Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Judges Makes Concrete Ruling in Trump Prosecutor Fani Willis Scandal

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Mr. Wade visits you at the place you laid your head. When? Has he ever visited you at the place you laid your head? So let's be clear because you've lied in this. Let me tell you which one you lied in. Right here?

Starting point is 00:00:21 I think you lied right here. No, no, no, no. This is the truth. Judge. It is the truth, Judge. It is a lie. The fire and brimstone testimony from Fulton County DA Fonny Willis has come to a head.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Judge Scott McAfee has ruled Willis or the special prosecutor she hired to oversee the case against former President Donald Trump and his associates must step off the case or hand it off to someone else. What will happen and what does it mean? Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Starting point is 00:00:51 This ruling from Scott McAfee found that there's the appearance of impropriety in the Rico case against Donald Trump since Fulton County DA Fonny Willis dated special prosecutor Nathan Wade. When the relationship started is at issue. Was it before Willis hired Wade or after? Willis and Wade say the affair started after she hired him and that it ended this year. Lawyers for former President Trump and his co-defendants say it started well before that in 2019. You have no doubt that their romantic relationship was in effect from 2019 until the last time you spoke with her? No doubt. And that's based on your personal observations and speaking with them and seeing them together and things like that? Yes. Okay. One of the key

Starting point is 00:01:40 questions here was whether or not Fonny Willis benefited financially from paying Nathan Wade more than $600,000 to work as a special prosecutor. The two took many vacations together. Yeah, I gave him his money before we ever went on that trip. You gave him cash before you ever went on the trip? Mm-hmm. Okay. And so when you got cash to pay him back on these trips, would you go to the ATM? No, lady. You would not go to the ATM?

Starting point is 00:02:03 No. Okay. So fulton county pays you direct deposit i assume yes fulton county and the state of georgia both pay me direct deposits okay so the cash that you would pay him you wouldn't get it out of the bank i have money in my house you have money in your house so it was just money that was there when you meet my father he's going to tell you as a woman, you should always have, which I don't have, so let's don't tell him that. You should have at least six months in cash at your house at all times. Now, I don't know why this old black man feels like that, but he does. When we were

Starting point is 00:02:38 growing up, my daddy had three safes in the house. So my father's bought me a lockbox, and I always keep cash in the house. Now, I don't do it to the degree that my father would do me a lockbox and I always keep cash in the house now I don't do it to the degree that my father would do it so he would probably be ashamed with me but I always have cash at the house that has been I don't know all my life if you're a woman and you go on a date with a man you better have $200 in your pocket so if if that man acts up, you can go where you want to go. So I keep cash in my house and I don't keep cash as good in my purse like I used to, because I don't go on many dates. But when you go on a date, you should have cash in your pocket. It's clear to point out that Judge McAfee said the evidence isn't sufficient to establish an actual conflict of interest. But he said there is an appearance of impropriety. So he's saying

Starting point is 00:03:26 either Fannie Willis or Nathan Wade have to step off the case or the case is not going to proceed. One of them must go. That's the ruling from the judge. I'll get you back to this episode of Crime Fix in just a second. But first, I want to tell you about our sponsor, Morgan & Morgan. Morgan & Morgan is the largest personal injury law firm in the United States. The firm makes it really easy to submit a claim. You do it in a matter of clicks using your cell phone. If you are ever hurt, your injury could be worth millions. And taking on a big insurance company is a lot easier when you have a big firm like Morgan & Morgan fighting for you.

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Starting point is 00:04:45 He's been following this case very closely, but he's also a state attorney in Palm Beach County in Florida. Dave, your first thoughts on Judge McAfee saying to Fannie Willis, either you or Nathan Wade have to go. You know, I was thinking that the judge may want to split hairs. I just didn't know how he would do it. And it is kind of a head-spinning opinion. He's essentially saying that he doesn't believe Nathan Wade. But if you say that Nathan Wade is lying, then isn't Connie Willis also not credible? But he is saying that he doesn't believe Nathan Wade. But you have to have an actual conflict to disqualify the DA. And there is no actual conflict here because it's not like

Starting point is 00:05:26 the relationship is between the prosecutor and the judge or the prosecutor and defense lawyer or witness. And so she's allowed to remain. But he says if she's going to stay, then Nathan Wade has to go. I thought this would be the end result. I just didn't know how you would get there. But he's getting there by saying there's an appearance of impropriety. And because of that, you got to get rid of Nathan Wade. So there's a little bit of legal jujitsu here. But I think the end result is the right one because the case can continue. And I take that as a W for Fonny Willis. Why do you think he was so reluctant to say that he didn't believe Fannie Willis? Because if they're both, if one is lying, I feel like they both have to be lying. I mean, he obviously

Starting point is 00:06:13 could find that Nathan Wade was lying because there's a lot there to show that he was potentially dishonest. And so Fannie Willis, though, a lot of what she said maybe didn't make sense. I guess he's saying that he's going to leave the issue of sanctions for lying to the bar, but his sole determination is whether there's an actual conflict. Also, Nathan Wade, to the judge, was not credible because he lied on his divorce paperwork. And that's something he did aside from Fannie Willis. And because of that, he was able to say, OK, I don't believe you. But also the witnesses against Fannie Willis, Miss Yerdy, for example, she had some credibility issues, according to the judge. She had a reason to lie herself. And then there was Terrence Bradley, who was supposed to support Fonny Willis,

Starting point is 00:07:06 but he didn't have much credibility either, according to the judge. So essentially, he said, hey, I can't establish an actual conflict, but things smell bad. And because of that, one of you has to go. Things certainly did smell bad. I mean, we had fonny willis dating a guy that she hired and paid more than six hundred thousand dollars to work as a special prosecutor on a case against the former president of the united states whether you like the former president or not and his associates for trying to overturn allegedly an election in the state of Georgia, you know, for trying to change the results. And, you know, she starts dating the guy and there's this whole issue about when the relationship started. Did it start before she hired him or after she hired him?

Starting point is 00:07:57 And it really appeared that there may have been some evidence, even though some of that didn't get in, they didn't bring in the stuff with the cell phones and all of that, that maybe it did start before she hired him. And that's why I call this a self-inflicted wound, because this should just be about whether there is an actual conflict. If they had just come clean at the beginning to say, yeah, we've been dating and I'm not going to keep him around anymore. The relationship is over. And because to eliminate any appearance of impropriety, he's going to leave the prosecution team. I think this thing would have been over. This would not have gone any further because there's no actual conflict.

Starting point is 00:08:36 But because Nathan Waite submitted a sworn affidavit to the court saying that not only did the relationship start later, meaning that it started after he was hired, but also they essentially went Dutch, he got reimbursed, and that injected this whole issue of lying and truthfulness to the court. And I thought that would be a reason to disqualify both of them if the judge found that they were lying to the court. But essentially, the judge said, I don't believe Nathan Wade, but I can't conclude that Connie Willis is lying. And if she is, that's going to be handled by the bar. As far as I'm concerned, it's only about whether there's an actual conflict.

Starting point is 00:09:16 Well, then the question is, if it's only about whether it's an actual conflict, why force Nathan Wade to be thrown overboard? Because the judge had to do that legal jujitsu of saying, well, there's an appearance, so you've got to choose which one will go. That's why my head's spinning a little bit, because it's not a clean decision, but it's a decision that I think gets to where they should be, which is keep the case going because it's still a strong case. Allow D.A. Willis to stay on the case because if she was disqualified, the case really would have been over. But Nathan Wade, the source of these issues, needs to go. I don't want to be a complete cynic here, but I have to be a little bit of a cynic. I mean, how much is politics at play here? Judge McAfee was appointed. He's running for re-election or

Starting point is 00:10:06 election in November. He suddenly has opponents coming out of the woodwork who are aligned with Fannie Willis. So how much are politics at play here in your opinion? Well, I'm going to take Judge McAfee at his word. He said that there are no politics at play. He just tries to do the right thing. He has to look his children in the eye and he wants them to grow up knowing his father did the right thing, regardless of politics. There's no reason for me to believe he's lying. He has, I think, done a good job thus far to show that he is just beholden to the evidence and the law and he's not going to give anyone special favors i think he shows a lot of gravitas despite he's only 34 years old too young to run for president himself but i guess that's the benefit of a receding hairline but as far as judge mcafee goes i i i'm going to take him at his word that he just did this based on what he thinks is the right thing to do but there'll always be allegations of politics that's where we are as a country these days. And you just have to move on and focus on the evidence and the law. Steve Sadow is former President Trump's attorney, and he put a statement out on X following the release of this ruling. And he said, while respecting the court's decision, we believe

Starting point is 00:11:18 that it did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis's extrajudicial MLK, quote, church speech, where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism. We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place. Your response to Steve Sado's comments. You don't get to end the case because the prosecutor goes into a church and makes comments that insinuate that race is involved. That doesn't mean the case goes away.

Starting point is 00:12:01 It doesn't even mean that she gets disqualified from it. So that's his weakest argument. But he has a legitimate claim when he says that if you can show that the parties lied, meaning the DA and the special prosecutor lied to the court, then they need to be disqualified. That's a legitimate argument. And the interesting part for me of Judge McAfee's ruling is that essentially he did find that Nathan Wade was untruthful. But he found that Wade is untruthful, but not necessarily Fonny Willis, which is tough to align because they both said the same thing. In fact, Fonny Willis adopted Nathan Wade's affidavit, which said the relationship began later and he was reimbursed for costs. So he does have a gripe there, but whether it is enough to disqualify her is another matter because this is really about whether an actual conflict exists. And there is not an actual conflict. I agree with

Starting point is 00:12:56 the court on that. To me, I just thought that if the judge found that they were lying, then they would be disqualified as well. And essentially the judge is saying, yeah, I think probably, but it's not conclusive for Fannie Willis. And besides, if they are, it's up to the bar to decide. What do you see happening? Does Nathan Wade go and Fannie Willis stays on the case, along with the other special prosecutors that she hired? Yeah, yeah. Nathan Wade is gone by Felicia. He's going to be thrown overboard because there's no way that Fannie Willis takes option B, which is disqualify herself from the case. I mean, they're not even dating anymore. So she has two other special prosecutors who can step up and fill his role, and that's what will happen. So that's what's going to go. This case was never going to happen before the election.

Starting point is 00:13:41 It was always going to go to trial afterwards because you've got many defendants. You've got complex RICO cases. RICO matters. And these RICO trials take months. So I never expected this to happen before the election. So when people say, oh, no, this is going to create delays, ah, it doesn't matter. It's not material because the delays were always built into this case. This was always going after the election. It just means, though, that the case will happen, that it will happen unless Trump becomes president.

Starting point is 00:14:08 And if he becomes president, he's going to surround himself with Secret Service and dare state officials to come at him. And then we'll be in a constitutional crisis. So hang on. So, Dave, what do you see happening next with this? This case is going to move forward. It will be delayed, at least Trump's trial until after the election. She'll keep pursuing the other defendants. I think that could happen before the election. But Trump will go on trial in this case. If he's not president,

Starting point is 00:14:34 he'll go on trial in this case after the election. I don't know when, but Fannie Willis needs to just take the W, ignore the noise out there, try to have the thick skin and not be too worried about the criticism and just move forward and move on. I think there'll be some bar issues. There'll be some legislative attempts to get at her, but you can't be worried about that as a prosecutor. You have to be focused solely on the law and the evidence. Dave Ehrenberg, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, Anjanette. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google,

Starting point is 00:15:15 and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern Time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Judges Makes Concrete Ruling in Trump Prosecutor Fani Willis Scandal

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