All right. This CNN exclusive, Fulton County district Attorney Fani Willis is defending herself, her reputation and her team's work in her first public comments since Judge Scott McAfee's decision to keep her on the election subversion case. CNN's Rafael Romo is with us now on how CNN caught up with Willis and what she had to say today. Yeah, I have to give credit to our very dynamic producer, Jade Tim Garcia, who managed to get this interview. Fulton County district attorney. Finally, Willis spent her Saturday at an Easter egg hunt. The event was put together by Wave, an organization of law enforcement officers dedicated to helping children and the homeless throughout the year. Willis was surprisingly candid, Fred, regarding questions about the last few months of her life, including her Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and the scandal brought about by her prior romantic relationship with special prosecutors she appointed for the case. We wanted to know if she feels like she needs to reclaim her reputation. And this was her reply. I don't feel like my reputation needs to be reclaimed. Let's say it for the record. I'm not embarrassed by anything I've done. You know, I guess my greatest crime is I had a relationship with a man. But that's not something that I find embarrassing in any way. And I know that I have not done anything that's illegal. Under the racketeering case was delayed by two months. Let's remember, following the revelations about her personal life, her decision making credibility was also damaged in the eyes of Judge Scott McAfee. But the embattled Fulton County district attorney said the main case was not delayed because her team never stopped working on it. Let's take a listen. No, my saying is we're continuing to work in and I think the media and especially organizations like you all have been paying attention all while that was going on. We were right and responsive briefs. We were still doing the case in the way that it needed to be done. I don't feel like we've been slowed down at all. I do think that there are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming. The train is coming, she said. Fred, if you didn't hear that. CNN reported exclusively on Thursday. Will is plans to press ahead with her goal of putting Donald Trump on trial before the November election. According to three people familiar with her plans. She also intends to ask the judge presiding over the Georgia criminal case to schedule a trial date as soon as this summer. And finally, and this is very important, Fred, let's remember that Will this is seeking to get reelected in November. So she's got a lot on her place to say. That is a lot. But she sounds very confident about being prepared to carry on. That's right. All right. Rafael Romo, thank you so much to you and Jane for bringing this to us. All right, back over this right now, former federal prosecutor Ankush Khedery. He is now a senior writer for Politico magazine. So, Ankush, you heard from Funny Willis there and she is unwavering. She says they have continued to do the work even though there was that two month delay while her behavior was under investigation. So should the trial get underway this summer? She says her team is ready. Well, I mean, look, if if it can be done this summer, right. And her team is ready and all the defendants are ready and the judge is ready, that would be a perfectly appropriate thing to do. The problem is that it is not entirely up to her. Last summer, this case was filed and it was already going to be ambitious even at that point in time to bring a case like this. 19 defendants, complicated issues, high profile issues, novel issues to trial in a year. So that was already going to be a very, very heavy lift where we are now, there are still a bunch of pending issues, significant pretrial issues. And of course, there is still the defendant's intended appeal from Judge McCarthy's decision allowing Willis and her office to stay on the case. And the reason why that one is particularly important is a very is a very practical reason. I'm sure you folks will immediately recognize the judge is not going to want to have a trial if the verdict from that trial later needs to be thrown out because the prosecutor on the case was disqualified in the in the interim. Right. So he's not going to want to have a trial before that is fully resolved at the appeal level, because it would be a waste of time and it would be bad for him personally if he got reversed and the trial was meaningless. Did you feel that Judge McAfee's decision was appeal proof? I've heard some define it that way because he went beyond his explanation as to why he believes she should stay on the case, yet at the same time reprimanded her. Did that essentially protect his decision to keep her on the case so that as the Trump team says, it wants to appeal, they may not really have any thing in which to appeal it on. Yeah, I do think the odds of success are quite low because I thought the judge's opinion was, well, well-constructed. He made detailed factual findings, including as to credibility, which are very difficult for appeals courts to second guess. But even if it's a low probability, even for the judge, it's a 5%. It's a one out of 20 chance that he'll he'll eventually be reversed. I mean, he's going to be thinking about the practicalities of putting the country through a trial that may be upended even on a small percentage chance. And wouldn't it also seem, because you get the same judge who would be overseeing the subversion election subversion case. What did it also seem that he would feel almost an obligation to try to honor a speedy trial because there was this two month delay because the co-defendants had filed this complaint against the prosecutor. And now that his decision has been rendered, does the judge feel compelled to get on with the case, so to speak? I would think that the judges is very happy to just turn the page and keep this moving. The question is whether it can move that quickly. Right. And I think the closest analog that particularly folks in the Atlanta era area will be familiar with is the young thug trial, which involves a lot of people in and around the entertainment industry. That case has been going on for a couple of years. It's still going on. And it's the closest compared to just in the scale, the number of defendants, the complexity of the case. And that's gone on for years. Right. So and I would just one last point I guess I would make, which is relevant to that. The judge issued a relatively highly critical opinion, let's put it that way, of the D.A. and questioned her credibility out on a very practical, psychological human level. We should not expect him to be in the mood to do any favors for her now. Hmm. And then I guess my last question was, you know, how might a further delay impair the readiness of the team that Willis says they have right now? Well, the government is very good at maintaining continuity of the people working cases, particularly very important cases. There will be attorneys who we will never even hear about, who I'm sure are working on the case investigators that way, too. And so I wouldn't expect the delay itself. I think we should all take Will as fully at her word when she says the office is doing everything it can to move this case along as expeditiously as possible. And also, her words were, the train is coming to underscore her and her team's readiness to take on the case. All right. Thank you so much, Ankush Khedery. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
