George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley spoke with Fox News on Friday about the controversial decision down in Georgia to leave Fulton County DA Fani Willis in her role in the election case against Donald Trump.
Judge Scott McAfee ruled Willis could stay on the case if special prosecutor Nathan Wade stepped down.
Turley started by explaining one reason McAfee might have rendered such a decision: “The reason that’s attractive is that it avoids the cliff problem. If he took Willis off the case, he’d have to take the entire office out of the mix. He’d have to reassign this to another set of prosecutors. That would cause considerable delay, could also cause the dismissal of the case if those new prosecutors looked at this racketeering theory and said, like many of us, ‘Wow, this doesn’t really hold together very well.’”
“So this avoided the cliff but it did not avoid the question that will inevitably come up,” he continued. “It’s like finding two people in a bank vault and taking one off to jail. The question is the appearance problem, that the judge identified with regard to Wade, was directly related to his relationship with Willis. They both testified in the same way. They were the two parts of this relationship, and yet only one of them was disqualified. And so that’s going to lead to these questions: Why should Willis escape that same penalty? The opinion leaves us feeling like the court went and shot the wounded.”
“The problem is the disjointed aspect of the opinion itself,” Turley stated. “It doesn’t really hold together that well. The big question was: What is the standard? Is it just an appearance or do you have to show an actual conflict? He indicates that he believes it is indeed the appearance standard.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I don’t see how Willis escaped disqualification,” he asserted. “Many people believed that both of these prosecutors lied on the stand, that there were false statements admitted to courts. The key about that is Willis and Wade are prosecuting people in this case for that very conduct. And so it’s hard to see how Willis continuing the case does not undermine it in the eyes of the public and hurts the case overall.”
Turley noted of Willis, “She will stand accused of false statements as she prosecutes others for that type of conduct. And keep in mind that there are state efforts now to fully investigate this including possible bar issues.”
Watch the clip above.
[h/t The Daily Wire]