Or "How a sleuth defense attorney and a disgruntled law partner damaged the Trump Georgia case"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...lis-misconduct-accusations-ashleigh-merchant/
"In early September, a lawyer for one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case scheduled a call with the other defense attorneys to share what he thought could be a game-changing allegation.
Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor on the case, did not seem qualified for a job that was paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars, Manny Arora told his colleagues. And he’d heard that Wade was in a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), potential grounds for Willis’s disqualification from the case.
The reaction was muted. Some of the lawyers didn’t even participate in the call. It was just three weeks after their clients had been indicted, and they were busy preparing their cases.
“Truthfully, I thought it was too salacious, and I thought it would irritate the judge,” said one defense lawyer, who like several other individuals spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the case. “Everybody had just been arraigned. We were working on discovery and getting our defense together.”
Arora, who represented lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, told the group that he didn’t have the bandwidth to investigate the romance claims, he later recounted to The Post.
But one lawyer on the call was interested. Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign aide Mike Roman, filed open-records requests for Wade’s contracts and billing invoices. She obtained a trove of financial records from his pending divorce case. And crucially, she leaned on a long-standing friendship with Wade’s former law partner, who claimed knowledge of all of it in hundreds of now-public text messages.
That effort culminated in a blockbuster pleading that Merchant filed in January accusing Willis of improperly hiring Wade while they were dating and then profiting by allowing him to take her on lavish vacations. The unusual pleading, which cited unnamed individuals and provided no evidence, called for Willis’s disqualification from the case and for the charges to be dismissed. In the weeks that followed, Merchant frantically rushed to try to find proof for her claims.
Ultimately, the gambit fell short when Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday that Merchant and other defense attorneys had failed to prove Willis and Wade were in a relationship when she appointed him or other disqualifying conduct. But the ruling sharply criticized Willis and Wade, and demanded that one of them step away from the case.
And damage was done along the way. The matter dragged on for more than two months, delaying proceedings and making it less likely that the complicated conspiracy case will go to trial before the presidential election. It deeply embarrassed Willis and Wade, who were forced to testify about their relationship and answer profoundly personal questions from defense attorneys whose clients they had charged, all of which undermined public credibility of their prosecution of Trump and his allies. Wade resigned from the case a few hours after McAfee’s order dropped.
Trump, meanwhile, has gleefully cheered on the drama and used it to undermine the legitimacy of the charges against him not only in Georgia, but in all four criminal cases against him, including two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith...."
The accusations aren’t going away, as some of the defendants are expecting to appeal the decision — and the judge has suggested they can revisit the issue closer to a trial date. State lawmakers are investigating, and the headlines are unlikely to slow down..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...lis-misconduct-accusations-ashleigh-merchant/
"In early September, a lawyer for one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case scheduled a call with the other defense attorneys to share what he thought could be a game-changing allegation.
Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor on the case, did not seem qualified for a job that was paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars, Manny Arora told his colleagues. And he’d heard that Wade was in a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), potential grounds for Willis’s disqualification from the case.
The reaction was muted. Some of the lawyers didn’t even participate in the call. It was just three weeks after their clients had been indicted, and they were busy preparing their cases.
“Truthfully, I thought it was too salacious, and I thought it would irritate the judge,” said one defense lawyer, who like several other individuals spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the case. “Everybody had just been arraigned. We were working on discovery and getting our defense together.”
Arora, who represented lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, told the group that he didn’t have the bandwidth to investigate the romance claims, he later recounted to The Post.
But one lawyer on the call was interested. Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign aide Mike Roman, filed open-records requests for Wade’s contracts and billing invoices. She obtained a trove of financial records from his pending divorce case. And crucially, she leaned on a long-standing friendship with Wade’s former law partner, who claimed knowledge of all of it in hundreds of now-public text messages.
That effort culminated in a blockbuster pleading that Merchant filed in January accusing Willis of improperly hiring Wade while they were dating and then profiting by allowing him to take her on lavish vacations. The unusual pleading, which cited unnamed individuals and provided no evidence, called for Willis’s disqualification from the case and for the charges to be dismissed. In the weeks that followed, Merchant frantically rushed to try to find proof for her claims.
Ultimately, the gambit fell short when Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday that Merchant and other defense attorneys had failed to prove Willis and Wade were in a relationship when she appointed him or other disqualifying conduct. But the ruling sharply criticized Willis and Wade, and demanded that one of them step away from the case.
And damage was done along the way. The matter dragged on for more than two months, delaying proceedings and making it less likely that the complicated conspiracy case will go to trial before the presidential election. It deeply embarrassed Willis and Wade, who were forced to testify about their relationship and answer profoundly personal questions from defense attorneys whose clients they had charged, all of which undermined public credibility of their prosecution of Trump and his allies. Wade resigned from the case a few hours after McAfee’s order dropped.
Trump, meanwhile, has gleefully cheered on the drama and used it to undermine the legitimacy of the charges against him not only in Georgia, but in all four criminal cases against him, including two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith...."
The accusations aren’t going away, as some of the defendants are expecting to appeal the decision — and the judge has suggested they can revisit the issue closer to a trial date. State lawmakers are investigating, and the headlines are unlikely to slow down..."
Last edited: