Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis can remain on her election interference case against former president Donald Trump if she cuts ties with her former lover, the special prosecutor she tapped to lead the case, a Georgia judge ruled Friday.
Fulton County Superior Court judge Scott McAfee’s decision to let Willis remain on the case against the former president and his co-defendants is a win for the Democratic prosecutor but came at a severe cost to her personal reputation. Willis’s case has been in disarray ever since Trump co-defendant Michael Roman alleged in early January that Willis had been in a clandestine romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade when she hired him in November 2021 to lead the case against the former president. Willis has since paid Wade more than $650,000 in legal fees, earnings he then used to finance lavish vacations for the pair.
McAfee, who donated $150 to Willis’s campaign in June 2020 prior to his appointment as a Fulton County judge, said in February that the allegations “could result” in Willis’s disqualification if there was even the appearance of a conflict of interest in her relationship with Wade.
Willis and Wade acknowledged their romantic relationship during televised hearings in February, but both said their entanglement began after Willis brought on Wade to serve as special prosecutor in November 2021. Willis also confirmed she had gone on several vacations with Wade while he was employed by her office, but the district attorney claimed she repaid Wade in cash for her share of the trips. Willis did not produce receipts backing up her statement, saying she keeps up to $15,000 in cash in her home at all times, a stash fed by periodic cash-back withdrawals from grocery stores.
But several witnesses came forward testifying that Willis’s relationship with Wade began long before she hired him to serve as special prosecutor.
Robin Yeartie, a former friend and co-worker of Willis, testified during the February hearings that Willis and Wade began their relationship in 2019 and that she saw the pair hugging and kissing before Wade joined Willis’s team in late 2021.
Another witness, Wade’s former law partner Terrence Bradley, divulged information about the relationship to several individuals during private conversations in 2023. Cobb County co-chief deputy district attorney Cindi Lee Yeager and former Georgia State School of Law adjunct professor Manny Arora say Bradley said during private conversations that Wade had “definitely begun a romantic relationship with Willis” in 2019 and even had a garage opener to access Willis’s apartment at the time.
Bradley provided similar testimony to Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Roman, the Trump co-defendant. But Bradley later testified in court that he was merely speculating in his conversations with Merchant and had no direct knowledge of the timeline of Willis and Wade’s relationship.
Willis still faces scrutiny at the federal level from the House Judiciary Committee over her 2021 firing of a whistleblower who tried to stop Willis’s office from misappropriating federal grant funds.
The whistleblower, Amanda Timpson, recorded herself telling Willis in a Nov. 19, 2021, meeting that the district attorney’s top aide wanted to use federal funds for a youth gang prevention program to pay for “swag,” computers, and travel. Willis didn’t dispute the allegations during the meeting, but she fired Timpson less than two months later and had the whistleblower escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators.
House Judiciary chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) subpoenaed Willis in February for records related to Timpson’s allegations. A committee spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon that it is currently reviewing the “limited set of documents” Willis provided in response to the subpoena.
This is a developing story and will be updated with additional information.
The post Fani Willis Can Stay On Trump Case If She Fires Her Former Lover, Judge Rules appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
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Author: Andrew Kerr
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