Nearly a year after the shocking allegations against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her paramour Nathan Wade first came to light, a Georgia appeals court has officially disqualified her from the election interference case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants.
The ruling does not dismiss the case entirely, but Willis and the assistant district attorneys in her office now have “no authority to proceed.”
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by attorneys Mike Davis, Phil Holloway, and Ashleigh Merchant to discuss the court’s decision and what it means for the lawfare against Trump.
The Ruling
The case against Trump in Fulton County has been on hold since June as it makes its way through the appeals process, and the prosecution was dealt another blow on Thursday when a Georgia Court of Appeals ruled in a two to one decision to disqualify Willis and her team.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the majority opinion written by Judges Trenton Brown III and Todd Markle stated. “The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”
The 31-page document acknowledged the unprecedented nature of this case, stating that while “an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”
The ruling overrides Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s March decision that allowed Willis to stay on the case so long as Wade – her former lover who was hired as a special prosecutor despite his lack of experience trying racketeering cases – was removed.
“We reverse the trial court’s denial of the appellants’ motion to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the court said. “As we conclude that the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case, the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed.”
The Background
As Megyn extensively covered in real-time earlier this year, Willis and Wade’s inappropriate behavior was put under the microscope after Merchant, who is representing Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, was tipped off to their relationship and filed the motion to disqualify Willis and her team in January.
Davis said all the credit goes to Roman and Merchant for making this a story. “Mike Roman is a warrior,” he said. “Thank God he pursued this, and thank God he picked Ashleigh as his attorney.” He offered this trip down memory lane:
“Think about what Fani did here. She hired her dumb, unqualified boyfriend, paid him $700,000 in Fulton County funds, took illegal kickbacks from this dumb, unqualified boyfriend in the form of these lavish trips around the world. She lied about it in court… and somehow she survived that with the trial court because Judge Scott McAfee turned himself into a pretzel to let her stay on the case but kick off Nathan Wade… The Georgia Court of Appeals did the right thing here by disqualifying Fani Willis and… the entire office.”
While Merchant believed she had a strong case from the jump, she admitted a lot needed to go their way. “I thought it was something that was large enough and something that was deep enough that it could effectively end [the case against Trump et al.], but I knew that it would take some really strong judges,” Merchant said. “I knew that we were going to have to fight it… every step of the way… We had to make sure that the judge gave us a hearing… and then we needed the judge to issue a strong order. And even though Judge McAfee didn’t rule with us, he issued a strong order.”
What Comes Next
Merchant believes this effectively marks the end of a case that shouldn’t have been brought to begin with. “I have said from day one: If we had an independent prosecutor – someone who wasn’t financially or politically interested in the outcome of this case – it is… not a case that would ever be brought,” she said. “You could indict just about anything… but I think if you had a neutral prosecutor looking at it, they are going to say, ‘No way. This is ridiculous… This case is not it doesn’t rise to the level of a crime.'”
That is why Holloway believes the criminal prosecution of Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia ends now. “In my view, it is not going to be revived by the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia,” he said.
Merchant agreed. “I think that it will essentially die on the vine once it goes to an independent prosecutor,” she shared. But that doesn’t mean it is over. “I don’t think Fani Willis is going to go away quietly, though,” she shared. “I just got an email that she plans on appealing to the Supreme Court, so the question will be whether or not they even want to touch it.”
Her guess: “It is a good opinion, so I don’t think that the Supreme Court is going to have any interest in dabbling in this,” Merchant concluded. “But we’ll see.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Davis, Holloway, and Merchant by tuning in to episode 970 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.