Fox News analysts were not the only ones predicting Fani Willis’ days are numbered in her crusade against former President Donald Trump. Even legal analysts at CNN were piling on with assessments that only underscored how poorly she performed in court Thursday as her case begins to slip away.
CNN analyst Michael Moore called Willis’ claim of reimbursing her subordinate lover with cash “not credible” as the Democratic Fulton County district attorney rebuffed accusations that she showered fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade with first-class airline tickets and overseas stays, all while running up multi-million dollar bills to pursue Trump and his 18 co-defendants.
“I think there were things they could have been pushed a lot harder on and maybe … delved into specifics a little bit more, especially when [we] start talking about things as nebulous as cash payments and there‘s no way to track it,” Moore said on CNN’s “This Morning” show. “And how much cash was paid? What, did you really just pay for the $150 to negotiate the taxi or … what did you do with the $4,000 you took? I think they could have pushed that.”
“I also thought that it just was not credible. It reminded me of watching a criminal defendant take the stand. They don‘t have to do that. You see it and you can tell that the defendant thinks that they‘re smarter than every lawyer in the room. And it just becomes a train wreck. And so that‘s sort of how I felt, this just went off the track,” he said about the testimony, according to the Daily Caller.
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For several excruciating minutes, Willis and defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant clashed over her claims that she keeps up to $15,000 in cash at her household at all times, using large sums to reimburse Wade for travel put on taxpayer-funded debit cards while conveniently not leaving a paper trail of receipts.
“I have a hard time just thinking about a DA paying everything in cash, nothing wrong with cash, but it‘s convenient right now … Her indignation would have seemed a lot more sincere had she come out about two months ago. But remember, even as she is there saying she wants to get to the truth and she‘s shaking the documents and the court filings around in front of everybody, her office is fighting everything. They’re fighting every witness subpoena. They don‘t want the records to come in, she‘s refusing to let bank records and other things come in. They‘re hiding behind the privilege from [Wade’s] divorce lawyer who they‘re claiming was a friend, but maybe a divorce lawyer, so we really shouldn’t have to say anything.”
The dramatic evidentiary hearing got so out of hand that Judge Scott McAfee called a five-minute recess to let both sides cool down. When they returned, he asked both attorneys to stop “talking over one another” and warned Willis that “we have to listen to the questions as asked. And if this happens again and again, I’m going to have no choice but to strike your testimony.”
Throughout the morning, Willis called the allegations against her “dishonest” and “extremely offensive,” at one point raising documents being discussed and waving them in Merchant’s face as she shouted, “This is a lie!” Not long before, Wade stormed out of the courtroom as Merchant began to call her first witness.
Following the evidentiary hearing, wall-to-wall coverage on the three major cable news networks all indicated that Willis is not only at risk of being disqualified from the case, but may face criminal charges as well. Her dismissal would prompt Georgia officials to see another prosecutor who would be empowered to downgrade charges or dismiss the case against Trump altogether.