They gave word what the judge has decided. Fani willis can decide if she wants to stay or leave the case and take nathan wade with her. So were waiting for more information on this. Welcome to friday. Dana has the day off today. Im bill hemmer live in New York City with my friend and colleague in tow. It will be a ride. Dana it is. Were getting big news this morning. Im Martha Maccallum and this, of course, is americas newsroom. We understand as you just pointed out, bill, that this decision is in. Judge mcphee gave himself a two week deadline. That landed today. Weve come to know this judge a little bit over the course of the last couple of months. Scott mcafee. Whether to disqualify fani willis in response to allegations that she was dating her lead prosecutor when she hired him and that was part of a motivation for hiring him and the two took some rather fancy vacations together and that they may have benefited financially from this Business Arraignment which it was alleged she created for that purpose. Bill Donald Trumps team and codefendants say it is a disqualifying Conflict Of Interest. The case should be thrown out because of it. All these allegations prompting heated testimony. We watched it live. You will hear now from one of the first witnesses on behalf of trumps attorneys. She is now a former friend and former colleague of fani willis. She was emphatic saying she remembered the timeline and she remembered the action when she asked her questions about nathan wade. And do you understand it that their relationship began in 2019 and continued until the last time you spoke with her . Yes. As it relates to having the 2022 relationship with District Attorney willis, i want to say because my marriage was broken, i was free to have a relationship. In truth in two peoples personal lives you are con vised. You think im on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election. Im not on trial no matter how hard you put me on trial. A man is not a plan, a man is a companion. Martha that is just a slice of what we got from the d. A. Fani willis in georgia through the course of all of this. We have analysis from former federal prosecutor and first to Jonathan Serrie covering this case all along in atlanta. Big morning, jonathan. Very big morning. The story is unfolding as we speak. The Atlanta Journal constitution is reporting that Fulton CountyDistrict Attorney fani willis has been ordered to either step aside or she has to cut ties with her Special Prosecutor in the case, nathan wade, before the case can go to trial. Attorneys for former President Trump and several of his associates had asked the judge to disqualify the d. A. From prosecuting the case. They argue williss romantic relationship with Prosecutor Wade creates a Conflict Of Interest. Willis and wade have testified under oath the relationship began after willis hired him but willis also faces challenges outside the courtroom. Take a listen. The biggest risk that fani willis has are political in nature. She has an election coming up which is now contested both in the primary and general election. And as for the case itself, judge mcafee struck down six counts against former President Trump and five associates saying the prosecution failed to provide enough details on how the defendants allegedly committed the crimes. Now if willis remains on this case, if she remains the chief prosecutor, she will have to decide whether she appeals that decision on the six counts, whether she seeks a new indictment or whether she goes ahead and prosecutes the case on the remaining 35 charges. According to this reporting by the Atlanta Journal constitution, d. A. Fani willis has a major decision to make, whether she removes herself from the case or cuts ties with Special Prosecutor nathan wade. Back to you guys. Bill a couple of things. Do you know when the judge will be in court . Will it be today or not . Based on the reporting, it is slim thus far, do we know if he gave her a deadline to give him an answer, meaning the judge . We dont know about a deadline. This ruling was issued by the judge outside of the courtroom, entered in the computer system. It has just now appeared and were now scouring it along with the rest of you trying to figure out the details. Bill well give you some space to get that done, jonathan. Thank you with the Breaking News. Andrew here in studio, you have been with us from the beginning on this case. Welcome back. On face value what do you make of the judges decision to allow her to decide . The idea she could kick off wade and keep willis on the case. I had an issue with that. That means the credibility of the testimony in court from willis and wade mattered. It mattered when the relationship began otherwise wade wouldnt be disqualified. There will be details in the ruling that talks about why willis can remain on if wade leaves. But to the bottom line of it rick it mattered and it seemed to matter to the judge that wade had this relationship and the timing and credibility in the courtroom. Martha an excellent point. She, according to a lot of the testimony that we heard from her friends and others who testified that the relationship did begin before fani willis admitted to if they were correct and if there is a reason to remove wade, then she was in the engineering of all of that. Why would she be left on the case . You would hope that prosecutors are held to the standard of being truthful at all times in all they say. Here the judge may have kind of figured out a path to giving less weight or less importance to the testimony that happened in court and the bickering that went back and forth who is telling the truth and who is not telling the truth. One of the issues in georgia law regarding Prosecutorial Misconduct, it must affect the outcome of the case. Not essentially the beginning of the case but the verdict in the case. Perhaps he navigated that piece of it. Bill rico matter involves a lot of people and can be very complicated. A portion of the order says the Court Concludes that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the state selects one of two options. At the moment we know there will be yet another delay in Fulton County. Probably why the ruling came out a couple days ago dismissing the six charges. Wanted to get ahead of it before the case is put on pause. Fani willis has to make a detailed decision whether she wants to remain on. Also the decision that has to be made about whether to issue a superseding indictment on the dismissed charges giving more detail. It was dismissed because there wasnt enough factual basis in the charges as alleged. She could do a reindictment on those pushing back the trial date or could try to appeal that decision but i dont think that can even happen now the case appears to be stayed until a decision is made. Martha judging from what you saw in the courtroom and having watched a lot of people in courtrooms, it doesnt look like she is going to remove herself from this case. Would you be surprised if that happened . I would be shocked. This is personal to her it seems. Political to her it seems. Aggressive prosecutors are an important function in our country at state, local and federal levels. But when those interests of prosecutors going beyond just the idea of upholding the law but appear to be personal and political that is where we have real problems. Bill Brian Robinson joins us now. Are you in atlanta at the moment . Welcome to our coverage. You know the players, you know georgia law. Your reaction on the decision so far. Bill, you remember that two weeks ago, when i was on with you, i said the judge is going to get through qualifying week when candidates sign up to run for office. He is a candidate on the ballot in Fulton County this year, heavily democratic county. I think he would come back this week and rule that fanny could stay on the case but wade would have to go. Obviously the judge thinks that there was a conflict, otherwise we could have had the status quo. So there will be the question raised, if its a conflict for her why not for her . Bill a couple questions about the judge. Is it fair to assume the following. If the judge determined they lied, he would have no choice, right . They would both be off the case. But if he keeps her on, then he has determined they did not lie or maybe she didnt lie, and that the timeline that was presented in court is accurate. Does that make sense to you . It does not, bill. Again, as we discussed here two weeks ago, when we heard the testimony from nathan wades law partner it did not pass the smell test. He has spoken very emphatically and clearly about the relationship starting in 2019. The statements made by wade and willis contradict that. And there is a strong sense that they perjured themselves in that testimony. So the judge is splitting the baby to use the term just used here. If we remove wade we have removed the conflict and we can get back to the starting point. I think thats going to give the defendants a lot of ammunition moving forward not just in a court, bill, but also the court of public opinion, which is probably more important in this particular case given the Election Season were in. Bill Last Question for you. The first witness we just played sound from a moment ago, former office mate and friend was emphatic on the dates. Do you conclude she lied . Fani willis . Bill the first witness for trumps team, the former office mate and friend, when she testified about when the relationship began. Right. I do think that someone lied on the stand about when the relationship began. I do think the defense put forward a very compelling argument, granted much of it is circumstantial. The Cell Phone Data Showing where nathan wade was near fani williss condo, that is circumstantial but it wasnt the only piece of evidence. When you put it together onebyone the Eyewitness Testimony of them kissing and hugging. Law partner saying it started in 2019 in Text Messages with defense attorneys. Thats not just a oneoff thats a lot of Circumstantial Evidence that it would take a lot of suspension of disbelief to believe that they didnt lie. Bill stand by. Thank you for that jumping on quickly in georgia, Brian Robinson. Martha has more as we continue. Martha Jonathan Turley is with us on the phone. Good morning. Good to have you with us. Your headline take as you take all of this in this morning. Weve been talking about this possibility of a solomon type of ruling by the court. The reason its attractive it avoids the cliff problem. If he took willis off the case he would have to take the entire office out of the mix. He would have to reassign this to another set of prosecutors. That would cause considerable delay and could also cause the dismissal of the case if those new prosecutors looked at this Racketeering Theory and said, like many of like us it doesnt hold together very well. It avoided the cliff but not the questions that will inevitably come up. It is like finding two people in a bank vault and taking one off to jail. The question is, you know, 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. Yet only one of them was disqualified. So thats going to lead to these questions. Well, why should willis escape that same penalty . The opinion leaves us feeling like the court went and shot the wounded. Martha its a great question and there is always the question, unfortunately, of politics and the influence of politics potentially on this. Because these are elected officials up for election again in may. I believe all the people involved here are up, including the judge, up for election in may. That may be why the judge wanted to speak on his own behalf before this decision came down and he spoke with wsbtv and what he said. The message i want to convey is no ruling of mine is ever going to be based on politics. Im going to be following the law the best i understand it. I just focus on the job im doing. Incredibly grateful for the last year i have been able to do this. I took this job not because i wanted to score partisan political points, didnt go looking for the spotlight. I love the law and giving people their day in court and being efficient about it. Jonathan, there will be speculation that this was a political move on his part. The easier road for him to take in many ways to leave fani willis in this spot but judging based on what you watched in the courtroom, do you think thats fair . Well, i have to say that ive been praising the judge. I still believe that he has conducted himself in a fair and professional way. I think that this does take an element of courage for an elected state judge because many people in Fulton County are not going to like the fact that he just disqualified wade and gave credence to this theory of an improper relationship and appearance issue that does touch upon willis and her office. Thats all for the good. The problem is the disjointed aspect of the opinion itself. It doesnt 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 thats the case, i dont see how willis could escape disqualification. Many people believe that both of these prosecutors lied on the stand. That there were false statements submitted to courts. The key about that is willis and wade are prosecuting people in this case for that very conduct. And so it is hard to see how willis continuing the case does not undermine it in the eyes of the public and hurts the case overall. In some ways this result may actually appeal to trump and his defendants. They established that there was an improper relationship, at least for the purposes of disqualification. And they left a wounded willis to continue on in the case. And she will stand accused of false statements as She P Prosecutes others for that kind of conduct. There are State Efforts to investigate this including possible bar issues. Martha the trump team now has the option to question her credibility all throughout the course of this based on some of what weve seen so far. Bill so the wheels havent fallen off entirely but sure are wobbly at the moment. Paul mauro joins us now by phone. Good morning to you. Just heard jonathan mention that the other investigation thats currently underway, the senate in georgia has its own investigation going. And the governor could weighas. Where do those stand at the moment, paul . That is the real danger here, i would say, for the judge. Because the senate can always subpoena documents and if at some point the senate goes so far in their investigation as to go beyond Interviewing Witnesses and looking at what has already been unearthed and managed to get themselves to the reportedly 10,000 Text Messages, 10,000 of the 12,000 contacts that willis and wade had are Text Messages. The senate gets to that material and gets that content, then there is a very good chance in my opinion were going to see the kind of conflict that demonstrates there was indeed a relationship that the two of them have denied. And that actually could arise during this prosecution, in which case the judge will be looking at a situation where everything he just exonerated willis on is going to be glaringly obvious and will have to revisit the same issues. As jonathan said, there will be a lot of question about how he could manage to split the baby here and say that okay, im going to knock out wade and keep willis, when to be blunt about it, it takes two to tango. Bill it is a little confounding at the moment and maybe clarification throughout the morning. Thank you, well come back to you shortly. Andrew is with us still. You look at the order from the judge. What does he say about the financial incentive or payments that may or may not have been raised for nathan wade during this . What the judge is saying is that most importantly the court finds that the based on the District Attorneys testimony that the evidence demonstrates the financial gain flowing from her relationship with wade, which he says is a few hundred dollars was not a motivating factor on the part of the District Attorney to indict and prosecute this case. What we have here is the judge finding there is no actual Conflict Of Interest. He then goes on to then assess the implied Conflict Of Interest and he is essentially giving willis and wade a break. Bill why would he demand wade is off the case. It turns out that the appearance of wades role on the case is problematic versus willis, who was part of this from the beginning before wade was particularly involved. She is the prosecutor in the role. The judge also says that wades billing of hours is not inherently a problem. That attorneys for the history of time have always had this debate about the benefit they get from billing extra hours. He was not particularly compelled by many of the argument of trump and the codefendants. Martha if he is saying the fact that she didnt hustle to hire him as this trump case was coming together so that he would be part of it with her, and reap financial gain from everyth