“HEARING ON FANI WILLIS WHITE HOUSE RECORDS SET FOR TOMORROW”
Video transcript6:42
Georgia District Attorney Fonny Willis facing criticism involving allegations of a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor that she hired. Tomorrow, a judge will hear a motion calling for communication between Willis and the federal government to be released. Steve Harrigan is live in Atlanta with the latest on that legal turmoil there. Steve. Dana, this is a whole other area of inquiry being opened up as criticism continues to mount against the DA and the prosecutors she hired already, the total for travel for Nathan Wade, that prosecutor, for two months in 2022 is more than $6,000. Some of those travel bills include plane tickets he purchased for himself and his boss at the time, DA Fonny Willis, plane tickets to Miami as well as San Francisco. Now, questions about potential White House involvement in this prosecution. Most attorneys want to know about the meetings between Wade and the White House counsel, whether he was given guidance on how to prosecute President Trump. I think it goes back to the essential defense that they have, which is this is a democratic plot across the country to make Trump a victim to with baseless prosecutions, that they're all politically motivated and the more information you get about meetings between prosecutors, the more it plays to that defense. And Wade's going to be back in court next week for his divorce proceedings. He's likely to be grilled in detail about his relationship with his boss, Fonny Willis. Wade's come under a lot of scrutiny in the past week. His credentials are being questioned before being tapped to head the RICO prosecution of a former president. He mainly dealt with personal injury law and misdemeanors. Dana back to you. All right, Steve Hargan. Thank you. Well, let's get a criminal defense attorney and former assistant DA Phil Holloway, based out of Georgia. Phil, good morning. Welcome back. You're going to become like an expert in this trust because we're trying to find our way through the maze. Where are we, Phil? And where are we going? Well, good morning. Good morning, Bill and Dana. Great to be with you guys. As always, listen, you know, we expect in America, we expect our prosecutors to bring cases into the criminal justice system based on objectivity. We expect prosecutors to be fair. Fundamental fairness is what is at the heart of substantive due process under both the Georgia and the federal constitution. So this is why how a DA spends her money is important. As we know, Georgia is now, uh, the Georgia Senate at least is going to be looking into these things, how this money is spent, because as you heard Danny Porter in the, uh, reporter package just a moment ago, say, uh, this is all relevant to the motive that she, she has in bringing this prosecution. If she's bringing this prosecution because she wants to advance a personal political agenda, that could be argued to be fundamentally unfair. If she's bringing this prosecution, uh, to enrich herself personally by virtue of having vacations paid for, if she has a financial interest in the mere existence of this case, and certainly in the continuation of this case, because she's steering allegedly money to her alleged lover, who is the special prosecutor who allegedly got a no bid contract and is being paid way more than perhaps maybe he should be, then that could create a conflict of interest to the point that the defense can say, look, this is just fundamentally unfair and it's a violation of due process. And not only should she and her whole office be removed, they're going to say that the case should be dismissed. This is a real problem for her guys. Prosecutors do not like to be the focus of attention, certainly not in this way. So it's going to be very interesting to see how this soap opera plays out in the days and weeks and months coming. I mean, that might've been true with prosecutors before, but even if you look at the different case up in New York, the attorney general of New York, she very much wants to be a part of the discussion and in the media. She was in court every day for that one. And now you have this situation, you mentioned the vacations. Look at the travel spending. This is call four three, you know, vacation express $3,800, Norwegian cruise line, Royal Caribbean cruises, freedom of the seas. I don't even like to go on cruises. You've got the resort spa and casino. Is it possible that the trial judge would look at this and say, guys, we're not going any further with this because it is tainted. Yeah, that's, that's entirely possible. And that goes to the, the allegations of a conflict of interest. If she benefits in the form of cruise tickets and airfare simply by virtue of this case existing, that's a textbook in my view, a textbook, uh, the case of, of a conflict of interest. Listen, I just cut off the phone before I sat in this chair with senators dolezal of the Georgia state Senate, uh, the, the measure that they have to create an investigative panel passed out of committee yesterday. They need 29 votes in the Senate for it to pass. And 30, uh, senators actually signed on to, to presenting the thing. So it looks like Georgia is going to outside of anything the trial court does, the state legislature, specifically the Senate is going to look very closely at the spending. Did they take, um, other county personnel on any of these personal trips? I would imagine that would be something that the, um, the, the committee would look at. I imagine that might be something that others look at. I know the county commission into this. So the documents show that there were purchase in her name, but we don't know if she, she went on the trip or not. She may have, we just haven't been able to nail all that down. Uh, Phil, just give us a final word here. Even if this case were to fall apart in her hands because of poor judgment, would it not just be handed to another attorney and the case would continue? Yeah. Yeah. We were, that's a very good point. The short answer is yes, that's what normally would happen, but there's nothing normal about this case. It would be a question if she gets recused, then her whole office has to be recused. If she's got a conflict of interest, everybody who works for her has that same conflict of interest. That's the way it works. So the prosecuting attorney's counsel here in Georgia or the attorney general's office may have to sort out who in the state of Georgia, if anyone wants this, and if they can find somebody who does even want it, think about how much it's going to take for them to get up to speed because Willis and the team that she has has been working on this for two or three years now. And so somebody else would have to come in and get up to speed, but it has to be somebody who wants it. And this is a hot potato. I would suspect that there may not be many, if any Georgia prosecutors who would even want to pick this up. Wow. A lot of legal drama in Georgia. Yeah. I love this story. I think it's great. Phil Holloway. Thank you.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.
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“HEARING ON FANI WILLIS WHITE HOUSE RECORDS SET FOR TOMORROW”
Video transcript 6:42
Georgia District Attorney Fonny Willis facing criticism involving allegations of a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor that she hired. Tomorrow, a judge will hear a motion calling for communication between Willis and the federal government to be released. Steve Harrigan is live in Atlanta with the latest on that legal turmoil there. Steve. Dana, this is a whole other area of inquiry being opened up as criticism continues to mount against the DA and the prosecutors she hired already, the total for travel for Nathan Wade, that prosecutor, for two months in 2022 is more than $6,000. Some of those travel bills include plane tickets he purchased for himself and his boss at the time, DA Fonny Willis, plane tickets to Miami as well as San Francisco. Now, questions about potential White House involvement in this prosecution. Most attorneys want to know about the meetings between Wade and the White House counsel, whether he was given guidance on how to prosecute President Trump. I think it goes back to the essential defense that they have, which is this is a democratic plot across the country to make Trump a victim to with baseless prosecutions, that they're all politically motivated and the more information you get about meetings between prosecutors, the more it plays to that defense. And Wade's going to be back in court next week for his divorce proceedings. He's likely to be grilled in detail about his relationship with his boss, Fonny Willis. Wade's come under a lot of scrutiny in the past week. His credentials are being questioned before being tapped to head the RICO prosecution of a former president. He mainly dealt with personal injury law and misdemeanors. Dana back to you. All right, Steve Hargan. Thank you. Well, let's get a criminal defense attorney and former assistant DA Phil Holloway, based out of Georgia. Phil, good morning. Welcome back. You're going to become like an expert in this trust because we're trying to find our way through the maze. Where are we, Phil? And where are we going? Well, good morning. Good morning, Bill and Dana. Great to be with you guys. As always, listen, you know, we expect in America, we expect our prosecutors to bring cases into the criminal justice system based on objectivity. We expect prosecutors to be fair. Fundamental fairness is what is at the heart of substantive due process under both the Georgia and the federal constitution. So this is why how a DA spends her money is important. As we know, Georgia is now, uh, the Georgia Senate at least is going to be looking into these things, how this money is spent, because as you heard Danny Porter in the, uh, reporter package just a moment ago, say, uh, this is all relevant to the motive that she, she has in bringing this prosecution. If she's bringing this prosecution because she wants to advance a personal political agenda, that could be argued to be fundamentally unfair. If she's bringing this prosecution, uh, to enrich herself personally by virtue of having vacations paid for, if she has a financial interest in the mere existence of this case, and certainly in the continuation of this case, because she's steering allegedly money to her alleged lover, who is the special prosecutor who allegedly got a no bid contract and is being paid way more than perhaps maybe he should be, then that could create a conflict of interest to the point that the defense can say, look, this is just fundamentally unfair and it's a violation of due process. And not only should she and her whole office be removed, they're going to say that the case should be dismissed. This is a real problem for her guys. Prosecutors do not like to be the focus of attention, certainly not in this way. So it's going to be very interesting to see how this soap opera plays out in the days and weeks and months coming. I mean, that might've been true with prosecutors before, but even if you look at the different case up in New York, the attorney general of New York, she very much wants to be a part of the discussion and in the media. She was in court every day for that one. And now you have this situation, you mentioned the vacations. Look at the travel spending. This is call four three, you know, vacation express $3,800, Norwegian cruise line, Royal Caribbean cruises, freedom of the seas. I don't even like to go on cruises. You've got the resort spa and casino. Is it possible that the trial judge would look at this and say, guys, we're not going any further with this because it is tainted. Yeah, that's, that's entirely possible. And that goes to the, the allegations of a conflict of interest. If she benefits in the form of cruise tickets and airfare simply by virtue of this case existing, that's a textbook in my view, a textbook, uh, the case of, of a conflict of interest. Listen, I just cut off the phone before I sat in this chair with senators dolezal of the Georgia state Senate, uh, the, the measure that they have to create an investigative panel passed out of committee yesterday. They need 29 votes in the Senate for it to pass. And 30, uh, senators actually signed on to, to presenting the thing. So it looks like Georgia is going to outside of anything the trial court does, the state legislature, specifically the Senate is going to look very closely at the spending. Did they take, um, other county personnel on any of these personal trips? I would imagine that would be something that the, um, the, the committee would look at. I imagine that might be something that others look at. I know the county commission into this. So the documents show that there were purchase in her name, but we don't know if she, she went on the trip or not. She may have, we just haven't been able to nail all that down. Uh, Phil, just give us a final word here. Even if this case were to fall apart in her hands because of poor judgment, would it not just be handed to another attorney and the case would continue? Yeah. Yeah. We were, that's a very good point. The short answer is yes, that's what normally would happen, but there's nothing normal about this case. It would be a question if she gets recused, then her whole office has to be recused. If she's got a conflict of interest, everybody who works for her has that same conflict of interest. That's the way it works. So the prosecuting attorney's counsel here in Georgia or the attorney general's office may have to sort out who in the state of Georgia, if anyone wants this, and if they can find somebody who does even want it, think about how much it's going to take for them to get up to speed because Willis and the team that she has has been working on this for two or three years now. And so somebody else would have to come in and get up to speed, but it has to be somebody who wants it. And this is a hot potato. I would suspect that there may not be many, if any Georgia prosecutors who would even want to pick this up. Wow. A lot of legal drama in Georgia. Yeah. I love this story. I think it's great. Phil Holloway. Thank you.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.