The Fani Willis disqualification hearing concluded on Friday with the judge promising a final decision on her fate within the next 2 weeks.
Top News Today :
Judge Scott McAfee heard closing arguments on Friday. He will now determine if Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will be allowed to continue as the prosecutor in her historic RICO case against Donald Trump and others in his orbit.
Defense attorneys have argued that Ms. Willis should be disqualified due to a romantic “conflict of interest” between her and Nathan Wade, who has been serving as a prosecutor under Ms. Willis in the case. However, the star witness they’d hoped would be a slam-dunk in assuring a Fani Willis disqualification proved to be a dud.
According to The New York Times, testimony from Terrence Bradley, an Atlanta-area lawyer who was expected to disqualify Ms. Willis via his testimony, was an absolute bust.
Bradley admitted under oath that comments he made about when the relationship between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade began (which were central to proving a conflict of interest) were simple “speculation.”
“I was speculating,” Bradley said on the stand. “I didn’t have…umm…no one told me. I was speculating.”
“There it is,” legal analyst Allison Gill said, highlighting that because Bradley admitted under oath he “never witnessed anything,” it was effectively ‘case closed.’
There it is. https://t.co/DsEqbQ8dZi
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) February 27, 2024
Georgia law professor Anthony Michael Kreis added that it was clear Bradley had simply been gossiping when he previously spoke about the timeline of the Willis-Wade relationship.
“So far, my prediction about what was going to unfold in Fulton County today appears to be accurate,” he said.
As if that’s not enough, The Times revealed last week that hundreds of text messages from Mr. Bradley — who served for a time as Mr. Wade’s divorce lawyer until the 2 men had a bitter falling out — proves that he was working in cahoots with defense attorneys to expose the Willis-Wade relationship and has jeopardized his credibility.
Now, legal analysts are lining up against the Fani Willis disqualification hearing.
“The case is a joke,” said author Charles P. Pierce of Esquire Magazine. “It tangled the case all up in Willis’s romance with prosecutor Nathan Wade, which, in turn, tangled the case up in Wade’s divorce proceedings.”
“This was a disqualification hearing that quickly denigrated into a daytime soap opera,” said J. Tom Morgan, a former district attorney in Georgia’s DeKalb County. “Have they proven a conflict of interest, where this all started? Absolutely not!”
Interestingly, it’s not clear how Judge Scott McAfee will ultimately determine if Fani Willis should be disqualified. Georgia law allows for a prosecutor to be removed if there is an actual conflict of interest. However, that bar is set high and those who are anxious for a Fani Willis disqualification appear to have failed to construct a compelling case.
In a strange twist, Judge McAfee suggested that defense lawyers may not need to prove an actual conflict, but merely the appearance of one.
“I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” he said at the recent hearing.
Does this mean that Fani Willis might get disqualified solely on appearances? Or, are efforts to remove her from taking down Donald Trump theoretically “dead in the water?”
“I’ll wait… before I say ‘lights out’ on the defense unearthing bombshell materials. But we’re getting close” to the disqualification effort being over, Kries predicted.
OK WASSUP! discusses the Top News Today:
Fani Willis disqualification hearing concludes.
Spectator:
McAfee is a temporary appointee to the bench who must face Fulton County voters for the first time about 60 days after his ruling. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp appointed him last year to complete the term of retiring Judge Christopher S. Brasher. According to McAfee’s campaign website, his election will take place on May 21. Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, is overwhelmingly Democratic and its voters will be less than pleased with the judge if he disqualifies Willis and her office.
Further complicating matters is the fact that McAfee once worked in the Fulton County DA’s office and was supervised by none other than Fani Willis, according to a report in the New York Times.