“This Office is a Global Laughingstock” – WATCH: Attorney Harry MacDougald Bats MAGA Cleanup and Wipes the Floor with Fani Willis – in Georgia Closing Arguments

Harry MacDougald: The general rule on conflicts of interest for lawyers is in rule of professional Conduct 1.7. And we all know it’s all drummed into us, that we cannot have a conflict of interest, and if we do, we have to withdraw or we will be disqualified. The basic idea is that a conflict of interest impairs the lawyer’s independent professional judgment. That’s the test of a conflict and whether it can be waived and whether it’s disqualifying. And that conflict is not just financial.

It can be any conflict that impairs your independent professional judgment. And you see that in McLaughlin v. Payne, the court asked what was a personal interest for purposes of disqualification. It’s anything that impairs professional judgment that’s reflected in the ABA standards that were quoted by Mr. Merchant, which lists the prosecutor’s personal, political, financial, professional, business, property or other interests or relationships, and that’s really embedded in the prosecutor’s oath to act impartially.

And the earlier disqualification order by Judge McBurney was based on political interests, not financial. What my colleagues had described as forensic misconduct is also cognizable as a conflict of interest. Based on that footnote in Williams case, the root of all of the problems that we see in this court right now is a conflict of interest arising from their individual personal interests in perpetuating and concealing their relationship. That’s the original sin from which all of the other problems flow. There are six different actual conflicts of interest in this case, any one of which warrants disqualification, but collectively, practically compelling.

First, the financial conflict that’s already been covered.

Second, the personal ambition, political ambition.

Third, there is a dovetailed or complementary pattern of deceit and concealment of the relationship and the money.

Fourth, the speech at the church.

Fifth, the motion for protective order that the DA filed in Mr. Wade’s divorce case.

Sixth, the way the state has conducted the defense of this motion to disqualify, especially the hearing on the financial piece, the court asked for a limiting principle and asked about materiality. The limiting principle is whatever impairs the independent professional judgment of the lawyer that is applied routinely. We have a county code section that flatly prohibits gifts from contractors, period. We have by analogy the federal bribery statute, which has a threshold of $5,000.18 USC.

Six, six, six. The court asked about burdens and inferences. The court can draw a negative inference from the state’s failure to produce evidence to support the invisible magic cash balancing theory based on state v. Thomas, 311 Georgia 407 particularly footnote 19 as to the timing question that the court asked about, there were two contracts for Mr. Wade executed after they acknowledged the relationship began, each one of them afflicted or conflicted under county and common law.

The second conflict is her political ambition, for which he was previously chastised by judgment. Bernie. And that’s also present in this book. The inside flap of this book says that they were given, quote, exclusive access to thousands of secret documents, emails, text messages and audio recordings. The court has twice denied defense motions to unseal special purpose grand jury materials.

She helped herself to get the glory of this book. I introduced certified copies of a number of county code sections. I’m not going to walk through those, but I’ll tell you why they matter. The stack of law from the state constitution down to the county ordinances imposes a regime on the DA under which she has three obligations. She has to go to the county commission to get approval to pay him like she did.

She cannot accept gifts from a prohibited source. She has to disclose the gifts that she received. She evaded all of those requirements. Section 269 of the county code prohibits gifts from prohibited sources, which he was. There is no boyfriend exception.

The disclosure forms. The evidence is sufficient for you to find that her disclosure form for 2022 is false and that it is a false writing. That’s an actual conflict of interest between her duty, legal duty of disclosure, her legal duty of candor as a prosecutor, and her private and personal interests in concealing the relationship, concealing the gifts, and keeping the gravy train rolling for as long as possible. His part in the pattern of concealment is the story you see in many divorce cases. The husband is hiding things from his wife, how much money he’s making the other woman and what he’s spending on the other woman.

And he got on that stand, lied in his interrogatories, and he got on the stand, and he lied about lying in the interrogatories. And the lawyers for the DA, the DA’s office, they just sat there and let him do it. They did nothing to correct obviously perjured testimony in and of itself that warrants disqualification of every one of them. The reason they lied and covered it up was to avoid the trouble they’re in right now that served their personal interests to the detriment of their public duties as prosecutors. The speech at the church, I want to focus on why she did that.

Mr. Gillan talked about that. She did it to deflect attention from her own misconduct and that of Mr. Wade. She violated her public duty as a prosecutor to serve her personal interests and the personal interests of her boyfriend.

That is a disqualifying conflict between her personal interests and a public duty that is actual, operational, and materialized, and it rests on undisputed facts. The next thing that she did that was a disqualifying conflict of interest was the emergency motion for protective order that she filed in the divorce. I filed a certified copy of that as exhibit 37. She sought a protective order under the apex doctrine on the grounds that she’s the DA. The whole filing is expressly predicated on her status as DA.

In fact, she never lets you forget it. She says it 27 times in twelve pages in that filing. Speaking as DA, she said the circumstances, quote, suggest that defendant Joycelyn Wade is using the legal process to harass and embarrass district Attorney Willis, and in doing so, is obstructing and interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation. In the prayer for relief on page eleven, she asked for six months to, quote, complete a review of the filings in the instant case, investigate and depose relevant witnesses with regard to the interference and obstruction. This motion contends there’s no sugar coating it.

That’s a clear violation of rule of professional conduct 3.4 h, which prohibits lawyers from making threats of criminal prosecution to gain advantage in a civil case. She abused her power. She abused her position to threaten her boyfriend’s wife with criminal prosecution to gain advantage for herself and her boyfriend in her boyfriend’s divorce. She violated her public duties not to make that kind of a threat in order to serve her private personal interests and those of Mr. Wade.

Another actual operational conflict, the last category is the conduct of the defense of this hearing. There are a lot of objections made based on attorney client privilege during Mr. Bradley’s testimony. Most of those objections were made by the state, but the privilege being asserted does not belong to the state. It belongs to Mr. Wade. That shows that the DA’s office is serving the personal interests of the DA and Mr. Wade in carrying out further concealment and cover up of their relationship and not the cause of justice they are sworn to serve. That is a conflict of interest. It’s a continuation of the wrongful pattern of concealment and cover up that they’ve engaged in since the beginning.

But now they’ve enlisted the entire office in the enterprise. In the written response to the motion to disqualify, they said this, and I quote, to be absolutely clear, there is no evidence that DA Willis derived any financial benefit from Mr. Wade. That’s on page 15. Flat out false.

Ten lawyers in this case put their name on that, starting with the DA. So throw another log on the bonfire of conflicts of interest.

The problem here is the DA cannot distinguish between her personal interests and ambitions on the one hand, and her public duties as a prosecutor on the other. And apparently, neither can anyone else in their office. Of the six conflicts I’ve identified, only one is subject to a conflict in the evidence. This is a case study in what happens when you operate under a conflict of interest. It’s put an irreparable stain on the case.

Think of the message that would be sent if they were not disqualified! If this is tolerated, we’ll get more of it.

This office is a global laughingstock because of their conducting. They should be disqualified and the case should be dismissed.