Prosecutor in Trump Georgia case admits relationship with colleague

Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor prosecuting Georgia's election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump, acknowledged Friday a “personal relationship” with a prosecutor she hired to handle the case, but argued that this was not reason to disqualify her. or her office.

The admission came nearly a month after allegations of an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” between the two came to light in a motion by one of Trump's co-defendants. The motion seeks to disqualify both the prosecutors and Ms. Willis' entire office from hearing the case — an effort that, if successful, would likely sow chaos for an unprecedented prosecution of a former president.

“While the allegations made in the various motions are outrageous and have received the media attention they were intended to receive, none provides this Court with any basis upon which to order the damages they seek,” Ms. Willis, adding that “the personal relationship between” Ms. Willis and the plaintiff, Nathan J. Wade, “has never directly or indirectly resulted in any financial benefit” to Ms. Willis.

Ms. Willis' filing includes an affidavit from Mr. Wade alleging that the personal relationship began only after Mr. Wade was hired.

The original motion containing the allegations, filed by Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official, alleged that Ms. Willis hired her “boyfriend” as a special counsel, awarded him lucrative contracts even though he was underqualified, and then profited from them vacations paid for by Mr. Wade.

But Ms. Willis said in her filing that “financial responsibility for personal travel is approximately equally divided” and Mr. Wade reiterated that language in his affidavit, adding that Ms. Willis “received no money or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor.”

Mr. Roman's motion also alleged that the relationship began before Mr. Wade began working for the Fulton County District Attorney's Office in November 2021. But Mr Wade stated in his affidavit that although he had been friends with Ms Willis since 2019, it was not until 2022 that he “developed a personal relationship” with her.

The allegations, and Ms. Willis' silence about them until now, have thrown the high-stakes prosecution off balance, giving Trump a new line of attack and raising the prospect of delays or more serious consequences for the case. Ms Willis has tried to get the trial started in August but no date has been set.

The charges do not change the underlying facts of the case, which accuses Mr. Trump and his allies of being involved in a plot to undermine the results of Georgia's 2020 presidential election. Four of the nineteen original defendants have pleaded guilty, including some of Trump's most zealous defenders. One of them, Jenna Ellis, said tearfully at a hearing late last year that she looked back on what she did “with deep remorse.”

Mr. Roman's motion last month found no evidence of a romantic relationship. But just weeks after the report was filed, Mr. Wade's estranged wife produced credit card statements showing that he had purchased airline tickets for himself and Ms. Willis, even though those purchases occurred after he started working for the Fulton County Prosecutor's Office. The data shows flights to San Francisco from Atlanta purchased on April 25, 2023, and to Miami from Atlanta purchased on October 4, 2022.

But Ms. Willis also bought plane tickets for herself and Mr. Wade, according to Friday's filing, which included copies of her e-mail communications with Delta detailing travel arrangements to and from Miami. She scoffed at the defense's claims that she had a conflict of interest, writing that claims that she had a financial stake in the case stemmed from “fantastic theories and gross speculation.” Georgian law requires much more.”

“The existence of a relationship between members of a prosecution team is simply not a status in itself that entitles a criminal defendant to any form of relief,” Ms Willis added.

Melissa D. Redmon, a law professor at the University of Georgia and a former Fulton County prosecutor, said some of the allegations in the documents could make it difficult for Mr. Roman to succeed.

“If they share the costs,” Professor Redmon said, referring to Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade's personal travel expenses, “it would be difficult to say that she personally benefited from it.”

She added: “That is the core of the defendants' strongest argument: that she should be disqualified because of her personal benefit from the relationship.”

In a 2022 interview with The New York Times, Ms. Willis said Ms. Wade was not her first choice for the job. But she described him as a longtime mentor and friend who she hired because she could trust him.

Mr. Roman's motion argues that the relationship amounts to a conflict of interest that should be grounds for disqualification, and calls for the case against Mr. Roman to be dismissed. Mr. Trump joined the motion last week; he also argued in a separate filing that Ms. Willis violated state rules when she claimed in a speech last month that racism was behind the effort to disqualify her and Mr. Wade. Both accusers are black, while most of the suspects are white.

These cases will be heard by the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court. He has a hearing scheduled for Feb. 15. Mr Roman's lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has sent subpoenas demanding that Mr Wade, Ms Willis and a number of other witnesses testify at the hearing, although it is unclear whether the judge will allow this. her to put them on the stand.

Within the election interference investigation, there is already precedent for disqualifying the district attorney's office. In July 2022, a judge disqualified Ms. Willis and her office from developing a criminal case against Burt Jones, now the lieutenant governor of Georgia, because Ms. Willis had led a fundraising campaign for one of his political opponents.

But in her filing on Friday, Ms. Willis wrote that the scheduled hearing was unnecessary and would be the equivalent of “a ticket to the circus.” She denounced Mr Roman's motion as a publicity stunt. She called the argument that she should be dismissed from the case “deserved.” The “assumptions and insinuations” about her personal life, she wrote, were “distasteful.”

Mr. Wade has earned more than $650,000 for his work for the district attorney's office, prompting Mr. Roman to repeatedly refer to “lucrative” contracts in his filing. But Ms Willis defended Mr Wade's pay. His rate of $250 per hour, she said, was not “outside the norm for prosecutors in Georgia.”

And while Mr. Wade has earned more than other special prosecutors in the case, she noted, the others had “much more defined roles.”

“Special Prosecutor Wade made a lot more money than the other special prosecutors just because Wade did a lot more work,” Ms. Willis wrote.

But in any case, the optics have not been good for Ms. Willis' team. During her 2020 campaign for district attorney, Ms. Willis ran against an incumbent officer facing sexual harassment allegations. During a campaign appearance, Ms Willis said: “I certainly won't pick people to date who work under me, let me just say.” (Her opponent, Paul Howard, was found not guilty of harassment allegations in December.)

The revelations about Ms. Willis' relationship with Mr. Wade have only provided fodder for her opponents, who were already active. In a fresh look, the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a staunch Trump ally, subpoenaed her office on Friday over its use of federal funds.

Mr. Trump himself has seized on the accusations. In a social media post Friday, he said said that Ms. Willis could make “her 'lover'” a significant amount of money by hiring him for the case, based on the fact that the target was Mr. Trump. “That means this scam is completely discredited and over!” he added.

In Georgia, where Republicans have a tight grip on the state government, several investigations are underway that will likely look into whether there have been ethical and criminal violations. The biggest risk to Ms. Willis, and to the case itself, could come from a new commission created by Republican state lawmakers to oversee prosecutors. The commission is expected to review its conduct when it becomes operational later this year.

But the disappointment is also palpable among some of Mr. Trump's critics, who hope he will face consequences for his efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. The digital publication was released late last year The carrot named Ms. Willis No. 1 on the list of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans, and praised her at a ceremony at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Then, after the allegations emerged last month, The Root published an article criticizing Ms. Willis for her poor judgment, even though it said black people in high-profile positions were held to higher standards than their white counterparts. “We all love Willis here at The Root, and that's why she does too got first place at last month's The Root 100 ceremony,” the article declared. “But she definitely should have known better than to put herself in this position.”

In a statement on Friday, Steven H. Sadow, Mr. Trump's lead attorney in Georgia, said Ms. Willis' response failed to provide “full transparency and necessary financial detail” regarding the relationship. Mr. Sadow also claimed that the speech Ms. Willis gave in Atlanta on Jan. 14, in which she suggested her critics were “playing the race card,” was “contrary to her ethical responsibilities as a prosecutor.”

Ms. Willis's file contained examples of racist epithets directed at her since she began investigating Mr. Trump, including unprintable insults and epithets, sentiments like “slavery forever” and an image of Ms. Willis' face next to a noose .

“One wonders whether the intent is to disqualify the accuser, who took all the abuse, from pursuing justice in this case at great personal cost,” she wrote, “only to be replaced by someone who is less willing to do this.”