Credit card statements suggest prosecutors in Trump case traveled together
The estranged wife of a special prosecutor accused of having a romantic relationship with Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta district attorney who hired him, offered evidence Friday that Ms. Willis accompanied him on trips unrelated to their work had to do: leading the Georgia case against former President Donald J. Trump.
A court filing by Joycelyn Wade, who is in divorce proceedings with the plaintiff, Nathan J. Wade, included statements for a credit card account held by Mr. Wade. The affidavits revealed that he purchased airline tickets for himself and Ms. Willis, including tickets to San Francisco from Atlanta purchased on April 25, 2023, and to Miami from Atlanta purchased on October 4, 2022.
The release of the credit card statements follows a motion filed last week by Michael Roman, one of Trump's fourteen co-defendants in the Georgia case. That motion, which contained no evidence, alleged that Ms. Willis had a romantic relationship with Mr. Wade that began before she hired him in 2021 to handle the high-profile case. The motion also alleged that Mr. Wade, who received more than $650,000 from the district attorney's office, paid for the vacations with Ms. Willis.
The motion alleged that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had violated state rules of professional conduct, as well as local and federal law, and had created a conflict of interest that should result in the removal of both of them, and Ms. Willis' office . out of the case.
The credit card statements appear to lend weight to some of the claims in Mr. Roman's motion, which states that Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis “have personally traveled together to places such as Napa Valley, Florida and the Caribbean,” and that Mr. Wade ” purchased tickets for both to travel on both the Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines.”
Ms. Willis, who is black, has attracted significant national attention for her prosecution of Mr. Trump, who has attacked her as a “racist” and once made a baseless accusation — which was immediately refuted by Ms. Willis — that she was “having an affair ” with a “gang member.”
It is unclear whether the allegations of an inappropriate relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade will derail the case or lead to one of them being removed from the case.
Although she has not directly indicated whether she is in a relationship with Mr. Wade, Ms. Willis has strongly opposed some of the allegations in court and publicly. On Sunday at a black church in Atlanta, she suggested that racism played a role in the allegations against her and Mr. Wade, who is also black.
Ms. Willis on Thursday tried to quash a subpoena that would have required her to testify in the divorce case next week. In a court filing, her lawyer said Mr. Wade's estranged wife “conspired with interested parties” in the Trump case “to annoy, embarrass and oppress District Attorney Willis.”
Ms. Wade’s filing on Friday stated that “Ms. Willis' implied threat to file charges against Ms. Wade and her divorce attorney, based on inconvenient facts from her personal life directly relevant to the ongoing divorce proceedings, was an insult to the integrity of her office.
“Defendant is attempting to depose Ms. Willis to determine the details surrounding her romantic affair” with Mr. Wade, the document said, “as there appears to be no reasonable explanation for their travels other than a romantic relationship.”
A spokesperson for Ms. Willis' office could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
A hearing to consider unsealing the files in the Wade divorce case is set for Jan. 31 in Cobb County, Georgia, outside Atlanta.
On Thursday, the judge presiding over the Trump case, Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court, ordered Ms. Willis to file a written response to Mr. Roman's motion by Feb. 2 and to attend a hearing on the motion on Feb. 15. to appear.