DA denies improper relationship with Trump's special prosecutor

A case that accused former President Donald J. Trump and his allies of undermining the 2020 election results in Georgia took a detour Thursday into the details of the plaintiffs' romantic and financial lives – their sleeping arrangements, vacations and private bank accounts – in an unusual and highly controversial hearing.

Lawyers for Mr. Trump and his co-defendants have argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis and the special prosecutor she hired to handle the case, Nathan J. Wade, should be disqualified from the case because their romantic and financial entanglements had created a conflict of interest. Ms Willis and Mr Wade strongly rejected these allegations in their testimony on Thursday, with Ms Willis accusing the lawyers of spreading “lies”.

“You think I'm on trial,” Ms. Willis told Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official who is a co-defendant in the case. “These people are on trial because they tried to steal a 2020 election. I am not on trial no matter how hard you try to bring me to justice.”

The hearing in Fulton County Superior Court was a remarkable turn of events, as prosecutors who accused Mr. Trump of seeking to invalidate the election results were questioned by defense lawyers about the trips they had taken together, their breakup and who paid for it. their meals and hotels.

Ms. Willis took the stand after her former boyfriend, Robin Bryant-Yeartie, testified that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade began a romantic relationship in 2019, before Ms. Willis hired him in November 2021. She said this continued until she and Ms Willis last spoke in 2022, just before they had a falling out.

The timeline Ms. Bryant-Yeartie outlined could be critical to the defense's efforts to derail the case against Mr. Trump and his co-defendants. If the defense can establish that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade began a romance before he was hired, it would support the argument that they should be excluded from the case because of a conflict of interest.

The defense claims that Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade because they would both benefit financially. Mr. Wade has been paid more than $650,000 since his appointment, and lawyers say he has charged thousands of dollars to his credit card for vacations with Ms. Willis. She says she paid him back for the trips in cash.

Ms Bryant-Yeartie said she had “no doubt” about the timing of the romantic relationship and had seen “hugging, kissing” and “just affection” between Ms Willis and Mr Wade as early as 2019.

But Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade both testified that their romance began in early 2022, after Ms. Willis hired him as a special prosecutor, and long after they first met, at a judicial conference in 2019. Both said their relationship ended in the summer of 2023, around the same time Trump and his co-defendants were indicted.

As her testimony began, Ms. Willis said she found it “extremely insulting” that Ms. Merchant had insinuated in the court filings that she had slept with Mr. Wade after they met in 2019, calling it one of several inaccuracies in the filing of the defense to disqualify her. “It's very insulting when someone lies to you,” she said.

Ms Willis said she responded with “choice words” after reading the defense files. “Mr. Wade is a Southern gentleman, I not so much,” Ms. Willis said.

Her temper sometimes flared when aggressively questioned about her personal life. When Ms. Merchant suggested that Ms. Willis had lived with Mr. Wade for a while, Ms. Willis shouted, “It's a lie,” prompting the judge, Scott McAfee, to order a brief pause in the proceedings.

But she also peppered her testimony with folksy observations about relationships. Explaining the timing of her breakup with Mr. Wade, she said men think a relationship ends when sexual relations do, but women don't consider a relationship over until the final “heavy talk” happens.

She also said that she and Mr. Wade had often argued about her desire to pay for her own living expenses. It was wise for women to keep large sums of cash at home for emergencies, she said. She added that she always carries $200 on a date just in case things go wrong.

“I don't need anything from a man,” said Mrs. Willis. “A man is not a plan – a man is a companion.”

The hearing will continue on Friday with further testimony. Judge McAfee, who is overseeing the Trump case, is holding the hearing to determine whether there is evidence of a conflict of interest. He has said that even “the appearance of” a conflict can lead to disqualification. Mr. Trump and other defendants are also seeking to have the cases against them dismissed, though that seems unlikely.

In another Trump case on Thursday, a judge from New York rejected Trump's bid to drop criminal charges against him in Manhattan over a hush money payment to an adult film star. That judge set the trial date for March 25.

Mr. Trump's allies have sought to exploit questions surrounding the conduct of Georgian prosecutors. On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee, led by one of Trump's closest allies, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, seized on a claim by the lawyers that prosecutors spent money at a tattoo parlor in Belize.

“What tattoo did Nathan Wade get on Fani Willis during their vacation to Belize?” wrote the committee on the X platform. “Were your tax dollars used?”

If Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis are disqualified, it could turn the case upside down or at least delay it. One of four cases facing Trump as he tries to secure the Republican presidential nomination and makes the charges against him a central part of his policy. campaign.

In the event of disqualification, another prosecutor in Georgia would have to be appointed to handle the extensive and politically explosive case. That prosecutor could continue the case, make changes — such as adding or dropping charges or defendants — or even drop the case altogether.

The accusations of an improper relationship between the plaintiffs do not directly affect the merits of the case against Mr. Trump and 18 other defendants, who were indicted in August on charges of racketeering and other crimes in connection with a plot to undermine the presidential election . results in Georgia and other swing states. Four of the suspects have already pleaded guilty.

To bolster their argument that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had a financial interest in the prosecution, lawyers for Mr. Trump and other defendants point to the $650,000 he paid and the expensive trips they took. Defense lawyers argue that the money paid to Mr. Wade was an incentive for Ms. Willis to prolong the case.

Ms. Willis, who acknowledged a romantic relationship with Mr. Wade in a filing last week, has said the costs of their personal trip were “roughly evenly split” between her and Mr. Wade so that no conflict arose.

Mr. Wade said Ms. Willis had typically reimbursed him in cash for their trip, so there were no receipts. He called Ms. Willis an “independent strong woman” who insisted she would “pay her own way.” On a trip to California, he said, “Everything we did when we got to Napa, she paid for it.”

Craig Gillen, a lawyer for David Shafer, the former head of the Georgia Republican Party, who is one of the defendants in the case, has repeatedly pressed Mr. Wade on his claim that Ms. Willis reimbursed him in cash for their trips. He asked Mr Wade if he had any details of the cash deposits into his bank account. Mr. Wade said no.

Ms. Merchant reviewed Mr. Wade's credit card information and questioned him about the costs of trips to Belize, Aruba, California's Napa Valley and Tennessee.

For her part, Ms. Willis said she reimbursed Mr. Willis for tickets and other travel expenses with cash she kept in her home. It is her habit, she said, to have enough cash on hand to cover six months' worth of expenses, a rule her father taught her. She added that she never gave Mr. Wade more than $2,500 to reimburse him for their joint travel.

“I don't need anyone to pay my bills,” Ms. Willis said. “The only man who has ever paid my bills in full is my father.”