The Fani Willis Hearings - Your Comprehensive Guide

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:52 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1006. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and who do we have a whopper for you. This is, uh, wow, as you see from the title, this is part one of your comprehensive guide to the Fani Willis hearings down in Fulton County, Georgia. Watched, what, what is it? 17 hours of Fulton County, Georgia court stuff so that you don't have to. I'm watched the whole thing.

The, sure, you've heard about this, I'm not so possible that you fully grasp the craziness that happened in, these hearings were the closest thing to, like, Hollywood court drama that I think we've ever seen in real life. Is that nuts, and it just keeps going. There's so much. So today, part one goes through Nathan Wade's testimony.

We don't even get to Fani Willis, start part two with Fani Willis, and we'll cover, because there's a lot to talk about, we'll cover day two of the hearings as well. That'll be what part two is. May be a bonus part three, that'll be for patrons, but these two will be for everybody. But if you want to avoid ads and get any bonuses we do on this, please support the show at patreon.com/law. And when you do so, you don't have to hear those annoying auto ads, one of which will go right after I'm done talking here. Yes, let's get on over to Matt and Casey and let's talk about the good, the bad, the ugly, the hilarious, the ridiculous, the everything that was these evidentiary hearings in Fulton County, Georgia. You. Here we go.

0:02:29 Thomas: AndI am joined, of course, by Matt. How are you doing, Matt?

0:02:33 Matt: Right, ready to talk about this.

0:02:34 Thomas: There any chance we could double our experts, though? Could Yes. Awesome.

0:02:37 Matt: Know somebody actually. Very close at hand.

0:02:40 Thomas: So happy to have Casey back. Thank you for doing this.

0:02:43 Casey: So much for having me.

0:02:44 Thomas: I've been so excited to do this recording. I have absorbed way too much of this. Truly, watched this entire thing and I can't wait to talk about it. That's how excited I am. And I'm even more excited to have not one, but two criminal attorneys to quote the Breaking Bad thing break this down. Because I feel like that's something that not all shows have. So Matt, let's talk about the talking about, shall we?

0:03:08 Matt: Just so we're very clear on where we're standing right now, the purpose of this hearing, and what we're going to be talking about. It all came from a motion filed January 8th by the defense of Mike Roman, principally represented by Ashley Merchant, who plays prominently, of course, in this hearing that we're gonna be talking about. Was, we motion in which they were trying to disqualify the district attorney, but also dismissed the indictment due to a number of things that aren't relevant to this hearing.

What's really relevant to this hearing, is that they were making a number of allegations in that motion involving the district attorney's conflicts of interest, allegedly arising from the fact that she was in a relationship with a special prosecutor that she appointed, that she's paying $250 an hour, the county was paying. The motion didn't have any affidavits or evidence attached that would directly suggest this, but they were suggesting they'd gone on vacations together, that they'd shared finances in some way.

And all of that was enough to raise evidentiary questions, because at that point, the DA's office responded, Willis filed a response, and attached to that response was a sworn affidavit from Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor himself. And that sworn affidivit insisted, which is going to be very relevant for this hearing, that Nathan Wade was appointed as a special prosecutor November 1st, 2021, and filed for divorce from his wife the next day.

0:04:14 Thomas: Actually do want to pause on that because I think people have made a lot of that. And it is definitely like, oh, that is, oh the next day, that scene. And then you think about it or I think about and after watching all of this and hearing all of the explanations, I guess. I'm like, wait, why would that be anything like with that? Because like in order for that to be like, quote-unquote, suspicious, it Fani and Wade would have had to start their relationship like that day as well. And then he would have also filed for divorce out of nowhere. You know, like when you think about it, there's no reason that's suspicious at all. Like there's it's funny that people point to like, oh, the day after. And you're like, Like, wait, but what would that mean? Like, what's

0:04:41 Matt: Right. No, no, not necessarily. Sure. Interesting timing at the least. Want to say upfront, there are a couple of things I think we should establish before we get started here. And one of them is that these are real people who are going through some real things. And a lot of this is coming out on the stand. A lot of us are going to be talking about these things, and a lot is very good for Trump in the sense that, and the other defendants, in the sense that they're getting drama, they're getting something that news is talking about. They're getting us to talk about these things. I do wanna keep the focus, of course, we're gonna be talking mostly about the actual Trump prosecution in the future. But this is an interesting little vignette. This little motion hearing is something that you don't get to see every day for a number of reasons. Have the district attorney of an entire jurisdiction on the stand in about her personal life. I can't think of a case that's ever happened anywhere. It has, but it certainly hasn't made the news nationally.

0:04:51 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:31 Casey: Certainly not, it's pretty unusual for an elected district attorney. I mean, it's unusual, unusual for any prosecutor, really. I mean, it's fairly unusual, honestly, for attorneys of any kind to testify.

0:05:40 Thomas: Not since William Jennings Bryan went up against the other person. What was it?

0:05:41 Casey: Um,

0:05:44 Matt: In that one play that we've all seen, yeah. Yeah.

0:05:48 Thomas: Oh, is it a play? I actually don't know that. I just know there's a movie. But anyway, it's like the, is that the Scopes monkey trial? Is that what it is? And then, yeah, not since that.

0:05:52 Matt: Yeah. Color the wind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah hands up testifying.

0:05:57 Thomas: No, it happens, I'm sure, more than just that one time. But not often.

0:05:57 Matt: Yeah.

0:06:00 Casey: It's pretty, yeah, it's pretty unusual. I mean, generally, like, lawyers file motions to quash, which, I mean, which is what, what did happen here, initially, but

0:06:07 Thomas: Mm -hmm.

0:06:07 Matt: Yeah, I just want to mention that I thought this would be an interesting thing to focus on, because the entire thing is online. You can watch all 16 hours or whatever it is of the two days of hearings. And an interesting to break down, because you don't usually see these kinds of motion hearings out in public like this. You'll see the trials are often live streamed, but to, to just see an incidental kind of motion hearing, which could ultimately have a lot of effect on the case, but at this point probably won't. I think we're agreed at this moment it's very likely not going to be disqualifying. We'll find out soon.

0:06:34 Thomas: Look, no, spoilers, let's pretend, hey, we don't know yet. We haven't gotten through the whole thing. There could be a surprise witness, even more surprising than the last on day two, that we don't get. We'll keep the, keep the tension going, man, if you don't mind, right?

0:06:37 Matt: That's true.

0:06:39 Casey: Oh,

0:06:45 Matt: That's sure. We're talking about day one. Generally speaking, the purpose of this hearing has to do with the merits of the case against Donald Trump and the other defendants. So it's an interesting little sideshow, but the sense that we have the opportunity to explain to the audience what's going on in this hearing and break it down a bit. And you don't get to do that every day.

0:06:51 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I've been so excited to talk about this, and I keep telling Matt, like, I think, often, uh, experts don't remember how much we don't know. And, because, so I know, Matt, you had these concerns, and I share them, like, were reluctant to want to get into this because, like, hey, it's salacious, it's people's lives, and I totally respect that, I agree.

And it's also distracting from what is really the truth, which is obviously Trump at all tried to steal an election, and taking that all 100 percent on board, I think it's important for us to emphasize, hey, Trump at All stole an election, they tried to stealing election. That's the crime here, that's the important thing, all of us listening and talking right now. Now, we all know that, I just want to make sure we're all abundantly clear, like, that's what's going on here.

However, not only is this a court thingy that everybody is watching, which is perfect OA because it's such a great thing to do, it's so fun to learn more about that, honestly, I love learning more about, like, the, the inner workings of, like, like this, where everyone watched, and I love giving the OA audience and me, like, the inside, like, know -how of, like, no, this is what that meant, this is what that objection meant, did there, that part is so cool.

Plus, I actually think it's very valuable for, uh, to kind of delve into, and for you guys to delve into, what is there any, there there, you and if not, how can we arm our listeners to make those counter arguments if they hear any of their Trump or family talking about, oh, Fanny Willis did this.

So it's like giving them the, the arguments they'd need, because there's enough prima facie weirdness that I think it's pretty easy for Trumpers to point and just say, well, you saw that whole thing. And it's like, well, let's give people the details so that they could argue back.

0:08:34 Matt: No, good setup, I think. And it is just, as I said, you don't get this opportunity to just take a little two-day hearing. Usually, a little two-day hearing in a case like this wouldn't matter that much. But this matters quite a lot, because if she is disqualified, as we've discussed, then the prosecutor's council will get to appoint someone else. And that could be anybody, or it could be nobody. The last case that she was conflicted out of, still no one has been appointed to replace her.

And the head of the prosecutor's council right now is Republican, for what it's worth. So this case right now in her office is safe, because she's been working very hard on it for the past couple of years, but there is a real risk in that sense, if she were to be disqualified, there is something on the line. But, say, just up front, I'm not sure why we just watched all of this testimony. I think it could have been narrowed down. I think the judge could have come out and said, here's what I'm concerned about for conflict, this is what I want, want to see. Instead, we saw a lot of other things.

0:09:05 Thomas: Yeah, The side note, that you guys have any experience with any case like this where there's 57 lawyers on the other side, and you've got each lawyer being like, "Hi, I'm representing Trump, I'm representing Putin, I'm represent, you know, all the other people involved on that side"?

0:09:32 Casey: Most lawyers that I've had on a case, and actually, also, was a preliminary hearing, I think it was a total of seven. Like, it started out is five, um, then two more were added because, uh, some other cases were consolidated, but that was like consolidated statewide litigation, um, there were attorneys especially appointed on, on both sides to handle that, so

0:09:38 Thomas: Wow.

0:09:49 Thomas: Does it go like the typical group project, where Ashley Merchant has done all the work, and then, and then some asshole representing Giuliani is like, tries equally did this as well. But, like, it seems like Ashley Merchant was obviously driving things here, but then there's also real asshole Steve Sado, who, man, we're going to get to him, that guy was a dick, I was probably second place. But how, that determined? Like, who determines that? Do they just agree, or is it whoever did the work?

0:09:54 Casey: Yeah.

0:09:55 Matt: Does kind of seem that way.

0:10:15 Casey: I guess it probably depends on the case and the lawyers involved, but what, what we did in that case, I think, on both the case I'm thinking of, on both defense and the prosecution side, was just split it up amongst ourselves. And I think that we were people that happened to work together, I guess, maybe pretty well, well, because I think it was fairly evenly divided.

There definitely was, you know, there were a couple of attorneys who took the lead more than others, but it was, it well split up. And I think we were just, maybe we were just like an unusually organized group of people, I don't know, I don't consider myself that well organized, but at least on that case, know, we, I, all split things up. We took different witnesses, we broke it down by specific issues.

The judge also, to be fair, the judge was very clear with us that he wanted one person talking at a time, and he really, he really did kind of want to have one person dealing with an issue at a time. That is a little bit different, I think, in this case, because these, I'm thinking of was consolidated statewide litigation.

And so in the Trump case, I, or shouldn't call it Trump case, because there are a number of co defendants whose lawyers all want to be heard, like, one after another, other, uh,

0:11:11 Matt: I assume there's a group chat going. There has to be. It's the only way you can do it. Or Slack or something, right?

0:11:15 Thomas: And they're all talking shit about Sado. They, they, they have a, well, there's multiple. Oh my God.

0:11:18 Matt: Yeah. Separate. Yeah?

0:11:20 Thomas: Imagine the group chats. There'd be so many. Cause then all of them would start one. Okay. Hey, let's start one, but without Sado, fucking this guy, Jesus Christ. And then there'd be all these different subgroups of like wanting to exclude one person from it.

0:11:30 Matt: Totally. Then they start hooking up, of course, as we've discussed before, inevitably. Inevitably. So then you get all kinds of drama. But as it is, in case, we had the motion dismissed. It's filed first and dismissed and disqualified January 8th, then Trump jumps in after she gives the speech at Bethel AME, and she talks about how she's being persecuted on the basis of race, essentially. And Trump jumps in and calls her a racist and is very explicit about what he thinks about that. And dann David Schaefer jumps in and supplements the motion. And they all just kind of staple on their different things, as different things develop, so it just seems like maybe these attorneys were volunteering to take on different aspects, or there's things they just wanted to do, I assume they must be coordinating, I don't know, I've never been involved in something like this, right?

0:11:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

0:12:10 Thomas: But here's an important thing that I imagine people may have forgotten, even though I'm sure you already said this last episode, Matt, but Ashley Merchant, not the attorney for Trump. That's Mike Roman's attorney, who's also the name on I think the name on the like hearing, like it's titled like the Roman whatever in different places. Who the hell is that guy?

0:12:18 Matt: Very important yes right his motion. He Mike Roman was the Trump 2020 director of Election day Day operations for the Trump campaign. Ends up in this pile.

0:12:35 Thomas: That's interesting. So the first thing that happens is we get, think um, it's Adam Abate, or I'm pronouncing that right. And he starts off and he's like, look, here's the thing. People that Ashley Merchant said, told her stuff, didn't tell her that stuff. Like he gets up pretty early and he was just like, hey, judge, I can save you the trouble. Like we don't even start this whole thing.

0:12:52 Thomas: You Matt and Thomas and Casey don't even need to do an episode. We can just stop this now because Merchant, according to Abate, Merchant lied about what Bradley, who's a law partner of Wade, said. And that. And so therefore, there was never any good faith here. Basis here. And the only hearing we should be having is that Merchant's execution basically is what we should, you know, but no, not really. But he says like we should be adding a sanctions hearing. That's the only one we should do. He makes one of those, you know big dramatic speeches. And that seems to not land. The first But thing I wanted to ask both of you is, should that have landed? Like should that've been enough? Should the judge, who by the way, the judge... I hope you're sitting down both of, you. That judge is 35 years old.

0:12:52 Matt: Oh, wow.

0:13:32 Casey: Yeah.

0:13:32 Thomas: I'm not even, you've

0:13:33 Matt: Wow.

0:13:33 Casey: I got I gathered he was probably Younger than we were, McAfee.

0:13:35 Matt: So old

0:13:36 Thomas: Got to, everyone, please go look up this judge. Judge, what's, Scott McAfee. Please look that up right now and know that he is 35.

0:13:43 Matt: Enough to be president.

0:13:44 Thomas: Well, he looks too old to be president is the thing.

0:13:44 Casey: Just about Yeah.

0:13:48 Thomas: So anyway, should he have, you know, listened to that and been like, yeah you're right. There isn't really anything here. Bye bye.

0:13:48 Matt: Yeah, that's true. You got to hear from Bradley before you make that decision. I mean, and he's on the witness list, so let's call him and talk to him, which they end up doing, of course. I mean, good effort. I understand what Bate's trying to do, but you gotta hear from, to assess his testimony before you can just go ahead and say that she lied about it.

0:14:02 Thomas: Sure. Yeah.

0:14:09 Casey: I I think, think the universe in which a judge was going to sanction an attorney for filing that motion was pretty much non-existent. I think it was appropriate to file the motion. I don't think they probably expected it to successful though.

0:14:15 Matt: Yeah.

0:14:20 Thomas: It sounds like that's not necessarily the most, terrible decision by the 35-year-old judge who looks 70. we have a witness just like not there. It's, it's Yurdy, who is the ex, turns ex, person who worked, I guess, don't know what capacity, but she worked with Fani Willis in that office no longer does. She, it seems is a key here. And maybe one of the main reasons we're, we're even here. Like not there. And then she, doesn't want to testify without her counsel and her counsel is late, but then it turns out he has a good, it's just a shit show. Basically I'm leading into it. Actually I wrote this down. How how often is court just a shit show? They don't know what's going on.

0:14:56 Casey: Well, it's in the trial court and the more often than not kind of a shit show.

0:14:58 Thomas: Yeah. Was it a product of how, was this rushed? Like, is this the kind of thing? Cause it, they really didn't know. Okay, what evidence is going in? Who has copies of the evidence? Nobody has copies. Oh, you do have copies. There's all that stuff. There was, you aren't here. Lawyers aren't hier. Like, is that normal? I mean, or was this a rushed proceeding?

0:15:17 Matt: This many defendants, it's inevitable. Just going to happen.

0:15:19 Casey: I would say it's generally best practices is for you to have your exhibits in front of you and if possible to pre-mark the exhibits with opposing counsel. So yeah, a good practice to not know where your exhibits are. I

0:15:32 Thomas: I got got the this sense that they didn't necessarily know who the judge was going to let them call. Know, it seemed like there's a lot of debate over like, well, if I can, if I'm allowed to call this person, then I, and so does that create that uncertainty that That means you don't have all your shit together.

0:15:38 Matt: Oh, sure.

0:15:44 Casey: Yeah. Yeah, I it is a little usual probably to not know if a judge will let you call multiple witnesses. To me, that would probably suggest that I might be kind of pushing the edge of the envelope with some of those witnesses.

0:15:55 Matt: Yeah. They were pushing and they knew it. And they knew that none of those people are going to end up getting in. That's not unusual either. You have a witness list.

0:15:56 Thomas: They are. Yeah. Hmm.

0:16:03 Matt: You don't expect to call everybody.

0:16:02 Casey: Yeah, I mean you just you need to have your main exhibits and you needto know who they're going in through, right? Right. Like so when you're going to put an exhibit into evidence, you need to know who that exhibit's coming in through and how you're going to pull it in. So, yeah, to some degree, like some confusion when there's a lot of paper is normal. You need to have a plan, I think, for what your exhibits are and who they're coming in through. And maybe you have some backup exhibits in case the judge lets you call some of those witnesses that you would really like to, but maybe you shouldn't really be calling.

0:16:28 Thomas: Yeah. And as we learned, a man is not a plan. So, okay.

0:16:31 Matt: That's right. He's a companion. Most of the evidences are going to be coming in through the big three witnesses here, who, of course, are Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor, Cuter, Fonny Willis, the elected DA, and Terrence Bradley, who's the former law partner of Nathan Wade. And

0:16:33 Casey: True. True.

0:16:44 Thomas: I would say Yurdi is maybe for third most important, it seems to me, but maybe not. I should play just how this starts out because you It almost could have ended before it even began for the Trump team here. Again, I'm going to just say Trump team because it's easier, you know, that side of things. We've got Bradley, Terrence Bradley, previous law partner of Wade's. Not currently. There's some interesting stuff there, I think.

0:17:08 Matt: Good reason.

0:17:08 Thomas: We'll get to later. Yeah. But he he's was also his divorce lawyers. There's a lot going on.

0:17:12 Casey: Know, I think it's important before we really get started talking about the witnesses in depth, any, just to to what the judge said the scope of the hearing was about, right? And he actually, you stated pretty clearly on the record, um, know, a couple of days before the hearing, um, what would need to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit, um, arose from the relationship between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade.

You, there was any sort of financial benefit, and that was, was the reason that an evidentiary hearing had to occur, was to, you, a record on whether or not there was any such financial benefit. Because at that point, the and the special prosecutor had acknowledged that there was a relationship, he said that hearing would be limited in scope, that not all of these, knows, you, tangential issues raised by the defense are relevant.

He said the issues at point here are whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or non-romantic in nature when it formed, and whether it continues, and that's only relevant because it's in combination with the question of the existence of an extent of any benefit conveyed as a result of their relationship.

So that's sort the of the starting point for what this hearing is supposed to be limited to, um, to be honest, I don't think from what I saw that they've done a completely horrible job, uh,

0:18:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:16 Casey: Themselves to to it. And I think that the judges, you them some in to degree.

0:18:19 Matt: We're learning a lot about these people in the process of answering those questions. But

0:18:22 Thomas: But oh, that's interesting. So that might not be obvious to you, know, me, so the judge, I guess, as a result of what the briefs, has kind of made that determination because it's not necessarily like a hundred percent clear that that would be the case. But is that normal? So the judge says, "All right, I'm here's, letting this proceed, but it's going to be stuff related to this and you can't really argue him out of that." Or can you still try to like pull a fast one and say, "Well, we also need to talk about this," or how does that work normally?

0:18:51 Matt: Directly that he thought it's possible that there might be a disqualifying conflict, maybe, if they could prove that there was direct financial benefit. So he said that pretty directly, that that's what he's looking for, helps. And I the think parties the pretty much agree on that, yeah.

0:19:04 Casey: Think It's pretty normal for a judge to narrow the scope, especially on something something like this, that's, you Know, a big sprawling motion with a bunch of defendants and a bunch Of random claims. And to me, it seems like they're pretty clearly trying to muddy the waters. So I think it's pretty normal for a trial judge, a motion judge to to, maybe I shouldn't say narrow the scope, but to define the scope of the hearing. Because otherwise, if going to be there for, you if you just let them go into whatever road they they feel Like going down, whatever Road their clients feel like going down. It's, you Know, it'll be a long, confusing and largely pointless endeavor if that were allowed to happen.

0:19:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:37 Thomas: So with that all in mind, let's see how this started out. You

0:19:40 Clip: Morning, Mr. Bradley. How are you? Good morning.

0:19:44 Clip: Not happy to be here, I'm assuming? I am not. Okay. I understand. Thank you for being here. It wasn't my choice. Right. You were subpoenaed to come and testify in this case. I was. But you and I have spoken previously about relevant facts surrounding Mr. Wade and his relationship. No, we have not. We have not Texted about those facts? Through a third party, um, you were given some information you and I shared. Text, our text were more so about my health, um, more so abut um if I was okay with what was going on, um Who

0:20:04 Matt: He's Not very good at this.

0:20:34 Thomas: So not a great start for Ashley Merchant, though. She's like, sort of prevailed in the initial hubbub about, like, should we even be here. And she's like, "Oh, I'm, I'm gonna demonstrate that there's blah blah," and it seems to me that a lot, lot of what she's saying is kind bullshit. Like, she, I want to know, should she be in trouble for this if she's claimed that Bradley texted her that, hey, they actually started their relationship earlier or something? That would seems to be just by context clues. I don't actually know where she made that claim, but should shebe in trouble here? This is such a bad start. Oh

0:21:05 Matt: Well, we've been talking about this a lot. The fact that, at this point, Ashley Merchant is a witness in this case, that's a problem just to begin with. She

0:21:13 Thomas: Wait, what is she a witness for? Oh

0:21:14 Casey: She's made herself a witness, right, by inserting herself and her personal text messages into the questioning of this witness, so, so yeah, it's

0:21:19 Thomas: Yeah

0:21:21 Matt: Should not be doing this questioning, this at this point, because she, I mean, literally, there's later in the hearing that they're just talking about the text they exchange back and forth and they're both looking at their phones and looking

0:21:24 Thomas: Yeah Oh That's an excellent point, for I didn't even think of that. You don't usually go and be like, "Hi, remember me from our text thread? You ghosted, you piece of shit." And then you're like, how dare you? When I sent this emoji. That clearly meant that I wanted to hear, you know, it's like, that is a weird thing to start with. So, so how should that have been done?

0:21:41 Matt: Totally.

0:21:50 Matt: Should recuse from this case and have somebody else from her office do the rest of the case, because she potentially could be called as a witness now. I'm not sure why this didn't become an issue.

0:21:54 Thomas: Wow. Oh, okay.

0:21:58 Casey: Mean, I don't know. I I kind of went back and forth on that, to like, me this is a really tangential issue. Right. So this is why I kind of go back and fourth on it. Think I she should not be doing the questioning, questioning, uh, this witness if this is an avenue you want to go down. Um, if she were a percipient witness in the case in question, you that actually like observed facts relevant to the case, right? So um, a percipcient witness might be like, if, if I, uh, witness a robbery on the street, right, I would be a perripient witness. I, it, it probably also, well, it definitely wouldn't be appropriate for me to, to represent somebody.

0:22:12 Thomas: Does that mean? Oh, Okay.

0:22:25 Thomas: Try the case.

0:22:27 Casey: Yeah. Or yeah, exactly. On one side or the other, like, because I would be a witness in that case. So, yeah, Matt and I were talking about this earlier and think she should be doing the questioning. I go back and forth on whether she should step down.

0:22:38 Thomas: Okay, we'll set that aside. What about the evidence? Can texts here say, can you just put it, how does that crap work? Can you just put in the text? Hey, actually they're an evidence now. Here you go. Why didn't that happen?

0:22:48 Casey: You have to authenticate them in the way you authenticate any other piece of evidence. So, um, you authenticate anything, though, is you have, first you show the document, whether it's a digital document or a paper document, you show it to opposing counsel, you approach the witness, you ask if they know what it is, they recognize it, what they recognize it to be, explain what it is, and then you ask them if that's a fair and accurate depiction of what that item is, right?

So if it's your cell phone, and let's just say it's the cell phone and not the messages, not getting into hearsay, you um would say is something is along the lines of like, you know, I'm placing an item in front of you, do um you recognize that item, yes, it's my, you know, it's a cell phone, okay, um, so whose cell phone is that, it's myself, on, um, that a fair and accurate depiction of, you know, the cell phone that you had on December 20th of 2022, and, you know, yes or no, I mean it would be a problem if they said no because that would mean that the piece of evidence was was not not authentic and couldn't be admitted, but

0:23:34 Thomas: And Me tell you, they f that up about a billion times. Like, I know, I know, Casey, you weren't able to watch the whole thing because, you know, you have a life, because this was, again, this is like 18 hours of video. I there were plenty of times where they did that out of order. They didn't authenticate. And then the know, judge be objection. The judge is like, well, why don't you authenticate first? And then it's like, so I guess I might as well, since I'm already getting into it, does Ashley Merchant suck at her job or not? Because there were other times where I was like, oh, actually she's making some pretty good points here. Why this so haphazard?

0:23:47 Casey: She

0:24:06 Matt: They didn't have a lot of time. I think a lot OF this evidence has come in pretty quickly from what I can tell. I mean, the motion itself was only filed on January 8th. They're asking for a debenture hearing then, but they started subpoenaing people. You know, they're like a dozen people on their list, I think.

0:24:16 Thomas: But this is her cell phone, Matt. I feel like she had that the whole time, or maybe the text didn't come in until like last night or something, no, that can't be right,

0:24:19 Matt: Well, that's true. She has had this all time. It's true, yeah?

0:24:23 Casey: Didn't expect him not to be truthful, or to be sort of, his testimony was pretty weird, like

0:24:27 Matt: Yeah. It's all over the place.

0:24:29 Thomas: Yeah,

0:24:29 Casey: Was pretty difficult to follow. Um, it's possible that she just thought that she was going to ask him a question or two and he was going to acknowledge it and then move, they were going to move on. I, uh, mean, that could be it. Yep.

0:24:39 Thomas: Okay So it may have been before day one, they may have only dropped the bombshell on her side that's like, "Hey, doesn't agree with your depiction of events here," and so that kind of sent them scrambling. Well, move on from that. Um, they just start, you, him, like a normal wit, it's weird, like it starts off on this weird footing. Should something have happened here? Should the judge have stepped in?

But they just kind of move on to other stuff, like, "OK, well, what's your background with Wade, et cetera, et cetera." Then we get what I wanted to ask. Actually, my, my first substantive question that I wrote down, even though I think I've already asked like 10, but was, they get to the point where, again, he's the divorce attorney for Wade and they start wanting to ask him, "OK.

OK, when did he come to you to file divorce?" They object, like, "Oh, that's going to be privileged information." And, I, what happens is they, Trump side wants him to testify to, like, kind, when the relationship began in terms of the legal relationship, that you, I think starts the privilege or whatever.

And also, like, any observations he had during that about the relationship between Fonny Willis and Wade, and the other side's like, "Hey, this is all privileged stuff." And even Bradley himself is like, "Hey, asked the bar, I called the bar hotline and was like, can I talk about this?" And his version was, no, we can't at all. So there's a lot of issues going on. And this is pretty present throughout about privilege. Can you talk about attorney client privilege?

I would be worried where I would be coming from if I were an attorney here was, "Hey, I can't remember what the hell I know because of privilege" and not.

0:26:05 Matt: Right. Well, yeah. This is a really good example, actually, as you're saying that, of why you really should never represent your friends, let alone your business partners, because there's so many things you know about your... And they were, at one point, both business partners and to some degree friends. There's some dispute about that. And this is actually one of the friendships that ended on the stand, I think. Maybe we'll talk about that? Yeah. There are two friendships that definitely definitively ended on on the stand during these proceedings. In this case, if you're somebody's business partner and you're to some degree their social acquaintance or friend, you know all kinds of things about them and maybe you can't really remember which of those things you were told during confidential conversations. That's a problem. Have I represented my friends before. I'm sure I'll do it again. It's hard not to sometimes, but not a great idea for lots of reasons.

0:26:22 Thomas: And Oh, wow. Yeah.

0:26:46 Thomas: Interesting. But if he were like an android, so let's say he has a perfect ability to separate memories and origins of memories or whatever. The rules here? Are you allowed to ask him like, okay, you can tell me your observations about Fonny Willis and Wade or about Wade and his marriage or whatever, not anything that you knew due to the of kind privileged attorney -client relationship? That still seems weird to me. What is the actual rule here?

0:27:10 Casey: It's pretty similar in most states. And in Georgia, it's Georgia Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6. And it says that a lawyer shall maintain in confidence all information gained in the professional relationship with a client, including information which the client has requested to be held and violate, or the disclosure of which would be embarrassing or likely detrimental to the client, unless the client gives informed consent, except for disclosures that are impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation or are required by these rules or other law or by order of the court.

Basically, any that you've gained in the course of the professional relationship with the client. I think really that's difficult to say, what in the course of their representation. Obviously, Matt has more personal experience with this than I do, because I know, I've only worked in the public sector.

You probably hard when you have lines like this that are that blurred, because if your personal observations are during the course of the representation, you'd have to think about whether or not that's information that you gained by virtue of that professional relationship you have, as opposed to a personal relationship. And I would imagine most lawyers would want to be really careful, like to really err

0:28:11 Matt: Yeah.

0:28:11 Casey: On the side of caution.

0:28:13 Matt: No, I mean I've had a situation in which I'm representing a friend, and I realize that I come to know something that one of my other friends really should know. Obviously, I can't say anything. And that's just, again, don't represent your friends. It's not a great idea. All kinds of trouble with it. This has been fine. It is a good relationship. It s fine. But I'm just saying, just to be as vague as possible, don t represent your friend.

0:28:22 Thomas: Yikes.

0:28:35 Matt: Generally speaking, in this case, the information that they want so badly out of Bradley is to find out exactly when he thinks this relationship started, because they think that they've got this piece of evidence that he has, that they're trying to pull out of him. He doesn't want to give them. And Ashley Merchant is suggesting it came out during this text exchange, but at the same time that he would just generally know it because they were associates and friends and business partners. And he was representing him. And of course, it's pertinent to his divorce that he was having this relationship during a legal marriage.

0:28:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:03 Thomas: Well, it could have been, I guess, pertinent. Yeah, yeah.

0:29:06 Matt: Could So certainly, it could be privileged information. A gigantic sort of privilege Big Mac going on here, actually. It's not even a sandwich. There is just sandwich upon sandwich. And we're going to have to take that sandwich apart a bit, but I don't know if I want to start doing that yet. This is sort of the first level of privilege that we're going to be dealing with.

0:29:18 Thomas: Oh, okay, sure. Like I said, he literally really does say, Hey, I called the bar and they told me I was at my lawyer. My attorney was with me on the speakerphone. And they're like, don't even get anywhere near this. Cause Bradley's feeling is like, all the reasons, probably we've already highlighted. He doesn't want to do any of this right now. It seems like don't ,I know if that was different at a different time. Cause it does seem like this is a little surprising to merchant maybe, but he doesn't wanna do it. And eventually they decide, okay, we'll kind of resolve this later later because Yurdy, attorney Partridge is now here or on Zoom at least. And so she can testify. And So it's really interesting how the judge, he's really trying to make good use of time and being like, all right, we're going to set this aside and then now over to you and go to, let's, let'S, letS interview this witness while we can.

0:29:26 Matt: Yeah, right.

0:30:07 Matt: Part of being a judge, making sure that you just keep the time managed and keep everything on track.

0:30:11 Thomas: Didn't know that. I didn't know it was about scheduling and Google calendars and such and all that, but yeah, so. Then we get Robin Yurdy, uh, witness in via Zoom. She's on Zoom. His attorney is also on Zoom. And this seems like who should have been what Ashley Merchant was basing her claim on. It seems kind of weird that Bradley, you know, like it does make me think that she thought Bradly would go with her or something, thing, doesn't it? Cause why was that the first thing?

0:30:15 Matt: Right.

0:30:32 Matt: Well, Pretty clear that she and Bradley were friends, or at least business associates or acquaintances to some degree, because they had a pretty regular texting relationship. Fact, they were texting about this relationship. I think she had reason to believe that he was going to say more than he did. And he was there under duress and wasn't going to do that. That's pretty much what it was.

0:30:44 Thomas: Oh, wow. Wow. That is so interesting. Robin Yurdy, she just not a fan of Willis. She very clearly seems to bear a grudge. And she is saying that essentially between Willis and Wade was romantic in 2019. And she's very to the point. She's very short. She's a very terse. She's just like, yes, no, yes. Which is honestly kind of a relief um, compared to a lot of these witnesses.

0:31:14 Casey: Yeah.

0:31:14 Thomas: It's like, oh, that's nice. She says she has no doubt, like she testifies that she has no doubt the relationship started in 2019. So I guess there you go in terms of Ashley Merchant's good faith basis for any of this. I

0:31:14 Matt: Yeah.

0:31:25 Casey: Mean, that's typically why you would put that information, and again, this is in our state, apparently in Georgia, maybe this isn't common, but typically that's why you'd put that information in an affidavit from that witness with your motion, um, is so you have an offer of proof for the judge, um, they know you have a good faith basis instead of sort of vague claims in the motion itself. But again, my understanding is that might not be the practice in Georgia, but I think it makes me realize why it is the practice elsewhere, is because it makes it less likely that, at uh, least if you're opposing counsel in the court, it gives you an idea as to whether there's any, like, real basis for the the claims you're making in your motion.

0:32:00 Matt: Just for context, Yurdi was an old friend, I think 30 -year friend of Fonny Willis. They went to school together, and we got to hear it several times that they partied together. That was a major point of evidence. Yurdi, they lived together at some point, at least briefly, they at least enough of a knowledge between them that they would have presumably known these things.

0:32:03 Thomas: Uh, they didn't, Didn't live together. This is interesting, actually, maybe it's worth keeping in because I think the other side, I think the Trump side tries to make a lot of that, like, oh, they live together. They were, you know, I'm not sure if they said that officially, but that very much seems to be what they when she is cross-examined. So when Yurdi is cross-examined by the state, can make a point to be like, hey, hey, did you ever live with Fonny Willis? Like, make a point to get at that. And Yurdi has to admit that, no, she didn't. What happened was Fonty took over like that Yurdi had because Yurdi got married and wanted to move in with her husband or something.

And so they never actually lived together. But that's been represented places like this is someone who lived with her and knows the, you knows, dirt about the relationship. And so that was going to be my next point is on Cross, they do, you as much as I'm a little worried about this testimony, this seems okay. And then the cross-examination was, in my opinion, pretty devastating because they're like, hey, not only did you never live with her, also, hey why were you fired from the DA's office? Is it true that you were fired from Fonny's office and so cagey about it? She's like, wow, that's not not true.

She's like, oh, were you, were ever told like you were going to be fired? No. And then she's like okay, well I was told I could resign or be let go. And you're like okay so yes then. So yeah, I think the cross-examination was pretty devastating there.

0:32:44 Matt: That's right. That' right. Yes.

0:32:55 Casey: Huh.

0:33:39 Matt: Yeah, I didn't find her to be that credible, honestly. I don't know. Just from what I saw. So, I yeah. There's that.

0:33:42 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, so then after this, we essentially get another kind moment where it's state like is like, hey, this done here, right? This is just kind Like, what are we doing? They're they're like um to get the judge to maybe re -examine that idea of not continuing um

0:33:58 Clip: Called me everything but a liar today. And so I just think that it's appropriate for everyone to know where that information came from. All right, Ms. Merchant, I think you've

0:34:05 Matt: She's also going to be called a liar.

0:34:07 Clip: Made your position clear. I don't think we're going to be sidetracked on that. All right, cross. I put you on the motion to cross. Mr. Ray Supinas was held in advance, um, when you see the representation, I believe that the good faith faces that Miss Merchant represented on Monday, I think that that's clearly not accurate. I understand the testimony that's now in the record, um, Mr. Wade is, uh, available, but we need to maintain that at this time. The motion to clash probably should be granted to understand the court's role. Well, Ms. Cross, I'll say yes, on Monday it did seem like the focus was that Mr. Bradley would be the hook that makes every witness potentially relevant. And we will then be able to explore that on the privilege issues that we'll likely have to tackle again later. But for now, as in front of the court at the moment, is that we have a witness who has said this relationship may have predated the affidavit that Mr. Wade found, financier where it went, and the allowance of a testimony. And so I'll deny the state's motion to quash the subpoena of Mr. Wade.

0:35:22 Thomas: There you go. They tried to get out of it and did not.

0:35:25 Matt: She's doing her job there. Try to defend these motions and try to make sure that they come in. I think she knew that was futile, but you gotta try.

0:35:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Some interesting stuff there. And I'm realizing there's another maybe legal point that I to get out which is, correct if I'm wrong, but, you know, I am a real lawyer. The privilege involved in Wade's with Bradley, that would be up to Wade to waive that privilege. So, do we have a situation where, like, Bradley might have just been talking out out of school? Like maybe he's, you if, okay, let me back up.

0:35:57 Thomas: Wade were out there texting people about this relationship, having started sooner than blah, blah, wouldn't that mean, oh, if you're sharing that with people who aren't your lawyer, you're actually waiving privilege. So we should be able to talk about it. But what if your lawyer does that? Do I have all that right? Is that maybe what's going on here?

0:35:56 Matt: No, that is what's going on here. And a that's a real concern.

0:36:15 Casey: Yeah. I mean, I think Wade, Wade really is the holder of the privilege, um, yeah, he'd have to be the one that that waves it, it's if the lawyer is out talking to people about it, then that's a problem for the lawyer, but so I think that's sort of concept, the concept that they're going for here, which is that lawyer, by saying things to other people that maybe he shouldn't have, somehow waived the privilege on Wade's behalf because he was no longer holding that privilege. And yeah, my understanding is that's not how it works.

0:36:36 Thomas: Right.

0:36:38 Matt: But that's not how it works it anywhere

0:36:42 Casey: And And, you know, perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think that's how it works.

0:36:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:36:43 Matt: I don't think no I think that's, but and the other thing is too, it seems like that, from what I can tell, that Bradley was gossiping with Ashley Merchant, that they just, like, have you heard about what's going on with Wade and Willis, basically, and that's not necessarily, I mean, because they're all kind of friendly, it seems like they all have some social relationship, so you can't necessarily say that's privileged information, it's just like you're just shooting the shit about your friends, well

0:37:01 Thomas: Yeah. Right, why Why can't Ashley Merchant just, you she shouldn't have that information, but she was given that information. Can she just use it?

0:37:13 Matt: The problem is that it would be hearsay because he's available to testify, right? And he's not testifying, which

0:37:18 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah. You still available to testify if you say you don't want to because of privilege concerns or something, or if you refuse to, yeah

0:37:25 Casey: You're so you're actually under under Georgia law. My my understanding is you are unavailable to testify if you have been found to have a privilege by the court. But. But there, there's are other problems with that. We were talking about that, mean, at about the hearsay in her text messages? Privileges

0:37:33 Matt: Makes sense.

0:37:38 Thomas: Bradley, yeah, right

0:37:40 Matt: Right. Why couldn't she just introduce her texts?

0:37:40 Thomas: Yeah I think people who are non-lawyers might be like, well, who cares, I mean, she don't know about all this privilege crap with Wade, but like, uh, I've been given the Pentagon Papers here in my phone and I get to go to the New York Times, well

0:37:51 Casey: So is, I think, is that it is hearsay, right? Because he's in court, but he's not available to testify to that subject because of the privilege issue, um, it's it's an out-of-court statement, right, and it's being offered for the truth of the matter, I, and pretty clearly, I think that's what the judge thinks um

0:38:08 Thomas: Oh, okay. Just my guess having, you just watched this day one. Seems like that might be what happened. I'm glad you said that, Matt. It seemed like he was gossiping and then maybe it's like, oh, oh, crap, I'm not allowed to do that. But I was genuinely curious if you can't unring that bell or whatever, where it's like, well, that lawyer, yeah, sure, he messed up. But once he's telling the opposing side, whenever that happened, who knows when it happened, but once he is telling the opposite side, the opposing site about this, doesn't really matter. She has that information, but it sounds like there's still some genuine debate about that, whether or not she could have used the text. Now, as of now, she wasn't trying to. She was, I think she was first just trying to get pierce them to just talk about it.

0:38:46 Casey: I mean, in theory, there's probably a way to put in those text messages through her as a witness, I, I do think there are hearsay issues, and we could discuss that more after the second day of testimony, um there's multiple layers of hearsay issues, like, in addition to the privilege issue, there's the issue, um, he's telling her what Wade told him, as opposed to his own personal observations, then you have what's called of totem multiple layer, hearsay, um, as well in potentially in those text messages, um you would need to justify each each layer of hearsay, of right? So you'd have to have an exception to the hearsay rule for, uh, whatever saying, and then whatever.

0:38:55 Thomas: Oh, Yeah. Oh my gosh. Look, stays already hard enough as it is Casey, please Please don't give me more. When this comes up in T3BE, I, yeah, I can't, it's impossible. It's so hard.

0:39:22 Matt: It's just hearsay all the way down.

0:39:26 Casey: To be honest, it's not actually that hard in practice, to tell you the truth.

0:39:29 Thomas: And yeah, no, I bet it's so easy for people like you, Casey. I bet just is so simple for me. I'm like, I don't get it.

0:39:34 Casey: Honestly, no, I'm telling you, in general, when you're actually there in court, I it was very confusing in law school, too. Everybody does, but honestly, it makes a lot more sense when you are actually there.

0:39:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:47 Thomas: That's true of a lot of things. I mean, I went to school and learned accounting and I remember none of those concepts made any sense to me. And then I got a job as an accountant. I was like, oh, that's so freaking simple. That is really obvious once you're actually doing the thing. But for me, taking that T3B, that test bar exam, I find it difficult. And now I find out there's like extended hearsay and there's like compound hearsay. So who knows where that'll go? But that's a very fascinating legal, I there. That,

0:39:58 Casey: Oh. Yeah. We can have a whole conversation about hearsay sometime if you'd like.

0:40:13 Matt: Oh, quagmire gets a lot deeper in this case. It's kind of... The big mac grows.

0:40:16 Thomas: Oh, I can't wait. All right. So, but we are right now, the judge says, hey, Wade's got to testify. And so Wade is testifying and there we go. You again, I just want to, play um, the very beginning. I just feel like Ashley Merchant just needs to work on how she starts things off. I think, I think she just needs a solid, you opener, uh... Let's remind people just in case, because it's hard to keep all this stuff straight. Merchant is the one who was in the photo that was like, hey, you used to support Nathan Wade, right?

0:40:47 Matt: The t-shirt, yeah.

0:40:48 Thomas: The t -shirt. This is those people squaring out. She is now questioning him after their side had put in the picture of like, wow, she used to be a big fan of Mr. Wade. Not anymore. More. So that's these two people in case anybody lost track of that.

0:40:48 Matt: Dancing in the streets. This be the third friendship to end on the stand, actually, very dramatically.

0:41:04 Thomas: I think it ended before the stand.

0:41:06 Matt: Yeah, probably, but I think officially at this point

0:41:07 Thomas: The judge

0:41:09 Clip: Morning, Mr. Wade. Good morning. Prior to filing this motion to disqualify, you and I were friends, correct? Yes. And, in fact, I supported you when you were in for charge in 2016. I wear your shirts, my kids wear your shirts. Ms. Merchant, your personal opinions have no relevance. Name them the best way. That's completely fine. Thank you.

0:41:32 Thomas: Is love that. She wants to front load that, like, okay, we've all seen the whatevers. I used to support you. And then the judge is just like, I don't care about this. Like, I mean this in the best way, I thought that was so funny, yeah.

0:41:44 Matt: Let's and she's a witness. I asking him to recall something involving her. We're

0:41:46 Casey: Yeah. I mean, this is the point though with all of this, is right that everyone involved in this, assuming they're all like local lawyers, everyone involved in this knows that all these lawyers, like, know each other and have various types of relationships with each other. I mean, the vast majority, I'm sure, are platonic, but these are people that all know each other and all associate with each another. And so it's partly why I think all of this is kind, which knows everybody else, and they all know that, right? They probably all have some type of connection to the judge as well, because that's just, that's just kind of how it goes.

0:42:11 Thomas: Yeah

0:42:16 Matt: Just getting a little snapshot of one little slice of the Atlanta bar is what it seems like, yeah.

0:42:19 Casey: Yeah, the

0:42:19 Thomas: But testimony, uh, just crawls along at first, we're, but there's a lot of like, all right, grab, let's, those interrogatories, which are things that he had to swear to, essentially, in his divorce proceedings. And there's, uh, know, an hour of like, which one? Number one. No. Number one? No. They're all numbered number one. Like, there's a who's on first, whose interrogatory is on first skit they do. Keeps answering the exhibit number instead of the interrogatory number, like, four times. Just a mess. We'll skip all that.

But when they eventually get to it, this is, they get to the thing that Matt flagged for us last week, which is, hey, he used to say, or he did at first say, tell all the members of of the opposite sex that are not blood relatives of yours that you had, like, what, dinner with, or what, you know, it's really broad. He answered none. And then he changed that answer. And Matt, you took us through that.

And now we get here, his answer for, like, why did he change it? Because I know, Matt, you suffice to say, thought, you that was maybe a little iffy. And I think you may have even said they caught him in a lie here, right?

0:43:18 Matt: Literally, when he said none, when he said he hadn't had sexual relations outside the marriage, that is perjury. I means, if you believe both the interrogatory and both the affidavit, they can't be squared.

0:43:29 Thomas: let'S hear him try to square it and see though, because

0:43:32 Clip: Of 2023 you said no to all that, and then in January after I followed my motion you said privilege to all of that, Fifth Amendment privilege? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And just to be clear, was it— Sorry, I'm going to exact a characterization of Fifth Amendment privileges. I think it was a statutory privilege, and that's quite different. That's why I was just about to ask him.

0:43:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:49 Clip: So that privilege covers infamy or Fifth Amendment Privilege, correct? So it was a privacy privilege. That's what I updated my response to do. Once you filed your motion to intervene in my divorce action, I then figured that you were in talks with my former wife's divorce lawyer. Okay. And because of that, I served a privacy privilege because I didn't want the proceedings of my divorce to beat over into the proceedings in this case, which is the case that obviously you're involved in. So

0:43:45 Matt: Right. I was about to say that.

0:43:49 Thomas: I think How do you guys feel about that answer going from none? I think he's trying. I'll be honest. My non-lawyer read of this was, well, okay. That sounds a little plausible to be like, well, now I'm saying privacy, but it's like, what if your answer was was none? I don't see why going back and being like, well, now it's private. I, I, just, okay.

0:44:40 Matt: Well, it's not exactly privacy either. I should read the rule again. I just brought it up again. Again, it's section 24555 .1. No party or witness shall be required to testify as to any matter which may incriminate. So that's what she's saying about the Fifth Amendment or tend to incriminates such party or witness or here's the important part, which shall tend to bring infamy, disgrace or public contempt upon such party of witness or any member of such party witnesses family. So basically, if it makes you look really bad, you can assort a privacy privilege.

0:44:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:13 Casey: Might be the case, though, here, to be be honest. Like,

0:45:15 Matt: No, but that's true. But I mean, when you're changing from none to this will make me look bad. Right.

0:45:16 Thomas: So. Well, is nobody's arguing that exact Well, yeah, that means it's yes though, right? I mean, like, The point is

0:45:23 Matt: Absolutely. Like, None.

0:45:24 Thomas: No.

0:45:24 Matt: Doesn't make you look bad. Yes.

0:45:25 Thomas: None doesn't make you look bad. Yeah.

0:45:27 Casey: That back all of this came to light and the motion was filed, this divorce proceeding was sealed, wasn't it? And Then she moved to intervene. Yeah. So, I mean, I do not know, in fairness to him, I think his other answers are complete bullshit, with to this issue. But do I know if that was a sealed divorce proceeding before this motion was filed, whether or not he might have reasonably thought he could assert that privilege. Well,

0:45:33 Matt: Yeah.

0:45:49 Thomas: And then you just change like all your answers to that, then if it's like, well, this is going to to get out there. Hmm.

0:45:55 Casey: Yeah. I, I, guess I could see that, maybe I. think the bigger problem for him is the way he sort of tries to finesse the way he read that question, which was not the way it was written.

0:45:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:08 Thomas: Let's go. Okay, I should go to that then because I do also think that's important too. I.

0:46:12 Clip: Here, I think there's a distinction if you, you to allow me to explain. The interoperative asked the question, during the course of your marriage. We're all to date. It actually says, we're going to request that the witness be committed. That's right. So my marriage was irretrievably broken in 2015 by agreement. My wife and I agreed that once she had the affair in 2015 that we'd get a divorce. We didn't get a divorce immediately because my children were still in school and I refused to allow them to grow up without their father at the time. So we waited. We waited until the youngest graduated and we dropped her off at college and didn't file for the divorce. Voice. So if you're asking me about the interrogatory as it relates to having, uh, the 2022 relationship with this returning realist, I want to say, because my marriage was irrevocable, I was free to have a relationship. So.

0:47:24 Thomas: Holy shit, Matt. You made the Clinton comparison so many times, and we are literally getting depends on what the definition of is is. Like, this is the same.

0:47:29 Matt: There's a lot of clintonian stuff. Yep. Yep.

0:47:32 Thomas: Holy crap.

0:47:32 Matt: And it's the same thing where it's like defining a sexual relationship and and right, he knows full well. Well, obviously, that the legal definition of marriage still applies. They're still married all that time. And you don't get to decide it was irrefutably broken. That's up to the court.

0:47:35 Thomas: Pretty much. Yeah. Well, and if that weren't enough, as Merchant tried to get in and I think the his state's lawyer very astutely was like, it also says up until the present. So and I this isn't great. Right. Right.

0:47:50 Casey: Yeah.

0:47:57 Matt: An answer. Give him that. He had an answer ready. You got to have something.

0:48:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:01 Casey: It's possible that was what he was thinking at the time, or maybe he misinterpreted the question. I guess, but I, I think personally it's just he, like, he has to say something other than saying, yeah, I just wasn't forthcoming. I, um, I didn't tell the truth when I answered that interrogatory.

0:48:16 Matt: I committed perjury. What do you want?

0:48:17 Thomas: It It feels plausible to me that at the time of his divorce, and and whenever he had to answer those things, he didn't think that anyone knew about Fonny or would know about Fomny in a time that mattered, right?

0:48:28 Casey: Yeah.

0:48:27 Matt: Yeah. What David Schaefer, in his supplemental motion, accuses him. He says, basically, once you get caught, you change your answers. And that's what Ashley Merchant just said there, too. And that is logical. That makes sense.

0:48:28 Casey: Yeah.

0:48:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:38 Casey: I mean, I think those questions are also absurd, so I could see just kind of I mean the idea like the idea of asking if you've ever had dinner or lunch or drinks with anybody, any member of the opposite sex, during the entire course of a marriage is beyond ridiculous.

0:48:42 Thomas: I agree.

0:48:42 Matt: Yes. Yeah. Okay.

0:48:51 Thomas: Is stupid. Is that how they do that?

0:48:53 Casey: I

0:48:54 Matt: I will be a coastal lead for just the second, because the word entertain is used so often in here. Is that a Southern thing? And it comes up in the testimony a lot that you were entertaining the DA. I just a word that is used in that interrogatory and was used a lot in the testimonial. And what's the difference between been entertaining and I don't know, whatever else, but yeah.

0:48:55 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah, Visiting? Yeah, or any, like, I, yeah, literally, it's so old-timey. It seems like there's a lot of stuff that just old - timey language in the law that carries forward and carries forward, and maybe, maybe the meaning kind of changes, but also maybe it doesn't. Like, if you're going to be a stickler for it. Like, okay. Yeah. You do need to say every single time in your whole marriage when like a friend who is a came over and, and I mean, that is silly.

0:49:12 Matt: Yeah.

0:49:32 Casey: A co-worker, like, Having lunch with your co -workers like, how many I couldn't even begin to quantify, quantify the number of times I've done that. Like,

0:49:33 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:39 Matt: If they didn't have a good time? What if they weren't entertained?

0:49:42 Thomas: Are you not entertained? Yeah.

0:49:42 Casey: Maybe, maybe entertained, maybe it means something in Georgia. Like maybe it is like a term of art that I'm not understanding.

0:49:47 Matt: Yeah. I

0:49:47 Thomas: Yeah, it's like a gentleman caller type thing. Yeah in that one play.

0:49:51 Casey: Maybe it mean that, maybe that means that you're having sex, like while eating dinner or having drinks. I mean maybe it's a euphemism.

0:49:51 Matt: We're just being Northeasterners here. If

0:49:58 Casey: I don't, I

0:49:58 Matt: That's your thing.

0:49:59 Thomas: Don't think it's that because think it it really is an old timey thing of if, back in the day, it's like, well, there's no other reason to, you know, have a woman over. So according to this old time, he lost so naturally, but but it's also, is it the kind of thing where it's casting a wide net of, there's a lot of, you in law. That's like all right. Tell all the times that you did, you did such and such and it's not, it might be, that's not necessarily saying like, Like, well, that means you're a sinner. It might be like, well this is questions you have to answer so that then her team can go over and be like ooh, he oh, did one time have her over to, you know, do something. We can investigate that and see if that was anything more, right?

0:50:01 Casey: Don't I

0:50:27 Matt: Yeah, that's got to be a standard interrogatory question in a divorce. I'm sure that's just the way it's always phrased and that's how it's it's always been.

0:50:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:44 Casey: Guess It surprises me that there's not a standard sort of response besides none that that would be along the lines of like, this is, you know, this answer I couldn't possibly answer this because it's so broad and

0:50:53 Thomas: Right. That's

0:50:48 Matt: Yeah. Can't. Exactly. Right. I am very entertaining.

0:50:54 Thomas: A good point. There's rare lits you're just like, none. None. That's a, that's a... I was, I was thrown off by that, Matt, when he first told us that. That seems sloppy, doesn't it?

0:51:05 Matt: Knew it would be an issue here. Yeah, here we are.

0:51:05 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Glad that you answered that because, you know, I think that was a pretty effective, rhetorically speaking, a pretty effective way to try to smooth that over. But you guys aren't buying it, sounds like, and honestly, say, I am not buying it either. That feels like a, a pretty that bad I

0:51:19 Matt: Knows better as a lawyer. He does. Again, it's an answer and it sounds good.

0:51:21 Thomas: Yeah Have to play a clip little here of again we talked about cohabitation, Matt, we talked about the three-day fixed mortgage aruba, we had some further confusion that I think got ironed out pretty quickly, I

0:51:34 Clip: That you never cohabitated with Wills, correct? That is correct. Um, by cohabitation, does that mean that you never spent the night with Willie's? I spent the day with her. Okay, and so When So I Just Want going to qualify your term, your use of the term cohabitation. That means you didn't really live together. That's correct. But you did spend the night together.

0:51:45 Matt: Who thinks this?

0:51:46 Thomas: Sorry

0:51:53 Clip: Yes. When was the first time you spent the night together?

0:51:53 Thomas: It's So Funny, I, the Way, I'm This I Know I'm not trying to go too harsh on Ashley Merchant here, but very clearly this is one of those times where, and had the wrong idea of what a word meant and you think everyone else does too. And then you're like, all right, so the way you're using cohabitate just to clear up for everybody else, he's saying like, just that only means if you live together, right? That's how you're using it. And he's like, yeah, that's because that's how it's used.

0:51:57 Casey: What

0:51:58 Matt: Why are you pushing this point?

0:52:23 Casey: Maybe

0:52:24 Matt: Don't you feel like this would have come up in the group chat? I feel like the other lawyers would have said something at this point like without

0:52:26 Thomas: Yeah. Like what she must have been out of the group chat. Maybe they all have one going without her, yeah.

0:52:32 Matt: Her, yeah. Yeah

0:52:32 Casey: She just was really insistent and everybody else was just like, maybe she's right, she's She's so like, she's so insistent about it.

0:52:37 Thomas: Because Oh my god, that's so real that's so real, that's probably what it was. God, I've been on that, I've been in on that too. I let's let, let they who are without being wrong about something really ferociously cast the first group text message, because yeah, no, I feel it, but that, but I would have googled that, like I would to, you know, like she really goes all in and like, you should see his face, everybody, because he's like, yeah, that's what he, what are you talking about?

0:53:03 Casey: Okay.

0:53:04 Thomas: That is what it means.

0:53:04 Matt: You're really helping me out here

0:53:05 Thomas: I don't know.

0:53:05 Matt: Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

0:53:07 Thomas: All right. Bulk of the rest of this testimony is very long and roundabout ways of talking about the business arrangements. And then there's also the trips and we get drilled to death on these trips. It's Belize, it's Napa, it'S all this. And look, all right, if I were to sum it all up and know, it's little convenient that it's all cash and that no one can point to any, record statements that support that.

There's also, we know Fonny Willis, She talks about using the cash app, they never use cash app. So there's no record between Willis and Wade. But also she says Wade just doesn't use the cash up. OK, that could be plausible. But anyway, it's a lot of like, all right, you a little convenient. Going on here? But then I pull back and I say, like, what are we talking about here?

You know, like if you take the worst version of these facts, they list out all the trips. It'S just peanuts. Like, it's not very much money relative, especially to lawyers, to attorneys who make a good living, regardless of this case or whatever, it just feels like, okay, there might be some fuzziness in what they're talking about here. Who knows if they were a little bit, I don't know, maybe they were little bit misleading in some ways and talked about, oh yeah, cash, we always reimburse. So it's pretty much 50, 50, but like, who cares? What do you think?

0:54:19 Matt: The most extreme defense version of this, I think, is if you can prove that she earned a dollar off of this prosecution, that she should be disqualified. I don't know if I would go that far, but I can see where they're coming from.

0:54:27 Thomas: Okay, Matt, so let's let's see, we're going with that, standard, you like that extremely rigid standard. It's not as though if one time Wade had bought lunch for Willis and they had no relationship, it's not like you'd say, ah, there's a dollar. Like there was still that need to be over and above the normal course of business. The, you Know, there has got to be some amount of threshold of like, yeah, be hard to argue that he wouldn't just have this money anyway. It's not very much money at all. And so, yeah, yeah. He would have, he it's not like, but for this job, he wouldn't have been able to go to Napa, you

0:54:54 Matt: Relatively speaking, yeah. And I think the defense would also have to show that all of this was being done kind of in the perpetuation of this income for her, you know, not just a one-time thing, but that she was expecting regular income, because that was the motive to reach the disqualification standard. You'd have to have that be the motive for v. State, Georgia Appeals Court in 2005 held that it's fairly well established everywhere that there's a conflict of interest where the prosecutor has acquired a personal interest or any kind of financial stake in an offender's conviction. So that's what we're looking for, is any kind of financial stake, but just trying him, exactly. If you're going going to take down somebody's business, right? A competing business for your family. That would be a pretty serious problem.

0:55:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:55:28 Thomas: In conviction too. You know, that's, yeah. Right. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So many ways in which it just doesn't feel like there's much here. And I I think the I a lot of unfortunate things converging. You this fair to say, you guys? It feels like he Wade had a difference set of concerns. He was dancing around with his divorce and that might have caused him, you know, to write answers a certain way. And then there's like a new set of concern relative to this.

And so they've they've kind of had to backdoor into this, or you maybe it's legit. It. Like maybe they just perfectly paid cash and reimbursed. And then it could be like her story we'll get to might drill that home. But at this point in the testimony, just going based on what I have, it would say it feels a little convenient that like everything's cash. There's no record of anything. There're no deposits that you can point to while still keeping in mind.

I just don't think it amounts to much. Like even at the worst case scenario, it's like, okay, you're telling me $2 ,500, what could the total total be? $10,000 maybe in a year for

0:56:24 Matt: Right. Right?

0:56:33 Casey: Yeah.

0:56:33 Thomas: Lawyers? Like that's just nothing.

0:56:35 Casey: It also, I think it, makes it more believable that they were doing these transactions in cash, right? If it's just not that much money. I Mean, I personally probably would not be doing you transactions in cash in of that amount, but it's not, it seems much more belieivable when we're talking about you few thousand dollars at the most, right then?

0:56:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, right?

0:56:51 Thomas: Right. So then when Gillum gets up to kind of I don't know if this is cross. I don't know if I' track because the the team goes first. Right. Isn' t that normally direct? But yeah. How does that part of it work?

0:57:04 Casey: Know it's the party bringing the motion the, The party that has the burden of proof, that that goes first. And then generally what happens is the, if there's multiple lawyers, at least what happens here, um, for the defense, I mean, or whichever party is the moving party, uh, go sequentially. And once they've done with all those lawyers, then the, the side has the opportunity to cross-examine, and and and and then recross, oh.

0:57:05 Thomas: Hmm.

0:57:25 Matt: Nathan Waite is a defense witness, of course. He's here under subpoena.

0:57:28 Thomas: Right. He's a defense witness. Well, I guess I'm mixing up who's defense for what, you know, like for this motion, does it switch, or is it like Trump team is always defense because they're being potentially charged with the crimes here, right?

0:57:40 Casey: Yes, they're the defense, but it's their motion, so they, the ones that are going to go first, as opposed to a trial, um, state would be the one that was, was going first, because it's them moving, moving forward on the case and

0:57:44 Thomas: Right.

0:57:48 Matt: They were the ones trying to subpoena Willis and Wade. And up until today, Willis is trying to fight that.

0:57:54 Thomas: So, um, go to Gillum, this allude to it earlier, but this is a bit of the gotcha here, um.

0:58:00 Clip: Let me go down the list. Mr. Stadow.

0:58:02 Thomas: The way, say, down totally games the system, I swear to God, I bet my life on it, because there's they go in order, and they're like, yeah, we'll Goen order and say, I was like, oh yeah, we will go to Gillum, who is, who would be after Sado, and then, I then Sado's like, now I have some questions, the judge is like, what, I thought you skipped, and he's like, oh no, what was that, what we said, and then it's just like, all right, you rascal, this time, like, I'll play it later, but anyway.

0:58:24 Matt: He Yeah, he's Trump's lawyer. He's throwing his weight around.

0:58:25 Thomas: Yep. So

0:58:28 Clip: Mr. Sadow is deferring, then

0:58:30 Thomas: You go, Mr. Sado, I'll the way, just, um, pro audio tip. I know you guys are a little new to podcasting, um, don't come up and go, thank you your honor, like, right into the mic. Maybe, like, wait, like, before you get the mic, go, thank your honor, you know, like, the opposite is not as good. Okay, minor audio, and I bring my expertise, you guys bring your expertise, you know, no, such,

0:58:39 Clip: I in the logitory begins, describe each instance in which you have had sexual relations with a person other than your spouse during the course of the marriage, including the period of separation. You see that? Yes, sir. Now, these

0:59:17 Thomas: Yeah, basically, you pretty ironclad there. Like, uh, you don't really get to say, because I think the marriage ended in 2015, we're good.

0:59:24 Matt: Also didn't catch, actually, when I was reading on the page that it says describe, which I think that's funny. They want like a narrative.

0:59:31 Thomas: Yeah. And Then what's interesting is, I wanted to ask you guys about this, we get to a point like this, goes back and forth a bit, I'll

0:59:38 Clip: To dining and or drinking at any restaurants, bars, pubs, hotels, or persons' homes from the date of marriage to the present. Do you understand what the word present means? And present means the filing on May 30, 2023.

0:59:50 Thomas: Can I just give her all my money rather than do that I'm not doing that, that's take everything I don't care, whoops.

0:59:56 Clip: Isn't that right? It is. So, as of May the 30th, 2023, you have done a lot, or you had done a lot of entertaining of Ms. Willis, had you not. I have done some, yes. And, in fact, under your testimony, you would have said that she had also entertained you. Isn't that correct? Yes. And so, your answer to this interrogatory is false, is it not, sir? No, it's not false. Well, I hate to dance around, but the answer is yes, you did entertain as well as correct, right? Yes. She's not your spouse at that time or at any time, correct? That's correct. She's now related to you by blood or marriage, correct, but you entertained her, right, during the course of your marriage, the period of time up to the prince. So the answer would have been yes, I did entertain somebody, correct. In fact, during the course of the marriage, no.

1:01:01 Clip: Mr. Wade. Mr. Hill, I think we've made a point. I think it speaks for itself, and we can save that for later. I

1:01:06 Thomas: That how that works, I don't, it's in front of lawyers, right, yeah.

1:01:08 Matt: Know, one thing I love about this this hearing hearing, is that it is lawyers, grilling lawyers, about lawyers. So yes, and then now we have lawyers analyzing it. So this is the most lawyer -y hearing I've seen in a very long time.

1:01:21 Thomas: And It sort of feels like there's... there's a tweet where someone was like, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, to help you God, and they're like, no, and then the judge is like, what do I do, I don't it's like that we're like, can you just do that, you'd be like, no, that's not what it says and

1:01:30 Matt: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Sure. And I'm sticking with my definition of marriage. That's it.

1:01:37 Thomas: Yeah okay but what about your definition of present, and it's like that doesn't, it doesn't work so what happens, so it's just, but question, like, what is supposed to happen here? Does that mean that judge, the, is just supposed to use that information, or should it be charged with perjury or something, it's

1:01:43 Matt: No? That's not on there.

1:01:51 Casey: No, I mean, he's not going to get charged with perjury, perjure but is is pretty pretty rarely charged. Charged. Yeah, no, that that's, that's certainly not going to happen and not just because he's on the prosecution team, but I mean, the judge uses that, that information to determine credibility, really right? What, I what think that goes to. And I think the judge pretty much indicated that when he said, look, I get your point, and um, I'll take it for what it is and we'll move on. Think So everybody in the courtroom, I knew what that meant, which is that he'll, he'll that for what it is in terms of that witness's credibility.

1:02:20 Thomas: Just funny that even more evidence that there really is no such thing as a Perry Mason moment, you know? Cause you're like, like I, as a non -lawyer, you're like, yeah, shouldn't something happen? Shouldn't this like a scoreboard pop up? And it's like this guy, three pointer or something. You expect something where he's just like, I, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

1:02:26 Matt: Yeah.

1:02:31 Casey: Yeah.

1:02:37 Thomas: So you're lying. And the judge is like, can you move on please? And you're like, what? I don't, shouldn't there be a buzzer?

1:02:36 Matt: That is a funny thought.

1:02:43 Thomas: Something. Give me something.

1:02:44 Matt: Whirls around and points, the judge is like, yeah, we get it. It's fine.

1:02:47 Thomas: Can you move up? Can you, yeah. We get it. He killed the guy. Can you move on? Yeah.

1:02:49 Casey: Yeah, let's, let'S move on guys.

1:02:51 Thomas: Next question. He's the murderer, blah, blah, blah. Okay, okay, next question.

1:02:56 Casey: Anyway, we need to recess for lunch in the next 10 minutes, so if you cannot, just keep going.

1:03:00 Matt: Move it along.

1:03:00 Thomas: Yeah, okay. Is asked about the book that someone wrote around Fonny Willis's life a little bit, and he admits he hasn't read it. And there's just like one of those moments where like, Jesus, this is so brutal. Was a little comment I thought worth playing here.

1:03:17 Clip: Did you give an interview to the authors of that book? I've given no interview, sir. So you haven't talked to them at all, correct? I haven't talked to any media. All right. None.

1:03:30 Clip: Now, as it relates to the public money,

1:03:36 Thomas: Just wanted to get that one in there. Yeah, that made me a little nervous because I was like, you know, at this point in the hearing, I don't know who, this is such a drama. This is such a reality show. I don't know who's friends with who still, like we've already referenced that several friendships were made or broken. We could learn, hopefully we learn something, like maybe two of the attorneys became friends or something to kind of compensate for the number of relationships broken by this whole thing. But that comment worried me because it's like, shit, is he going to spill the beans on something? I wasn't sure what that, what that means. I think maybe as the hearing goes on, I, he wants to talk about how badly they were mistreated in this. I don't think that's any anything other than that. But I want to play that. And then here is what I've got to say is one of the dumbest exchanges of the whole thing that we simply have to comment on.

1:04:21 Matt: A tight competition on This one. You

1:04:22 Thomas: Yeah, it is.

1:04:23 Clip: Money that you received, the money you received from your work for Fulton County, that's the public funds, correct? Correct? No, sir, it's private funds. Public funds pay you to do work for Fulton County, correct? Tell me what the definition of a public fund is. A public fund would be funds, as in not fund, but funds, money. Public money, as in money from taxpayers, by the Fulton County or the State of Georgia, pay you to do the work that you're doing here in this case, yes or no? One or the other, I'm certain you know it's not the case. I don't know which one, mister. Now, those, you would take those public funds and those public funds would then use, deposit in your account, and

1:04:39 Thomas: Oh my God

1:05:12 Clip: They then Used to pay for the, on the credit cards for the trips that you would take with

1:05:12 Thomas: I Rest my Case. This is the dumbest shit, I'm sorry, this guy tries to make this sound, what he's describing is any government employee getting paid. It's Literally

1:05:17 Clip: Um

1:05:26 Matt: Money Lands in your bank account from the government.

1:05:28 Thomas: And he knows what he is doing. This is appealing To the MAGA base, who's like, "Oh my God, this guy was taking public funds," first off, taking public, public funds, putting them in his bank account, and then he would pay, get this, his credit card bill with public funds. That were, and you're just like, dude, this is so stupid. I, like, worked for the state. You could just say anything that I did with any of my money was public funds by this definition. It's absolutely stupid.

1:05:30 Matt: Yeah,

1:05:43 Casey: Yeah, to be honest, it's funny you say that because I actually didn't put that together. I thought the guy had just started going down some weird line of questioning and hadn't been able to extricate himself from it.

1:06:05 Matt: Was so obtuse.

1:06:06 Casey: Your version of it, I think makes, now it makes sense.

1:06:08 Matt: That's What it was, it's just so stupid. You Wouldn't Think of it. I

1:06:10 Thomas: So dumb that is one of my nominees for the dumbest exchange. We will see if it stands. I don't know. This guy is one of the worst. He's, he, the one who gets the names wrong, as, um, which, you say any one instance of that is racism, but it's the pattern sure feels racist to me, but I don't know. I guess I can't prove that, but a lot of getting names wrong.

We get into, this is the same guy who does the re-upped thing that I know Matt had a problem with. I think we've already talked about that essentially in the previous episode, so then we get, this, this is so funny. So we got to talk about the 24-hour bill for a sec. Already we covered it, Matt.

I'm not going to make you delve through it, but there is, wow, this guy, now that I think about it, he's the leader in the clubhouse for most nominees for dumbest exchange, because I wanted to ask you guys, do you ever try to pull this in trials where you just, you you write down on a piece of paper, like I am the murderer. And then you hand it to him and you're like, read that.

And he's like, I am, I'm not going to read that like that. Okay. That's a little bit of a joke, but is it? Cause he wants to have them read this 24 hour bill. Now we already talked about that. It's I'm going to go through it again. I think it'll be self -explanatory here.

1:07:14 Clip: Completed the task of preparing the cases for pretrial. That's the date I completed it. Just wait a few words. Then my question was, read out loud the entry for November the 5th, 2021, and how many hours you build that day. Just, just do that for me, if you would. I can't do that. Excuse me, I believe it's entirely to answer this question. That certainly wasn't the question that Mr. Gillen asked you. My question now is to read a certain entry. So I just read into the record, Mr. Wade, on November 5th, 2021, how many hours did you bill the citizens of Fulton County for on that day? Just read it out, please. I completed the task on November 5th, 2021. 24 hours was billed at $250. Dollars Thank

1:08:05 Thomas: Look, say what you wanted about that bill. And yeah, the invoice obviously a little badly written, but I am 100% in Wade's corner on this particular exchange. 'Cause like he explained the bill. He said, yeah, it says date completed. And those dates are the dates in which I submitted my time for that entire task as we went through. And then this guy's like, like, well, but could you just read it, but in a voice, also read it in like a villainous voice. Like, ah, I'm the one who, you know, you're like, he's, you can't make him read something and then sub in like, hey, read how many hours you billed for on that day, on that day. And he's like, I am not going to do that. It's so transparent.

1:08:14 Matt: Yeah, Yeah, Right,

1:08:41 Casey: Yeah. Yeah. It's just one of those moments. I think you kind of need to take the L on. Like, I don't, what I don't understand, I just, I just don't understand why he didn't have him read that initially. I'm assuming he didn't, since he was trying to get him to do it right there. But it seems to me that the ordinary thing to do would be to have him read that entry into the record, and then Wade would explain what he he meant by it, and I guess somehow that that became not what happened, um, because Wade, you know, rightly wanted to explain what what it was, but that's the point at which you move on from that that moment.

1:09:12 Thomas: Yep.

1:09:12 Casey: Um, and you're like, you know what, this, this just isn't going the way that I had hoped, and it's time to move on to greener pastures.

1:09:20 Matt: It's like he was trying to create a quick little clip just for Fox News of like, yep, I did 24 -hour billing.

1:09:23 Thomas: And that is what it is. Like that guy, look, there's varying degrees of good faith here or not, but this guy, such bad faith. In my opinion, this guy is trying to create these misconceptions, these easily misunderstood things. He is trying to create them. And it's very frustrating because, you know, they will do that. You ever gone against a really bad attorney who tries to do a stupid trick like this to get? Does anything come to mind?

1:09:25 Matt: Yeah, Yeah,

1:09:48 Casey: Don't think it's uncommon that people don't know when to stop with questioning the things they're really hoping it was going to go one way, and Then it just doesn't, and sometimes just like with anything else in life, I think sometimes people just don't know when it's time to kind of pull up stakes and move on, and they're like, oh, I pictured this going so differently in my head, this is, I practiced this, and this is not, not how it came out. I mean, I can't think of any specific examples, but it happens a fair amount that you're just like, you know, God, this, this needs to, this means to end. I mean, who knows, maybe, I've done that myself. I hope not, but,

1:09:55 Thomas: Yeah. Sure. Sure. Speaking from a massive glass podcast of, I cut it when my jokes suck or most When I think they suck. I don't know that I get all of them that suck, but I try. I'm realizing I would be like, "Your Honor, I'd like to, you know, can I edit this before it goes in the court? Like, can I can I edit this exchange that I sound really good right here and he sounds really guilty?" Would that be a permission to do that, comes in and remember how he definitely said like, "Oh, I'm yielding to the other guy," or "deferring to the another guy."

1:10:26 Casey: Yeah.

1:10:48 Clip: Your permission, but he was going to go first on this, and then I was going to follow up and defer to him, so I'm going to let him go first. All right, let me...

1:11:01 Clip: With the understanding, next time, we're going to keep going in order, and I'll skip around the order. That's why I brought it up, because I thought that's what... Okay. All right. Mr.

1:11:11 Thomas: The judge is very much like,

1:11:13 Clip: Seydel. I'm

1:11:13 Thomas: "Well, we're going in order." "Oh, I didn't know that," and then Seydel gets to go even though he definitely... So, that, am I crazy? He gamed the system there. Am I wrong? He comes in, asked a bunch of stupid stuff about cash, and, and like, is essentially like, "You never asked Fonny Willis where she got the cash to pay you back." And which, I mean, there could, could be not for nothing, some racism involved there. Like, what is the implication here? Like that she's dealing drugs. Like if you're dating someone and you're like, "I'm going to book the trip for us on my credit card." You, "Oh, here's 500 bucks for my half." "Where'd you get that? Where'd you get that 500 bucks?" What one would ask, that's insane, and to Wade's credit, he does, he's like, "What the... Are you talking about, sir? Like, why would I ever ask the district attorney where, where she got 500?" It's so bad. Um, so Seydel will kind of skip through his. It's a lot of retreading the same ground, but he gets to the point where he's really just grilling.

He's really trying to to make him answer stuff that they've already argued, like, "Hey, this is privilege, privilege," and he's trying to find ways around that. And he does that all the way through the whole thing. He is trying to little ways around it until finally it kind of comes to a head here. And I feel like I have a question about this that might be worth going going into here. A

1:11:46 Casey: Yeah.

1:12:24 Clip: If the privilege actually does not apply, then he must answer the question? And where does that get us? That answers the question. Hasn't he already kind of said everything he has to say about the nature of the relationship, how long it lasted, when did it end? No, I think if he is forced or compelled to answer the question, he will either answer it falsely by saying none, or he answered it truthfully by saying yes and then telling us what it is.

That's what I believe, that's why I'm asking. The interrogator you're referring to, though, the question contained there, two, two interrogatories. Yes, sir. It's the entertaining one, it's whether there are other relationships, right, with this language that's in the interrogatories. Sure. Haven't you already covered that in all the questions that we've had so far? We have But again, the court could if I could require or compel an answer from him as to whether his answer would still be none, then we would know whether or not he was telling the truth now. If the answer is no, then obviously there was a time in the past where he was not. It simply requires him to now answer under oath what he refused to answer and claimed, what I might suggest, is a bogus privilege, and that you can pierce that privilege because it's a material fact in connection with this case. Again, it's the call that your honor makes. I have the case law that says you can do that, but it's your discretion.

1:13:10 Thomas: Hundred times.

1:13:15 Casey: I wasn't the one that did it. Oh,

1:13:53 Thomas: What's this deal about piercing privilege? What is this trick that I didn't know? I'm sure that's a real thing, but what did that mean there? That's the first time I had heard it in this hearing. And

1:14:02 Matt: Privilege is not impenetrable. You have to have some way through because otherwise people will just assert it all the time for everything. You got to look behind it sometimes.

1:14:09 Thomas: Know what his argument for piercing the privilege is here and does that make any sense or is he just this guy kind of being an asshole?

1:14:15 Matt: Yeah. I mean, I think he was, he was asserting his privilege under the statute that we talked about, the rule, which allows him to refuse to testify if it incriminates or tends to incriminate or causes infamy, disgrace, or public contempt, right? I think that was what he was saying. He had this privilege under these proceedings. I'm not sure he gets to assert it here, but we're not Georgia lawyers. So it seems like he is asserting it here and they're just trying to look behind it because they're saying, you know, you're just Trying to get out of this question. You're going to lie if if you tell the truth.

1:14:29 Casey: I actually That is a great privilege, by the way, that as far as I know we don't have here that you just get to be like, "You know, this, your honor, would be very embarrassing for me and I would prefer not to discuss it in public."

1:14:41 Matt: Yeah. People wouldn't like me if I said this out loud. Yeah, that's basically it.

1:14:50 Casey: Yeah. So if we could just move on, that that would be great. That's terrific, terrific. Off your witness. Um, actually, don't, don't know in this context what piercing the privilege might involve. I don't know if maybe, maybe it means that you somehow opened the door having to answer questions about it, but truthfully, like, I, I was thinking that they somehow were referring to the attorney-client privilege. Um, said, I also don't really understand how you would waive that privilege. I guess perhaps if you went far enough down the avenue of, um, discussing things that, uh, maybe you far enough down the road of saying embarrassing shit and you don't get to say, "You, you know what? That's enough. No more."

1:15:22 Matt: At this point, all the details relationship are public, so there's not enough, you know, I don't know. You could say that for piercing the privilege, that, yeah, he's already got enough infamy and public contempt.

1:15:28 Casey: He's already been very embarrassed.

1:15:33 Thomas: Let's reset. What they're trying to do, they just wants to make him say that he did the murder, like he just wants him to say, "No, you need to say that you had a relationship with Fonny Willis prior to the date that you were already claiming you did." And he's like, "No," and there's all this dance around, "Well, but what if I keep asking a different way?" Or "what if they're like, is there's information that you have that would tell you that?" And then that's where some of these privileged things come in, where it's like, like, "Well, also, attorney client privilege in terms of my divorce proceeding." He doesn't, think I that factors in somewhere here. And it really does to be like, "Your honor, can't I make him say he did the bad thing? Isn't there some way?" You know, and that's what, honestly, that's what most of this is. We could skip a lot of it.

1:16:19 Matt: That's what a lot of cross is.

1:16:19 Casey: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, they're just kind of trying to poke around to get to something that he won't assert that privilege on, I would assume. Or I mean, they're Just hoping to go at it from a different angle to get the that they want.

1:16:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

1:16:31 Matt: But the attorney-client privilege is only relevant when we get to his attorney. Nothing here is going to be attorney-client privilege than I can think of.

1:16:37 Thomas: Details about the divorce or not, like he's not allowed to.

1:16:39 Casey: Well, no, because he's not the attorney in that case, right? Like he's the, he's the holder of the privilege. So his, his, he is the holder of privilege of the attorney-client privilege that he, is the only one that would be able to waive it, in terms of his lawyer testifying. But you don't have attorney - client privilege just because you're an attorney who has a lawyer, um

1:16:42 Matt: It's his information to, right.

1:16:51 Thomas: Oh, right. At this point, I, it, look, does seem like this guy been a little dishonest. We've already talked about it. Um, a little worried, uh, my opinion, the cross-examination by Anna Cross, which she really needs to start the podcast, you know, Cross on Cross or something, you know, there's something there. Um, seems extremely effective to me. And so I wonder if you guys felt the same. Let me play some of this.

1:17:15 Clip: Affidavit that was filed in your divorce case in January 2022, you estimated your monthly income at that time was 14,000 a month, right, in '22, January '22. Yes, ma'am. January '23, number comes through 9,

1:17:34 Thomas: 2023 is what she said. It's kind of skipped out.

1:17:38 Clip: 000. What about 2024? I don't know, is that there in front of you? Is that one that's not one of the ones that's there in the front of me? All right, so as reflected in those financial affidavits, your income decreased as a result of your work in this case, correct? Significantly.

1:17:56 Thomas: Yeah, that seems like kind of significant. Like, if the whole entire thing has been about this on toward, you off of this whole thing, she comes in and says, okay, despite what the other side has kind of made it all out to be, let's go through the income numbers through the years, and you see that actually your income has decreased as a result of taking on this case. That feels like a strong argument to me that this isn't really as bad as we might've thought it was.

1:18:21 Matt: Was just trying to imagine making so much money practicing law that your income decreases when you're making what he was making with this appointment. I can't get my head around that, personally. But yeah, I mean, not

1:18:28 Thomas: Matt, I can imagine that. I've cut some checks to lawyers. I can tell you that's, yeah, that fits to me. Makes sense. Yeah, that's true.

1:18:36 Matt: Immigration lawyers, pretty sure. Yeah.

1:18:38 Thomas: Yeah. Maybe I should have immigrated there. I feel like this is good for the case, though. I idea that like this this is just some huge benefit for him. And it's like grift and it's all this. It's like, well, okay, that's a pretty solid argument. I think there's another really good moment here too

1:18:54 Clip: Number nine, Mr. Wade indicates that you performed hours of work that you were not compensated for because your cap had been reached. Yes, ma'am. And what did you do in those circumstances when the hours that you worked per month were more than the cap that was in your contract that you were permitted to be paid for? I was forced to to lose that time. I didn't get paid for it. Okay, and that's what exhibit number nine shows. Yes, ma'am.

All right, and in exhibit number nine, you've got last hours that were completed and you just didn't bill for it. You noted the time and then a zero, decided because you didn't go to county for that time. Yes, ma'am. All exhibit number, um, invoice number 13. Can you flip to that? Company, is that a similar situation? Yes, ma'am, it is. And what is it on exhibit, I'm sorry, invoice number 13? Invoice makes me cry.

There are so many hours here, um, that I worked that I couldn't, I couldn't be paid for. And you work those hours anyway, Mr. Wright? Oh, absolutely. This is not a type of job that you could walk away because you're not getting paid for it. I, I think there's some professional rules of responsibility to an attorney who's engaged in a case. You have to see it through.

So it's not like I can just throw my hands up and say, well, I reached my monthly cap, I'm done, I can walk away. I can't do that. This is ongoing. It's constant. And I have to do the work.

1:20:21 Thomas: Feel like that was pretty good.

1:20:23 Matt: To respect it. Yeah no, that's very respectable. I mean I wouldn't expect anything less given the case, but I mean he spent a year intensively preparing for the grand jury and presenting this case to the grand jury. And you know, just something like 96 witnesses or something, but it was a lot of work. I think that does need to be mentioned. It does seem like he did a pretty good job with it. And in one of the most important state criminal cases that's going to be brought in our lifetimes, it had to lay that foundation. So, you know, I can't argue with any of that.

1:20:48 Casey: With what Thomas said before, which is, it seems to me like it, it is, it's good for the case that it's hard to see why or how there could be any type of collusion between him and D.A. Willis,

1:20:59 Thomas: Furthermore, sorry caps on these hours. I think that's pretty effective against the argument of, you're going to draw it on and on so that it's, well, I guess you could draw it for more months, I suppose. But like in a given month, capped you're as to what you could work. It just seems like this is all pretty good evidence that like, all right, I don't really think they were like doing some scheme to profit off of this.

1:21:06 Matt: True.

1:21:19 Casey: If she wanted to profit off of her relationship with him, she actually would have been better off, I would think, having him working at his law firm, making however much more money and then getting him to pay for cruises

1:21:26 Matt: Exactly.

1:21:29 Thomas: Hey, man, can you get a different job so I can profit off of you, please? Like, yeah, this is really stupid. OK, we got to break up. Maybe that's why they broke up. You don't make enough money.

1:21:31 Casey: To the Bahamas.

1:21:34 Matt: Why did I ever appoint you to this?

1:21:40 Casey: Yeah. Need to go back to your old job, ma'am. Oh

1:21:45 Thomas: Oh, man. I was looking at your financials. You're a loser. Her, I gotta break up with you, that

1:21:50 Matt: She should have said that on the stand. That'd be amazing.

1:21:51 Casey: Wait

1:21:52 Thomas: Would have been so funny. Oh my god oh right. That's the end of part one. A reminder, part two, we'll pick up where we left off. We'll get to Fonny Willis herself. Please support the show on patreon.com/law. Thank you so much for listening.

1:21:53 Matt: Speaking

1:22:08 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

1:22:25 Thomas: Written down every single person, which was like an hour's worth of work that I shouldn't have done because I realized like, I actually don't give a shit about these people. But you, your honor, like right