Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Fulton County DA Fani Willis makes BOMBSHELL Announcement in Court Hearing

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Michael Popok of LegalAF reports on Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ decision today to seek to keep special purpose grand jury report secret at this time until she “imminently" makes her decision to seek to indict “multiple defendants” and what that could mean for the pace of any indictments. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, Michael Popok, legal AF. Well, we have breaking news in the Fony-Willis Fulton County DA, special purpose grand jury issue looking into election interference by Trump, Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, and 17 others. There was a hearing today in front of Judge Mick Bernie, who was supervising the process. And the issue on the docket was whether they now complete it after seven seven months special purpose grand jury report with all of its recommendations concerning all of the witnesses and all of the targets should be released to the public in whole or in part. The media intervened and asked for its release citing general precedent that the public should always know about things that go on in the court system, and that is a general rule of thumb,

except where there's extraordinary circumstances on the other side. And in the hour and a half hearing that just concluded, Fawney Welles herself spoke for about 10 or 15 minutes, leaving the bulk of the argument over to her colleague and assistant district attorney to handle. But her words were powerful, and she made it clear at the very top of the hearing in response

to questioning by Judge McBernie that she is against the release of the report. And she cited a couple of main reasons. But in those statements, we have a lot of content. They did a lot of work in terms of telling us that indictments are imminent against multiple defendants in this case. And we can think of the top four right off the bat. Giuliani, Trump, Lindsey Graham, Lindsey Graham, people like Stone and the rest. So that is the focus of the hearing. Hour and a half, 10 minutes from Fawni Willis, but boy, did she say a lot in a little amount of time.

She told the judge that she was against the release of the report, which she says was a investigative tool, not a formal indictment or presentment under Georgia law. And that while the media and the public obviously have an interest in the report and in the future prosecutions, at the current time, she's very concerned about fairness to future defendants. She didn't say possible future defendants as if she hasn't already started to make up her mind About whether to prosecute. She said future defendants

She said there are multiple defendants that she is concerned about the fairness of them getting a proper trial And not having it reversed on appeal. She was very candid about wanting to have an airtight presentation and prosecution and not buy a appeal, buy an appeal in the future. She also told the judge in just this 10 minutes or so of presentation that her decision to exercise her prosecutorial discretion as to whether to seek the indictment of any of the people that were the focus of the special purpose grand jury, that decision or decisions are imminent. I mean, she basically sat down

after that, but she walked through the judge, she walked the judge through the procedure that she used, the diligence that she used to ensure a fair trial. She started with, I made it, I told everybody a year and a half ago, I was going to make a quick decision about whether I was going to seek a special purpose grand jury. I then sought a special purpose grand jury for a limited amount of time, and I didn't go over that amount of time. I completed my special purpose grand jury within seven months, and I haven't released any information to the press, to the media along the way, because I'm worried about, as she said, the fairness to future multiple defendants upon which she is going to make

imminent decisions to indict or seek the indictment or not seek the indictment. And to be clear, she cannot indict off of this report. So the battle in the courtroom is not whether she's going to indict over it, whether it's released or not released to the media is completely irrelevant to the decision as to whether Faudi-Willis and her office are going to in panel a regular Grand jury which has the power of indictment which this grand jury does not. It's an investigative body only that issues a report If she seeks a regular grand jury, which she no doubt off of today's hearing, will. She will seek a regular grand jury. She will use the report as her guide. She will present the report to the grand jury.

She doesn't have to bring the 70 witnesses back into the regular grand jury. Or all those evidence. She can give them the, I'm guessing a couple of thousand pages or more properly indexed an outline report. We're guessing a little bit here. There's only two people on planet earth, well three, that have seen the report. Judge McBernie, today's presiding judge, Fawni Willis and the printer. Other than that, it hasn't touched many hands at all. In fact, they joked about that a little bit in the hearing. Fenty Willis then just sat down and let her

colleague get up and discuss the esoteric issues that were concerning to the judge about whether this is a document that needs under Georgia law to remain secret or not Whether it was a general Presentment or not because if it's a general presentment under Georgia law Right then the judge under Georgia code 15-1280 needs to publish it Don't think based on the way the judge

Handled the questioning, although he was very cagey about his thought process and where he's currently leaning. I don't think he's going to find that this was a general presentment requiring him to publish it. So the next step in the process under Georgia code is it a public document, a court document that requires publication.

Because most court documents require publication. Fawni Willis and her team pushed back and said, it is an investigative tool at best. It is a complete report and the sense the report's complete, but the investigation that the office, Fawni Willis' office is conducting, he admitted, her colleague, he admitted that they were not even at the point of having properly digested and ingested all of the information in this huge voluminous report into their own investigative work to make the decision whether to indict that was still a work in progress.

Meaning it sounds like Faudi-Willis is the only one that's seen it. It is voluminous. She hasn't been able to unpack at all and digest that she wasn't there for every day of the presentation of the evidence or reviewing the transcripts. So now she's in the process since the work concluded. At the end of December, we're only three weeks in a January, getting our heart, hands in mind around the report and the underlying evidence testimony and witness transcripts. And from there, she will methodically make her decision. This is what the colleague for Fawney Willis, Mr. Wakeford, Mr. Wakeford, argued in his back and forth with the judge, which the judge

invited. The judge is sort of informal in the way he conducts these types of hearings. He laid out at the top that he's struggling, whether whether this is a document that can remain secret, whether it should be published, and what is it? What kind of animal is this report of a special purpose grand jury? You'd think the Georgia legislature in adopting these statutes in the 1970s in response to organized crime law reform around the country. It was around the same time that Georgia adopted the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act for Georgia, the Rico Statute.

They also adopted these different types of grand juries that they would have like spelled out. And the grand jury, special purpose grand jury shall prepare a report. That report will be considered an investigative tool only. It'll be considered a draft. The ultimate indictment will be published, but this document will not be published. It will remain secret until the prosecutor makes her ultimate decision. That's nowhere in the statute. That's why they're struggling and trying to apply a 1970s law in 2023.

And there's very little precedent because there's very little, you know, there haven't been a lot of special purpose grand juries in the state of Georgia. So it's not a lot of case law about it. So at one point, the judge is trying to wrap his arms around and head around federal case law about the Gen 6 committee and different things like that. By whether that report is the same as this kind of report. So they're doing all sorts of academic exercises in the courtroom, but fundamentally the judge is struggling. Whether this is a secret report or it is a public document that requires publication.

I think he's over the issue of whether it is a general presentment. I don't think he thinks it's a general presentment requiring publication. And the media was the only other ones in the courtroom today. And there are lawyers for the media. Of course, they want to get their hands on this thing. They argue that the overwhelming position in court proceedings nationwide is that information is public and it all should be public. And then he had a fight with the judge, you know, in a friendly professional collegial manner about what is the burden of proof that has to be proved in order to keep this thing secret and confidential. The judge now understands that Fannie Willis wants it kept confidential. She doesn't want her hand forced. She said she doesn't want it to negatively impact her investigation.

She doesn't want it to unnaturally speed up her investigation or her decision making about her investigation. She is very protective as she should be about her decision making process. That's why at the very beginning of the hearing, the only time she was heard from, Fony will us laid out how methodical and how painstaking and how deliberative and deliberate her thought process was in reaching the decision, whether to even ask for a special purpose grand jury. And she doesn't want to be rushed now. She doesn't want to be stampeded now into making a decision because this thing gets out

and the press takes on a life of its own and she's forced to do something before it's time. It's an interesting position to take. I mean, there is one argument before the hearing that maybe Fawni and her office would want it published to give her some political cover when she makes the ultimate decision that it looks like she's going to make to indict multiple defendants, her words, in imminent time in an imminent fashion. Fawni will assist terms. So they're coming.

And if they're coming against Graham and Trump and Giuliani the top three or so You know the release of it would give her a little bit of a political cover, but she doesn't want that she is more concerned with protecting The side of a great prosecutor protecting the fairness of the process To protecting justice as she called it protecting the rights of even the defendants, not proposed maybe sort of kind of future defendants, real defendants, that's the phrase she used, real defendants that are gonna come out of this process,

but she doesn't wanna be rushed, she might not make the decision, you know, given her own timeline, she may not make the decision to seek the indictment of Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Greia maybe, until February, maybe end of February, maybe beginning of March, whatever she's ready. We talk a lot about prosecutors not being pushed and not and when they're not ready to exercise

that tremendous responsibility that prosecutors are given in our legal system and our system of justice to make a decision whether to seek to remove the freedom of another U.S. citizen or another citizen. It's a weighty decision. They don't like to be pushed and they don't like to be rushed. Alvin Bragg didn't want to be stampeded into making a decision about Donald Trump having only been on the job 90 days by his, you know, prosecutors that he inherited that were pushing for him to do it.

We saw an example of it there. Merrick Garland isn't going to be pushed and indict Donald Trump or others until he's ready to do so until the case is ready to do so. And Foni Willis is another example, is not going to be pushed and stampeded into prosecuting a case that she's not ready in her heart and her mind and her gut to go after. She's only going to indict if she thinks she could win it. And who are the multiple defendants that she cited at the beginning of the hearing, the only 10 minutes that she spoke, who knows? She had 70. She told 18 people

that they were targets. We know at least three of them are Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Lindsey Graham. And that the decisions are imminent. We know all of that. And where could the indictments go? Let's just end it on this. I'll tell you one thing that Fawri Willis is known for. She's sort of an expert on a very expansive body of criminal law in Georgia called the Georgia Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act statute, the Rico Statute. And the Rico Statute, which originally was passed, to go after organized crime, has been used,

and many people would say what Donald Trump is doing and has done is organized crime. And it can be used outside of the mafia and all those other movies we like to watch on television and go after other people and other types of crimes. You have to have a predicate act, at least one, and a pattern of racketeering activity. The predicate act here is obvious. The phone call by Donald Trump that was recorded to Brad Raffin's burger, the Secretary of State, to ask to help and find 12,000 votes to turn the election

is a predicate act. It is a crime in Georgia to make a false statement or a fraudulent statement to a member of the government, local state or otherwise. So you got the predicate act. She's got the pattern around the predicate act because she's got all the other emails, phone calls, fake electors, fake electors, lawsuits, Giuliani presentations.

Those are all the patterns. She's got the predicate act and she's got the patterns. And Rico is very broad in Georgia. You can use anything as a pattern, a state crime or a federal crime, both or one or the other. And it's a 20 year sentence under Rico. How do I know that Fondi Willis is an expert at Rico in like set? She's brought more Rico cases in Georgia in the last two years than that office had brought

in 10 years combined. And to help her and her staff with using that powerful tool at her arsenal, she brought in an expert on Rico and appointed him special assistant district attorney, just as the Manhattan DA's office has brought in experts to supplement their team to fill out their bench in areas of a law that are important to them as they go after the Trump and Trump organization and those around him, Faudi Willis has brought in a Rico expert. So let's marry these two things together.

Today, during a 10-minute part of an hour and a half hearing, Faudi Willis herself is heard from. She tells the court, I do not want the report from the special purpose grand jury released report from the special purpose grand jury released because I'm worried about fairness and justice for multiple defendants in the present tense and the decision and she said it this way, you've seen the report judge, so-of-I decisions are imminent. So she, you know, the judge made it very clear at the top of the hearing that he did not want any revelations about what was in the report or not in the report. But Fawniwila has looked at him and said, there's two people in this room that have seen the report. And it's you and me. And decisions are imminent. Like she didn't

wink, but it was obvious like, you know what in there judge. You know what I'm looking at and you know the decisions that I got to make and the people that are in there. And that's what's coming. So we're going to follow here judge McBerney made it clear at the top of the hearing. He was not going to rule from the bench and he did not rule from the bench. He said I'm going to make a deliberative decision based on past history. We can expect that the next three to five days. And he'll leave time for both sides to object, maybe have a follow-up hearing, or leave time for the appeal. He'll probably stay his order one way or the other to allow the losing party to get an appeal, which we'd have to ultimately go to the Georgia Supreme Court.

So we're not going to see that report one way or the other anytime soon, because I think the judge is probably going to probably imbalancing the scale is going to sigh with Faudi Willis, but then the media is going to appeal and he's probably going to stay his order. We won't have to, we won't know the result of that for quite some time. That does not however stop Faudi Willis from convening a regular grand jury and seeking the indictment of multiple defendants, imminently. This is Michael Popuck, legal AF.

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