The case against former President Trump in Georgia is currently in limbo due to allegations of misconduct against District Attorney Fani Willis. Both she and prosecutor Nathan Wade, who is under her command and with whom she had a romantic relationship while they were handling the case, could be disqualified. The tense hearing in which both testified for hours took place this Thursday.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged former President Donald Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state of Georgia. However, earlier this year, the case took an unexpected turn when Michael Roman, one of the co-defendants, filed a motion to dismiss his charges and remove Willis from the case, alleging that she personally benefited from a relationship with Nathan Wade, one of the case’s main prosecutors.
District Attorney Fani Willis admitted last Friday that she did have a personal relationship with special prosecutor Wade, whom she hired for the criminal electoral case against former President Trump, but she assured the case was not harmed by that relationship. The two fundamental issues in the hearing are when the relationship began and whether District Attorney Willis benefited from the salary Wade received.
Willis has argued that her accusers have so far offered “no support for their insistence that the exercise of any prosecutorial discretion (i.e., any charging decision or plea recommendation) in this case was impacted by any personal relationship.”
Regarding the relationship between Willis and Wade, former President Trump has said: “By going after the most high-level person, and the Republican Nominee, she was able to get her ‘lover’ much more money, almost a Million Dollars, than she would be able to get for the prosecution of any other person or individual... That means that this scam is totally discredited and over!”
When did the relationship start?
In the case, the judge must establish when the relationship between the two prosecutors began and whether Mr. Wade was hired for the case because he had a romantic relationship with District Attorney Willis.
Nathan Wade stated in the hearing that their relationship began in 2022, months after he was hired in the case against Trump on November 1, 2021. Prosecutor Willis confirmed that statement, ensuring she did not have a romantic relationship with her employee until early 2022.
However, in one of the most important testimonies of the hearing, Robin Yeartie, a former close friend of District Attorney Willis, said that the relationship between the two prosecutors began in 2019, well before he was hired.
Yeartie claimed she retired from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office after a “situation” in which she was told she would be fired if she did not resign. She stated that this situation ended her years-long friendship with District Attorney Willis and that until the last time she contacted her, in March 2022, Willis was still in a relationship with Wade.
Yeartie’s statement would likely result in disqualification for both Willis and Wade for lying in an affidavit. It will be up to the judge to determine whether to request more evidence in this regard or whether the witness’s sworn testimony is sufficient.
Willis and Wade claim the District Attorney paid her share in cash
Michael Roman has claimed that District Attorney Willis overpaid Wade for his position as special prosecutor and that they went on luxury vacations paid for with Wade’s salary. The couple said they divided the expenses equally. However, when Wade was asked if he paid for his trips with Willis, he stated that although he reserved them with his card, she paid him back in cash. He claimed he also paid for the hotels with his card, and Willis paid her share in cash.
When asked if he had receipts or proof that he had deposited that cash into some of his accounts, Wade claimed that he never deposited it but kept it and spent it. The lawyer redoubled the questions, questioning whether Wade kept the thousands of dollars Willis would have paid him in cash in exchange for the trips. The prosecutor insisted that he never deposited it, and that is why he does not have a single deposit in his account to prove the affair. Wade also acknowledged that nowhere in the affidavit did he clarify that District Attorney Willis paid him back in cash.
When Wade was asked if it was true that in his contract with Fulton County he had earned more than $300,000 during 2022, the prosecutor responded that his firm received that amount but that the money was then divided between three people, him and his two partners, so he claims that he did not receive the full $300,000, but only a part. Prosecutor Wade also acknowledged that his two partners had contracts with the county and that money was also shared; therefore, he also received a portion of the payment for his partners’ contracts with the county.
District Attorney Willis also claimed that she repaid Wade in cash. When asked if she took that money from an ATM to give to her employee, she said no. The questions continued, attempting to get to the source of the cash the District Attorney claims she used to pay for trips she took with Prosecutor Wade, but Willis could not establish where she got the cash from. She stated that her father always advised her to have enough cash in her house for at least six months, but she could not answer when or where she got the cash that she claimed she kept in her house and with which she paid back her partner.
