Trump’s prosecution in Georgia remains in the balance during the hearing

A judge in Georgia’s election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump will hear final arguments Friday on a motion to disqualify the plaintiff who brought the case, Fani T. Willis, on the grounds that she was in a romantic relationship with a subordinate created a conflict of interest.

Presiding Judge Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court is not likely to rule on the case Friday. Instead, the hearing, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., will allow attorneys from both sides to summarize their arguments over a salacious subplot of the election case — a case that has already caused significant embarrassment and distress for Ms. Willis , the Fulton County District Attorney. Details about her personal life emerged at the Atlanta courthouse, where she hoped to bring Trump and fourteen co-defendants to trial this summer.

The stakes are high: If Ms. Willis is disqualified from the case, so would her entire office, and the case would likely be transferred to a prosecutor from another jurisdiction. The new prosecutor may choose to continue the case as planned, amend or withdraw the charges.

Disqualification would reduce the chance that a trial would begin before the November presidential election, in which Mr. Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee.

The relationship between Ms. Willis and Nathan Wade, an Atlanta-area attorney whom she hired in November 2021 to lead the prosecution team, first came to light in January, in a motion filed by an attorney for one of the co-defendants of Mr. Trump.

Defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant claimed the romance began before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade, and argued that Mr. Wade was not qualified for the high-profile job, for which he has been paid at least $650,000 so far.

Ms Merchant also claimed Mr Wade and Ms Willis engaged in ‘self-dealing’ as the couple went on holiday together which she said Mr Wade had paid for.

In her Jan. 8 filing, Ms. Merchant cited case law from Georgia, arguing that the situation as she laid it out met the standard for a disqualifying conflict of interest.

“It is presumed that such a conflict of interest arises when the prosecutor has acquired a personal interest or stake in the conviction of the suspect,” she wrote.

Ms Willis and Mr Wade have acknowledged they had a romantic relationship. But they have said it started after Mr. Wade was hired and ended before Mr. Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in August in a sweeping indictment accusing them of conspiring to defeat Mr. Trump in the to overturn the 2020 elections. . Mrs Willis said the couple roughly split the costs of the trips they took together, with Mrs Willis often using cash to reimburse Mr Wade for her share.

In a speech at a black church in Atlanta, Ms. Willis, an African-American Democrat, suggested that racism motivated those who criticized her decision to hire Mr. Wade, who is also black.

In a later legal filing, Ms. Willis dismissed the motion to disqualify her as a legally dubious stunt, arguing there was no conflict of interest. She wrote that “the existence of a relationship between members of a prosecution team simply does not, in and of itself, constitute a status entitling a criminal suspect to any form of relief.”

The judge held a series of hearings on the issue in February that at times felt like a mini-trial. Mr. Wade took the stand, as did Ms. Willis, who angrily resisted Ms. Merchant’s questions. Ms. Willis described her loneliness after becoming a prosecutor, the violent threats and racist messages she had received, and her frustration that the focus on her love life had diverted the nation’s attention from Mr. Trump and the 14 co-defendants who remain . Four of the original defendants pleaded guilty.

During a hearing on Tuesday, the conflicting stories about the beginning of the romance between the accusers took center stage. Ms. Merchant called Terrence Bradley, a former law partner of Mr. Wade, to the witness stand, hoping to help prove that the relationship began before Mr. Wade was hired.

But Mr Bradley provided conflicting information. In evidence was a text exchange he had with Ms Merchant months earlier in which he said the relationship “absolutely” predated Mr Wade’s appointment. But on the witness stand he repeatedly said he did not know when the romance began.

The judge will have to decide which of Mr. Bradley’s stories to believe as he weighs whether to disqualify the prosecutors. Another witness, a former friend and employee of Ms. Willis named Robin Yeartie, also testified that the relationship predated Mr. Wade’s appointment. But under cross-examination she said she had left the district attorney’s office on bad terms and was no longer Ms. Willis’s friend.

There is already precedent in the Trump case for disqualification. In July 2022, a judge barred Ms. Willis from developing a case against Burt Jones, a fake Trump voter in Georgia in 2020, because Ms. Willis had organized a fundraiser for one of Mr. Jones’ political rivals. A year and a half after the disqualification, a replacement prosecutor has not yet been named to continue the investigation into Mr. Jones, who is now Georgia’s lieutenant governor.

Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Georgia Board of Attorneys, said in a recent interview that the current situation was different from the one involving Mr. Jones and suggested it could move more quickly because charges have already been filed.

Mr. Skandalakis, who would be the person responsible for reassigning the case, said last month that only a few other Georgia district attorney offices were large enough to handle the case, and that he would one factor he would consider if he had to reassign the case would be a prosecutor’s proximity to Fulton County. That likely means the case would be transferred to an Atlanta-area prosecutor.

Such an outcome would inevitably delay matters for some time.