 about Fannie Willis's behavior, her choices, her decisions that she made. It is not about the color

01:34:50.960 of her skin or her gender. And for her to say so is offensive. And it's offensive not only to me,

01:34:57.540 but to the people that know these lawyers, they are good people, but it also should be offensive to the

01:35:03.040 voters, uh, of, and the citizens of Fulton County who do have a choice to replace her this year.

01:35:09.140 And I hope they do so because playing the race card, the way she did was extremely offensive.

01:35:15.080 It was uncalled for, and it was unlawful. And the judge said so in his order. And the thing that

01:35:20.960 really, really tears me up the most about this is he said that it hurt her speech down there at that

01:35:25.800 church was wrong. He said it was unlawful, but he didn't do anything about it. He exacted no

01:35:31.400 measure of penalty against Fannie Willis other than to say, maybe it's time for a gag order.

01:35:37.480 That's the most ridiculous part of this whole thing. In my opinion, as far as that order goes,

01:35:42.040 if, if what she did was wrong, she needs to be held to account. She needed to have been removed

01:35:46.760 from the case for that alone at a minimum. Again, to refresh the audience, uh, he said on page 19,

01:35:54.180 her decisions to speak out publicly in this way may have ancillary prejudicial effects yet to be

01:35:59.440 realized, leaving the door open for a showing of prejudicial effect when they potentially would

01:36:03.720 they get to voir dire and half the jury pool has heard these comments, uh, the danger of public

01:36:08.300 comment, uh, by a prosecuting attorney. He recognized that and called her out on it.

01:36:13.020 He said she cast racial aspersions at an indicted defendant's decision to, to file this motion.

01:36:19.800 She cast racial aspersions at an indicted defendant, totally contrary to the rule of ethics for

01:36:26.860 prosecutors and said, while it's not grounds for disqualification, it was still legally improper

01:36:31.480 and created dangerous waters for the DA to wade further into than saying the time may well be here

01:36:37.620 for her to be gagged. If only the defense will move for it. Now, what you get instead of coverage

01:36:43.780 that is honest about those facts fail is things like this from Jim Acosta at CNN. Would you look

01:36:49.620 at this drivel in Sot9? This feels, it just feels kind of, um, I don't know, sickening to the stomach

01:36:57.660 that their personal life got thrown into all of this. And now the judges come out and said, well,

01:37:03.720 you know, uh, tremendous lapse in judgment and so on. And it's going to damage this case. Maybe I'm wrong

01:37:11.660 here, but I can hear some of our viewers at home saying, why do I know more about the, uh, the,

01:37:16.860 the personal life of Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade than I do about the details of this case of

01:37:21.820 Donald Trump and these alleged co-conspirators trying to overturn election results in Georgia.

01:37:26.940 Yeah, you are wrong. You are wrong, Jim Acosta. The reason we know more about Fannie Willis'

01:37:31.020 personal life is because of Fannie Willis, because she placed herself in an ethically compromised

01:37:34.520 position with respect to her lover and co-counsel Nathan Wade on the taxpayer's dime,

01:37:39.260 engaged in a kickback scheme that was unethical and potentially illegal, and then took the stand and

01:37:44.120 lied about it. She perjured herself. And in order to put the lie to this, the nonsense she was spewing

01:37:49.260 from the stand, the defense had no choice, but to get into the specifics of the relationship about

01:37:54.400 which she was lying and for which she should be prosecuted as you or I would be. That's how we

01:37:59.920 got here. One of the most telling parts of that interview I just did with Ashley, Phil, I thought

01:38:04.260 was when I was asking about why she didn't drill down on the details with Robin Urti. Why didn't she get

01:38:09.980 her to, you know, put more color into the story because the judge said, yeah, it kind of lacked

01:38:15.060 completeness and detail. And she said, I was trying not to get salacious. She can't win, right? If she

01:38:20.580 tries to get the details out, then she gets that nonsense. If she tries to be respectful and just

01:38:25.260 get the bottom line truth about when the affair began, you get a line like you got in this judge's

01:38:29.460 opinion saying, oh, it wasn't filled out enough. You know, the answer to that question, this is what I

01:38:33.780 would say to Jim Acosta and those of his ilk in the media. Nobody gives a rat's ass who Fannie Willis

01:38:40.980 is sleeping with because it's not about that. It is about the choices that she has made to funnel

01:38:47.280 no bid contract money to that lover who also is a special prosecutor in the case. And it's about her

01:38:54.640 bias and her and her lack of impartiality. Listen, there are so many things, Megan, that you know about

01:39:00.280 that we all know about in the criminal justice system that are so important in terms of procedural

01:39:05.900 safeguards to prevent wrongful convictions. Chief among them is the right to be presumed innocent,

01:39:11.960 the right to a lawyer, the right to a jury trial. But even before you get to any of those things,

01:39:17.100 you've got a right to a prosecutor who is fair-minded, who is impartial, and who is not out campaigning

01:39:24.400 to get a specific individual citizen of the United States. That is what fundamental fairness requires.

01:39:31.520 So everybody like Jim Acosta wants to immediately go to, well, why aren't we talking about the guilt

01:39:36.760 of Donald Trump or anybody else? Because we're not there yet. You don't get to get there. You don't

01:39:42.040 get to arrive at the trial unless you have a fundamentally fair process. And it starts with

01:39:49.240 the prosecutor. That is the person who made the decision to gin up this special purpose grand jury

01:39:55.380 and then to impanel the grand jury and then who chose to file this indictment and bring these

01:40:00.780 charges. It's just not about Donald Trump. It's really not about any of the defendants. And it's

01:40:05.580 not about whether they're guilty because we can't get there without fairness. And Fonnie Willis has

01:40:11.520 injected, you talk about an odor of mendacity. There's an odor of unfairness now that's cast up

01:40:18.760 over this entire case and all the proceedings. And it's not going away.

01:40:23.040 Yep. That's right. It's not over. There's going to be more investigations of Fonnie Willis. And I

01:40:28.720 think Ashley Merchant's right. The odds of her actually being the one to try this case are slim

01:40:33.020 and none. And slim's on vacation like me. Phil, thank you. Thanks so much for all of your help on this to

01:40:39.680 be continued. And to all of our audience, thank you so much for tuning in. We are off for the rest of

01:40:46.320 this week, but we will resume on Monday with, I'm sure, more on this case and all of the news for

01:40:51.600 you. As always, thanks so much for watching and listening. Go ahead now before I lose you to

01:40:56.440 youtube.com and subscribe slash Megan Kelly to the show if you haven't already and download the

01:41:01.280 podcast wherever you get your shows for free to be continued. And we'll see you on Monday.

01:41:06.120 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 19, 2024

EXCLUSIVE： Ashleigh Merchant Responds to Fani Willis Accusations, Reacts to Ruling, and Previews What Happens Next ｜ Ep. 748

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