Fani T. Willis, the district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election meddling case against former President Donald J. Trump, acknowledged Friday a “personal relationship” with a prosecutor she hired to handle the case, but argued that it was no reason to exclude her or her office from it.
The admission came nearly a month after allegations of an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” between the two surfaced in a motion filed by one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants. The move seeks to exclude both prosecutors and Ms. Willis’ entire office from handling the case — an effort that, if successful, would likely sow chaos for an unprecedented state criminal prosecution of a former president.
“While the allegations raised in the various lawsuits are arbitrary and have garnered the media attention they were designed to garner, none provide the Court with any basis to order the relief they seek,” Ms. Willis’ filing said, adding that “the personal The relationship between Ms. Willis and the prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade, “never had any direct or indirect financial benefit” to Ms. Willis.
Ms. Willis’ filing includes an affidavit from Mr. Wade alleging that the personal relationship did not begin until after Mr. Wade was hired.
The original motion containing the allegations, filed by Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official, alleged that Ms. Willis had hired her “friend” as a special prosecutor, giving him lucrative contracts even though he was unqualified. , and then benefited from continued vacation paid for by Mr. Wade.
However, Ms. Willis said in her deposition that “financial responsibility for personal travel is shared almost evenly,” and Mr. Wade repeated that language in his affidavit, adding that Ms. Willis “received no funds or personal financial benefit 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 in her testimony on Friday, Ms Willis included an affidavit from Mr Wade in which he said he had “developed a personal relationship” with Ms Willis in 2022.
The allegations, and Ms. Willis’s silence so far about them, have thrown the high-stakes prosecution off balance, giving Mr. Trump a new line of attack and raising the prospect of delays or more serious repercussions in the case. Ms Willis has asked for the trial to begin in August, but no date has been set.
The pleas do not change the underlying facts of the case, which accuses Mr. Trump and his allies of engaging in a conspiracy to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. Four of the original 19 defendants pleaded guilty, including of some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent defenders. One of them, Jenna Ellis, tearfully told a hearing late last year that she looked back on what she did with “deep regret”.
Mr. Roman’s move last month provided no evidence of a romantic relationship. But several weeks after his deposition, Mr. Wade’s estranged wife produced credit card statements showing that he bought plane tickets for himself and Ms. Willis, although those purchases were made after he began working for the county attorney’s office Fulton. Records show 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 email traffic with Delta showing travel arrangements to and from Miami.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
