Trump’s Georgia lawyers expose phone records in attempt to remove accusers
Lawyers representing former President Donald J. Trump continue to push their argument that the lead prosecutors in the Georgia election interference case lied about the beginning of their romantic relationship, unearthing phone records on Friday that they are likely to use to try to undermine prosecutors. testimony.
In a court filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers in Atlanta presented an affidavit detailing phone records obtained through a subpoena that they said showed more than 2,000 calls between Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and Nathan Wade, the lawyer she hired. helped oversee the case, during the first eleven months of 2021. The data also showed that the two exchanged approximately 12,000 text messages during that period.
It is undisputed that Mr Wade and Ms Willis were in contact in 2021. They are longtime friends, and after Ms. Willis was elected district attorney in 2020, she appointed Mr. Wade to a hiring committee to screen applicants for jobs in the district attorney’s office. After taking office in January 2021, she also consulted with Mr Wade on a number of issues, including strategic questions on major issues.
His advisory role extended to the period covered by the cellphone records cited in Trump’s new motion, from Jan. 1, 2021, to Nov. 30, 2021. During a hearing in the case last week, former Gov. Roy Barnes of Georgia, a veteran litigator recalled that Ms. Willis and a team that included Mr. Wade met with him in October 2021 and asked if he would take over the job that Ms. Willis ultimately gave to Mr. Wade.
Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade recently acknowledged that they had had a romantic relationship, but they said it began after she hired him to work on the Trump case
The affidavit from Charles Mittelstadt, an investigator hired by the Trump lawyers, also described cell phone location data that they said showed Mr. Wade’s phone was connected to a nearby cell tower at least 35 times “for an extended period of time” of a condominium where Mrs. Willis still lived.
The investigator said records suggested Mr. Wade was near Ms. Willis’ home on two specific occasions, starting late at night, and ending before dawn. One of those occasions was late on the night of September 11, 2021.
Jeff DiSantis, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, declined to comment other than to say the office would respond to Mr. Trump’s filing with its own lawsuit.
Mr. Trump’s team did not release the data used by their investigator, so it was not possible to immediately verify their claims. Nor was it clear Friday what effect Mr. Trump’s filing might have on the defense’s ongoing effort to disqualify Mr. Wade, Ms. Willis and her entire office based on allegations that the romantic relationship created a conflict of interest.
But the documents will almost certainly be used by lawyers to argue that the two accusers began their romantic relationship before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade on Nov. 1, 2021 — and not in 2022, as the two accusers have maintained.
The reliability of such cellphone tracking technology has come under fire before, including when it was deployed by allies of Mr. Trump to push false claims of widespread election fraud. Such technology may be limited in how accurately a person’s location can be determined.
The number of contacts described in the new Trump filing would mean the two accusers spoke on the phone an average of about six times a day for 11 months and exchanged about 36 text messages daily.
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The relationship first came to light last month in a dossier by Michael Roman, one of 15 co-defendants in the election interference case and a former Trump campaign official. Mr. Roman alleges that the two plaintiffs engaged in “self-dealing” conduct that amounted to a conflict of interest because Mr. Wade used money paid by the district attorney’s office to finance trips he and Ms. Willis took together made.
Ms Willis and Mr Wade have denied any improper financial benefits and said they roughly split the cost of their holiday.
But the question of exactly when the relationship began has also become a point of contention, with Mr Roman’s lawyer claiming it began before November 2021 – which would essentially mean Ms Willis hired a boyfriend into the lucrative and high-end relationship. profile task of managing the Trump case.
The lawyers are expected to continue arguing the disqualification question at a hearing set for next Friday.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who has closely followed the Trump case in Georgia, said he doubted the cellphone records would play a major role in the judge’s disqualification ruling. Because Ms. Willis has acknowledged that Mr. Wade was a mentor and close advisor, Professor Kreis said, “it is not adversarial for them to spend time together and exchange text messages, especially in the lead-up to the investigation into Donald Trump.”
Still, Mr. Kreis said the data “could be problematic” if the judge believes it damages the credibility of Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis.