ATLANTA – A defense lawyer in the Fulton County election interference case against former President Donald Trump Wednesday outlined her reasons for seeking to disqualify Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis.
Ashleigh Merchant, who represents co-defendant Michael Roman in the racketeering case against Trump, told a state Senate committee Willis never would have been allowed to hire Nathan Wade to lead the prosecution if she had disclosed she was involved in a romantic relationship with him.
Merchant also claimed Willis failed to get the Fulton County Commission to approve a contract with Wade that has paid him $700,000 thus far and is guilty of a conflict of interest in that she benefited financially from both the contract and the relationship.
“They were sleeping together and going on trips he was paying for and not disclosing it to the taxpayers,” Merchant testified during a three-hour hearing before the Senate Special Committee on Investigations, a panel the Republican-controlled Senate formed in January to look into the conflict accusations lodged against Willis.
“We’ve heard a lot of the allegations,” said committee Chairman Bill Cowsert, R-Athens. “We’re tasked with investigating and finding the true facts.”
Merchant filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court in January seeking to have Willis disqualified from prosecuting the case because of her romantic relationship with the lead prosecutor. Willis and Wade subsequently acknowledged the relationship but argued it doesn’t constitute grounds for disqualification.
On Wednesday, Merchant testified that Willis asked the county commission for more money in September 2021, indicating she needed it to address a backlog mostly of homicide cases. The commission allocated $780,000 for that purpose to cover expenses through the end of year and authorized up to $5 million for the following year, Merchant said.
Merchant said Willis never disclosed she was going to use those funds to hire a special prosecutor for the election interference case. According to Merchant, Willis maintained that she didn’t have to get the commission’s approval for how she planned to spend the money because she is an elected constitutional officer.
“There’s really no oversight,” Merchant said. “I know she’s an elected official, but it’s still public money.”
Merchant also criticized Wade’s billing procedures for the work he was doing as sloppy, which made it difficult to track. She showed examples of the bills he submitted to the county to the committee.
“This isn’t anything we could submit to a client,” she said. “You have to be detailed in billing.”
Merchant went on to reiterate allegations she and other lawyers representing Trump and other defendants made during two recent hearings before Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on the disqualification motion, including that her romantic relationship with Wade began before she hired him and that Wade was not qualified to handle such a case because he had never prosecuted a felony.
Wade and Willis testified during the first of those hearings that their relationship did not start until after he was hired.
During the second hearing, an assistant prosecutor representing Willis’ office dismissed cellphone records that show almost 2,000 phone calls and 9,800 text messages between Wade and Willis during the first 11 months of 2021. Adam Abbate questioned the ability of the technology to pinpoint Wade’s specific location.
Merchant also argued that Willis had a financial interest in extending the prosecution of the case as long as possible because she was benefiting financially through the trips she took with Wade, who paid nearly all of the expenses with his credit card.
“My client has a right to a fair and impartial prosecutor,” Merchant said. “We don’t think that’s happening in this case.”
Willis testified last month that she and Wade split the costs of the trips, with her reimbursing him in cash.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Whip Harold Jones, D-Augusta, a member of the committee, pointed out that Wade offered a plea bargain to Roman, hardly the act of a prosecutor seeking to drag out a case.
“You say, ‘They wanted to extend the prosecution of my client,’ ” Jones told Merchant. “They were willing to cut it off.”
Jones also questioned Merchant’s characterization of Wade as unqualified to prosecute the election interference case, saying the fact that Wade won multiple indictments from a grand jury as well as several guilty pleas shows he has been effective.
McAfee is expected to issue a ruling on the disqualification motion by the end of next week.
ATLANTA – The four members of Georgia’s congressional delegation who didn’t sign up to run for reelection at the start of Qualifying Week on Monday traveled to the state Capitol Tuesday to qualify for another term.
Republican U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter of Savannah, Andrew Clyde of Athens, Mike Collins of Jackson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome signed qualifying papers on Tuesday.
With 13 of Georgia’s 14 congressional incumbents seeking reelection, only retiring Rep. Drew Ferguson’s seat in west-central Georgia is vacant. Not surprisingly, it has attracted a crowded field of candidates, with the GOP’s Jim Bennett of Carroll County and Michael Corbin of Peachtree Corners joining five other hopefuls in the 3rd Congressional District race.
Other challengers who qualified on the second day of Qualifying Week include Democratic state Rep. Mandisha Thomas of South Fulton, who will oppose incumbent Rep. Lucy McBath in the party’s May 21 primary, and Democrats Vince Watkins and Darrius Maurice Butler, who will vie for the right to oppose incumbent Rep. Austin Scott in the 8th Congressional District.
Republican Mike Pons will challenge incumbent GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk in the 11th District, and two Democrats – Shawn Harris and Joseph Leigh – signed up Tuesday to run for their party’s nomination to challenge Greene.
ATLANTA – Georgia House budget writers approved a $36.1 billion fiscal 2025 state budget Tuesday that includes pay raises for teachers, state and university system employees and judges.
The House Appropriations Committee signed off on most of the spending recommendations Gov. Brian Kemp presented to the General Assembly in January, including $249.6 million to account for public school enrollment growth, a $204 million increase in student transportation costs, and $104 million in grants to improve safety on public school campuses.
The committee also added many but not all of the funding requests individual House members submitted. Lawmakers were particularly active on that front this year because the state has built up a $16 billion surplus.
“There were a lot of requests,” committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, told committee members Tuesday. “We’ve been able to address many of them, but you may wish we had gone further on some.”
Even though the $37.5 billion midyear budget Kemp signed last week contains well more than $1 billion in capital projects, the fiscal 2025 spending plan also includes $786.5 million for building projects.
The list includes $52 million for the Department of Juvenile Justice to build a 48-bed expansion of a detention facility in Milledgeville, $40.1 million to build a medical examiner annex in DeKalb County, and $22.2 million to build a goat, sheep, and swine barn at the Georgia Agricultural Exposition Authority complex in Perry.
The budget is expected to reach the full House for a vote later this week. The fiscal 2025 budget will take effect July 1.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives gave final passage Tuesday to legislation letting a recently created oversight board for prosecutors set its own rules.
The bill cleared the Republican-controlled House 97-73 primarily along party lines. The state Senate, where the legislation originated, passed it early last month, also in a party-line vote.
Senate Bill 332 is a follow-up to legislation the General Assembly passed last year creating the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission to investigate complaints lodged against local district attorneys.
The panel will have the power to remove prosecutors it deems guilty of a variety of offenses including mental or physical incapacity, willful misconduct or failure to perform the duties of the office, conviction of a crime of moral turpitude, or conduct that brings the office into disrepute.
The commission has been stalled since the state Supreme Court ruled in November that it does not have the authority to review the rules the commission adopts, as the 2023 bill provided. Instead, the new bill gives that authority to the commission itself.
“The commissioners are all in place,” Rep. Joseph Gullett, R-Dallas, the bill’s chief sponsor, said on the House floor Tuesday. “It’s ready to get to work.”
But Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said taking away the state Supreme Court’s authority to set the commission’s rules would leave a panel of unelected commissioners appointed by Georgia’s Republican governor, lieutenant governor, and House speaker able to make partisan decisions on prosecutors unchecked.
“We are creating an oversight commission without oversight,” she said.
Evans and other Democrats also argued an oversight commission for prosecutors is unnecessary because they already must answer to the Georgia Bar Association, judges, and – ultimately – local voters.
“I trust Georgia voters to vote in their best interests,” said House Minority Whip Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville.
Republicans countered that the legislation is needed to rein in “rogue” district attorneys around the state who are refusing to prosecute criminal suspects. Several GOP lawmakers cited instances in Athens, Paulding County, and the infamous failure by the Glynn County district attorney originally assigned to the Ahmaud Arbery murder case to prosecute the suspects.
“There have been deliberate decisions to ignore whole sections of the Georgia code,” said Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth. “We can’t afford to have any (judicial) circuit not enforcing the law for the sake of public safety.”
The legislation now goes to Gov. Brian Kemp, who is expected to sign it.
Six candidates signed up Monday to seek retiring U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson’s seat
ATLANTA – Nine of Georgia’s 14 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed up to seek another two-year term Monday on a busy opening day of Qualifying Week at the state Capitol.
But not surprisingly, the only race that doesn’t feature an incumbent drew the most interest. With Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson of West Point leaving office, four Republicans and two Democrats qualified to run for the open 3rd Congressional District seat.
The field for the May 21 GOP primary includes several familiar names. Former state Sens. Mike Dugan of Carrollton and Mike Crane of Newnan qualified on Monday, along with former state Rep. Philip Singleton of Newnan. Retiree Jim Bennett of Carroll County also signed up to seek the seat Ferguson is vacating.
Democratic candidates qualifying in the 3rd District include retired physician Val Almonord of Columbus and Maura Keller of Fayetteville, a nuclear medical technologist.
The incumbent members of Georgia’s congressional delegation who qualified Monday are Reps. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany; Hank Johnson, D-Stone Mountain; Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta; Lucy McBath, D-Marietta; Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee; Austin Scott, R-Tifton; Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville; Rick Allen, R-Augusta; and David Scott, D-Atlanta.
McBath and McCormick essentially are flipping districts in the wake of the new congressional redistricting map the Republican-controlled General Assembly adopted last fall.
McCormick, who currently represents the 6th District, is moving to the 7th District after it was redrawn to take in Republican-friendly turf in Forsyth, Dawson, and Lumpkin counties as well as portions of Cherokee and Hall counties. McBath, now representing the 7th District centered in Gwinnett County, is running in the 6th District, which has been shifted into heavily Democratic central and southern Fulton County, South Cobb, eastern Douglas County, and northern Fayette County.
Non-incumbent candidates qualified Monday in five congressional districts. In the 6th District, Republican Jeff Criswell, a roadside service provider from Cobb County, signed up to challenge McBath. In the 10th District, Democrat Jessica Fore, a realtor-musician from Athens, is looking to challenge incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Collins of Jackson.
Business owner Antonio Daza, a Democrat from Woodstock, signed up to take on Loudermilk in the 11th District. Democrat Daniel “DJ” Jackson, a military retiree from Evans, is challenging Allen in the 12th District. And in the 14th District, Democrat Shaun Harris of Cedartown, another military retiree, signed up to face Republican incumbent Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome.
While there is no U.S. Senate race this year in Georgia, all 14 congressional seats are up for grabs, as are all 236 seats in the state House and Senate. Qualifying continues through noon Friday.
