Trump co-defendant accused Fulton County DA Willis of illegally recording phone call with defense attorney

By 
 April 7, 2024

Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has once again been accused of playing fast and loose with the rules, as if they don't apply to her, in her ongoing effort to prosecute and imprison former President Donald Trump and others for alleged crimes related to the 2020 election.

One of Trump's co-defendants, Harrison Floyd, has accused Willis of illegally recording a phone call between her and one of Floyd's attorneys based in Maryland, Atlanta News First reported.

If the allegation is true, and Willis secretly recorded her conversation with Floyd's attorney without their consent, that could violate Maryland's Wiretap Act law, which requires two-party consent to record phone calls, and could result in up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines if convicted.

Willis accused of illegally recording phone call with defense lawyer

Floyd, the former head of Black Voices for Trump who was a staffer on the former president's 2020 campaign, is the only co-defendant in the case to spend any time in jail after being arrested and booked, as it took several days to arrange bond for his release -- a relevant fact in this new accusation against DA Willis.

On Wednesday, Floyd posted on X a clip of an interview between one of his attorneys, Christopher Kachouroff, and legal analyst Phil Holloway, in which Kachouroff alleged that Willis secretly recorded a phone call she made to one of his colleagues in Maryland, who is representing Floyd in a separate matter.

"By the way, Fani did reach out to us, one of my colleagues in Maryland, and was rude and abrupt with him on the phone -- he was dealing with the Maryland case and I was dealing with the Georgia case -- and she ended up recording him," Kachouroff said. "You know, Maryland is a one-party state, I mean a two-party state. Both parties have to consent."

"So, are you saying that she illegally recorded a phone call?" Holloway asked, to which Kachouroff replied, "Oh yeah, it's a felony in Maryland."

Floyd will "pursue all lawful remedies" if Willis doesn't recuse herself

Newsweek reported that Floyd, after sharing that video clip Wednesday night, followed up on the new allegation against DA Willis on Thursday by threatening to pursue legal action against her if she didn't recuse herself from the case by Monday.

In an X post, Floyd wrote, "I don’t want to put a black woman in Jail. But if @FaniforDA does not recuse herself from this case by noon on Monday, I may have no other choice than to pursue all lawful remedies. Make Fulton Great Again."

Included in that post was a screenshot of a snippet of an August 29, 2023 article from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that appeared to support the allegation that Willis had recorded a phone call with Floyd's Maryland-based attorney, according to TheBlaze.

"It’s a bad look"

The article reported that Floyd, the only co-defendant to be jailed after not pre-arranging bond with Willis' office, had finally been released after spending several days behind bars. It also noted that Floyd faces a federal charge in Maryland for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent who attempted to serve him with a grand jury subpoena.

In the screenshot shared by Floyd, the article stated, "Willis’ office provided The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a recording of a phone call Willis made that same day to attorney Carlos J.R. Salvado, who is Floyd’s attorney in an unrelated criminal case in federal court in Maryland. In the call, she explained that she had sent a representative to meet with Floyd at the jail when he turned himself in. Willis told Salvado that Floyd was offered a consent bond at that time, but he refused it."

TheBlaze reported that legal analyst Holloway, in reply to Floyd's post, wrote, "I suspect Maryland law applies here. I know for a fact it’s unusual and unprofessional for a lawyer to record a call with another lawyer Whether or not it’s a crime is for Maryland to decide but regardless it’s a bad look."

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