Fani Willis Scandal Is 'Much Ado About Nothing': Former Prosecutor
The Fani Willis scandal currently being argued by an alleged co-conspirator of former President Donald Trump is "much ado about nothing," according to former prosecutor and legal analyst Glenn Kirschner on Saturday.
Willis is the district attorney for Fulton County, the largest in the state of Georgia, and has led the investigation into Trump's alleged efforts to interfere with and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. The investigation ultimately led to a sweeping criminal indictment against the former president and numerous other co-conspirators on racketeering charges, for which he has pleaded not guilty.
The district attorney now, however, finds herself embroiled in a scandal pertaining to a romantic relationship she held with Nathan Wade, an outside attorney who was brought into her office to help conduct the Trump investigation. The legal team of Mike Roman, one of the co-conspirators in the indictment, has argued that this relationship was improper and should disqualify Willis from continuing to lead the case. In a filing from Friday, Willis herself acknowledged the "personal relationship" with Wade "during the pendency" of the investigation, but stressed that it did not constitute any sort of conflict of interest, a sentiment echoed by other legal experts.
"Defendants have done nothing to establish an actual conflict of interest, nor have they shown that, in the handling of the case, District Attorney Willis or Special Prosecutor Wade have acted out of any personal or financial motivation," the filing reads, later adding that, "District Attorney Willis has no financial conflict of interest that constitutes a legal basis for disqualification."
On Saturday, Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent critic of the former president, added his own voice to the chorus of legal analysts, calling the alleged scandal "much ado about nothing" in his latest YouTube video.
"It's a bad look in the court of public opinion, but it looks like it will be much ado about nothing in the court of law," he said. "Based on what I've reviewed and what I've read, what I've seen. I don't think it will have any impact on the RICO [racketeering] prosecution of Donald Trump and his criminal associates down in Georgia."
Newsweek attempted to reach out to the legal team of Mike Roman via email on Sunday morning.
During a Friday appearance on MSNBC, Harry Litman, who previously served as a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Clinton administration, had a similar assessment of the Willis situation, suggesting that there was not a conflict of interest, but ceding that there appears to be "blood in the water."
"The thing is, by now, there's sort of blood in the water," he said. "You have one of these phoney baloney special investigative commissions in Georgia, none other than [House Judiciary Chair] Jim Jordan subpoenaed her today. [Judge Scott] McAfee's going to have a hearing on the 15th and oddly, even before this, he styled it an 'evidentiary hearing.' So what sort of evidence is it going to take? It could be a bit of a circus."
Georgia Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee previously ruled that Willis had to submit a written response by February 2 to the allegations about her and Wade, which will now be followed by an evidentiary hearing on February 15.
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