Tipsheet

Team Trump Makes Moves Following Fani Willis Decision

Mia Cathell
Mia Cathell  |  March 18, 2024 3:30 PM

Defense attorney Steve Sadow, lead counsel for former President Donald Trump, shared the next legal action they're considering taking to disqualify Fani Willis after a judge ruled that the Fulton County district attorney can continue overseeing the Georgia RICO case—as long as she dumps her lover from the prosecution. Special prosecutor Nathan Wade's resignation, then, satisfied the court order.

"Our first legal option is to ask the Court to permit a pretrial appeal of his disqualification order," Sadow said on X's platform (formerly Twitter) after he was asked what's the next course of action litigation-wise to knock Willis off of the prosecution.

Under Georgia law, the defense now has 10 days from the date of the judge's disqualification decision to seek "a certificate of immediate review," which is a formal filing asking to appeal. If the judge were to grant the request, the matter would head to the Georgia Court of Appeals. Otherwise, the defense would have to wait until after the Trump trial is over before bringing it to the state's appeals court. Even then, the appellate court has the discretionary power to decline hearing the Trump team's plea.

On Monday, the defense counsel representing Trump and seven of his co-defendants jointly filed a motion requesting that the judge grant a certificate of immediate review of his order denying the case's dismissal and the DA's disqualification. The motion cites the judge finding that Georgia case law "lacks controlling precedent" for the disqualification standard based on forensic misconduct. Given "the lack of guidance from the appellate courts on key issues, and the fact that any errors in the March 15 Order could be structural errors that would necessitate retrial(s)," the certificate is "both prudent and warranted," the motion says.

"For these reasons among others, the Court's Order is ripe for pretrial appellate review," Sadow remarked.

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Judge Scott McAfee, who presided over the disqualification proceedings, decided Friday that the defense's evidence was "legally insufficient" to conclude that there was an "actual" conflict of interest that arose from the Willis-Wade affair. However, an "appearance of impropriety" remains and an "odor of mendacity" lingers, McAfee's scathing 23-page ruling reads.

The judge cited "reasonable questions" about whether Willis and her hand-selected lead SADA (special assistant district attorney) "testified untruthfully" about the affair's timing, "further underpin[ning]" "the need to make proportional efforts" in turn.

"Ultimately, dismissal of the indictment is not the appropriate remedy to adequately dissipate the financial cloud of impropriety and potential untruthfulness found here," McAfee countered. Disqualification of the DA is "not necessary" when "a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available," the judge said, offering the ultimatum of Willis recusing herself or Wade withdrawing.

In response to McAfee's decision, Sadow published a press statement asserting that they believe the court "did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade," including lying under oath about the affair's origins.

The couple claimed in court that their sexploits didn't start until after Wade's appointment in November 2021, but witness testimony from former Willis staffer Robin Bryant-Yeartie and Wade's ex-divorce lawyer Terrence Bradley flat-out contradicted their claims.

Yeartie—who let Willis stay at her condo, the couple's hook-up hub, according to Wade's late-night geolocation data—testified she has "no doubt" the sexcapades commenced years earlier, as far back as 2019. Corroborating that timeline, Bradley texted he "absolutely" knew the affair began around the time that they met at a 2019 training conference where Wade was Willis's instructor.

When ruling, McAfee didn't place "any stock" in Bradley's testimony. "His inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions [...] Bradley's impeachment by text message did not establish the basis for which he claimed such sweeping knowledge of Wade’s personal affairs," McAfee wrote.

On the witness stand, a hostile Bradley caught an acute case of amnesia, repeatedly claiming he couldn't "recall" details he had disclosed adamantly over text about the affair's beginnings and dismissing his tell-all text statements as mere "speculation."

At final arguments, McAfee questioned the veracity of Bradley's knowledge and suggested Bradley is an unreliable witness who went "sideways." Is it "ever definitively shown how he knew this and that he actually did know it?" a skeptical McAfee questioned.

Bradley, previously billed as the defense's "star witness," was a willing behind-the-scenes informant, offering Trump co-defendant Michael Roman's defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant months of legal advice on exposing corruption in the Democrat DA's office.

Following Merchant's January 8 motion to disqualify Willis, which contained the explosive affair allegations, she said Bradley received a frenzy of calls fishing to see if he was "the leak," including one from an attorney with direct ties to the DA's office. Though it wasn't overtly "threatening," it was an "out-of-the-blue" phone call prodding to see if Bradley was Merchant's source. 

"They were trying to figure out if it was him, and they were trying to silence him," Merchant told the Georgia state Senate special committee currently investigating Willis. She was subpoenaed to testify before the investigative panel earlier this month.

The next day, Merchant testified, Wade called Bradley's best friend and instructed him to remind Bradley of his attorney-client confidentiality privilege. It seemed like tampering with witnesses, Merchant surmised. "Did he interpret that as Ms. Willis trying to intimidate him from revealing this affair?" the committee's chairman asked. "He took it as intimidation, yes," Merchant affirmed.

Bradley went on to claim attorney-client privilege, though his bid was quashed. Still, he refused to publicly snitch on his ex-client.

Addressing Yeartie's testimony, McAfee said it "lacked context and details."

Overall, neither party was able to "conclusively establish" when exactly the affair evolved, McAfee assessed.

Post-ruling, Sadow also called attention to Willis's infamous extrajudicial speech over Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend at an Atlanta-area black church "where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism."

There, Willis claimed the criticism she and her paramour were facing was built on racial bias because Wade is "a black man."

It was a "calculated" maneuver, Sadow said at closing arguments, to create "prejudice" in the minds of the jurors and taint the jury pool. "Can you think of anything more that would heighten public condemnation of the defendant...?" Sadow questioned.

The defense accused Willis of "forensic misconduct," claiming that as cause for disqualification. An example of forensic misconduct, McAfee specified, is when a prosecuting attorney expresses his or her "personal belief in the defendant's guilt."

"The effect of this speech was to cast racial aspersions..." McAfee said of Willis's out-of-court commentary.

However, he noted that her speech did not "specifically mention any Defendant by name" and she frequently used the plural "they" pronoun to refer to her political opponents. "The State argues the speech was not aimed at any of the Defendants in this case. Maybe so. But maybe not," McAfee wrote. Regardless, the case is "too far removed from jury selection" for the jury pool to be permanently tainted, he stated. "[T]he Court cannot find that this speech crossed the line to the point where the Defendants have been denied the opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial, or that it requires the District Attorney's disqualification."

Still, McAfee found the DA's church speech to be "legally improper." Even so, case law (Williams v. State), as McAfee cited, states that while a prosecutor's comments may be considered improper, they must be "egregious[ly]" so to justify disqualification.

On X, Sadow quoted what McAfee said about legal precedent as it pertains to forensic misconduct:

This Court has not located, nor been provided with, a single additional case exploring the relevant standard for forensic misconduct, or an opinion that actually resulted in disqualification under Georgia law. Left unexplored, therefore, is how other examples of forensic misconduct can manifest, such as whether statements that stop short of commenting on the guilt of a defendant can be disqualifying. Nor has it been decided if some showing of prejudice is required - and how a trial court should go about determining whether such prejudice exists. Nor is it clear whether the analysis differs depending on the pretrial posture of the case. Unmoored from precedent, the Court feels confined to the boundaries of Williams and restricts the application of the facts found here to its limited holding.

As for Willis allowing the authors of the book Find Me The Votes inside access during the Trump case's pendency, including providing on-the-record comments describing the charges in the indictment, the procedural posture of the case, and personal behind-the-scenes anecdotes, McAfee found the DA's "unorthodox" conduct not disqualifying. "Such decisions may have ancillary prejudicial effects yet to be realized, but the comments do not rise to the level of disqualification under Williams."

Townhall has reached out to Sadow for further comment.

Days after he was sacrificed for the sake of the Trump case's continuance, Wade was supposed to make an in-person appearance on "Meet the Press," but he canceled the Sunday morning interview with NBC's Kristen Welker at the last minute, citing "a family emergency." How convenient. Even tater head Brian Stelter realized there's likely "some further backstory here." Well, duh.

Editor's Note: This story was updated with the filing by Trump's legal team.