Prosecutors Not Calling Fani Willis Back to Stand Because Testimony Was Enough to Fend Off Disqualification, Sources Tell CNN

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis won’t take the stand again Friday to testify in the misconduct hearing that seeks to have her removed from the case for an alleged conflict of interest, because, according to CNN’s sources, her team believes her testimony Thursday was enough to defeat the effort to disqualify her.

In August 2023, a Georgia grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 others (including former New York City Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, former Trump staffer Michael Roman, and several lawyers who have represented Trump and his campaign, including Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and John Eastman) for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.

Willis charged the 19 co-defendants with a total of 41 counts in a 98-page indictment. Several of the co-defendants have already pled guilty, including attorneys Powell and Chesebro.

Thursday saw a series of dramatic courtroom moments, as Willis’ former friend Robin Yeartie testified that a romantic relationship between the DA and prosecutor Nathan Wade began earlier than the couple had claimed. Willis’ relationship with Wade — and the money he was paid by her office — are the core of the accusations of conflict against her.

Wade countered Yeartie’s claims when it was his turn to testify, insisting their relationship did not begin earlier because he was battling cancer during 2020 and isolating due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As for Willis, she was grilled by a parade of defense attorneys representing various defendants in the case, including Trump attorney Steven Sadow; Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman; William Cromwell, who represents Trump co-defendant Cathy Latham; and Harry MacDougald, attorney for Trump co-defendant Jeffrey Clark.

Willis often presented a defiant figure on the witness stand, adamant that Yeartie was not telling the truth and arguing she had not financially benefitted from hiring Wade, describing how she had paid him for her share of travel expenses when the couple took trips and so on.

She was expected to retake the stand when the hearing resumed Friday morning, but in a surprise move, it was announced that was not going to happen.

As CNN News Central anchor John Berman reported, Willis’ team “decided not to put her back on the stand today — this is our reporting — because they feel they already got everything they needed, they feel that they met the bar, it was enough to beat disqualification, they say, so why risk putting her back now? That could be spin. I assume they would say that no matter what.”

“I wouldn’t say from my view so much as they got what they needed,” replied CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, “but that she wasn’t damaged enough to cause a disqualification.”

Honig added “that doesn’t mean it’s game over,” because the defendants challenging Willis still have a chance to put on their evidence and witnesses, but he did think this was the “right” strategic move and he would have done the same thing if he were “in the DA’s shoes.”

“I think I think if you have a win and I think by and large — again, I’m not saying Fani Willis’ testimony settled the issue — but I think the damage done to her was minimal and I think that’s a win,” he concluded.

CNN legal analyst Michael Moore concurred that this was the prosecutors having “snatched the apple back to keep the other side from getting a second bite at it,” getting to interrogate Willis for another day and possibly try to get more information or admissions from her.

Watch above via CNN.