The attorney for one of Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case expressed mixed feelings about her attempt get get Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis disqualified from the case.
Ashleigh Merchant stalled the case against Trump and 14 others for more than two months after she filed a court motion in January alleging that Willis had a financial conflict of interest due to her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade and asked for her removal, but she defended the move as a legal necessity, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I didn’t feel like I had a lot of choice,” Merchant told the newspaper's "Breakdown" podcast. “What if I don’t file it and my client gets convicted and he goes to prison? First of all, I have to be okay with that... But second of all, I have to be on the witness stand one day in a habeas (corpus hearing) explaining why I had this document that had legal merit and I didn’t file it.”
The Atlanta-area attorney denied that Trump or her client Mike Roman had any role in the research that uncovered evidence of the pair's clandestine romantic relationship, and she was nervous about submitting the motion that she knew would be a legal and political bombshell.
ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills
“I don’t think I’ve ever been called a liar so many times in my life, and it’s frustrating because I had spent so much time trying to corroborate everything," Merchant said. "Particularly the fact that nobody knew (about the relationship), I filed it and then they admitted to 99 percent of it. So I’m being called a liar when 99 percent of it is not even in dispute. Literally, there’s only one tiny little bit that’s in dispute as to —and I didn’t even think that mattered that much, the part that was in dispute. When the relationship started and whether or not they had co-habitated, those seem to be the overwhelming lies, quote unquote, that I told."
Superior Court judge Scott McAfee ultimately ruled that Willis could remain if Wade stepped aside, which he did, and Merchant said she had mixed feelings about bringing the relationship to light but felt she had an obligation to do so.
“I was friends with both of them," she said. "I mean, when I first walked in to negotiate (Roman’s) bond back in September, I hugged both of them, and it was not a fake hug. I can tell you, mostly it was disappointment. Disappointed that this happened, shocked that it happened, surprised. This is one of the cases where you would be extra cautious, and so it surprised me. I didn’t really understand the need for it either because Ms. Willis has some great lawyers on this case. She’s got great lawyers that work for her. She has the ability to hire great lawyers. There’s a lot of really good prosecutors in this state, and I didn’t really understand why this was something that was needed."
"Why do you need to bring someone in from the outside to manage this case, particularly someone who didn’t have any of the relevant experience?" Merchant said. "That just sort of supported my belief that there was something improper about this."