‘I’m not on trial’: Fani Willis denies wrongdoing
over relationship with Trump prosecutor
Fulton county DA rejects accusations that relationship
with Nathan Wade should lead to disqualification from election case
Hugo Lowell
and George Chidi in Atlanta and Sam Levine
Thu 15 Feb
2024 18.49 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/15/fani-willis-georgia-election-case-trump
Fani
Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, vehemently denied wrongdoing while
testifying at a court hearing on Thursday as she rebutted accusations that her
romantic relationship with a deputy prosecutor on the Georgia election
interference case against Donald Trump meant she should be disqualified from
the case.
The
district attorney testified that her relationship with special prosecutor
Nathan Wade started months after he was retained to work on the case, charging
Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state, and
ended in summer 2023.
Willis also
sought to undercut allegations that she had engaged in a sort of kickback
scheme through Wade’s hiring, as alleged by defense lawyers for a co-defendant
of Trump, Michael Roman – where she benefited from Wade’s earnings. She
testified that she reimbursed any expenses he incurred for activities such as
vacations together by paying him back in cash.
At one
point on the stand, an exasperated Willis said to lawyers questioning her:
“You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think
I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in
2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
The
eventual outcome of the hearing – expected to continue on Friday for a second
day before Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee – could have far-reaching
implications for the viability of one of the most perilous criminal cases
against the former president.
If Roman is
successful in having Willis relieved from bringing the case, it would result in
the disqualification of the entire district attorney’s office, throwing into
disarray a prosecution that has already been roiled politically since the
allegations were made last month.
The hearing
on Thursday involved testimony by Willis, Wade, Wade’s former law partner,
Terrence Bradley, and former Fulton county district attorney’s office employee
Robin Yeartie, as McAfee steered the questioning to develop a record for three
areas concerning the alleged conflicts.
McAfee
delved into whether Willis financially benefited from hiring Wade, when the
romantic relationship started, and whether the romantic relationship was
ongoing.
In his
extended testimony, Wade doubled down on his defense: that their relationship
started in March 2022, four months after he was hired, and that they shared
expenses for trips roughly equally.
“Our
relationship wasn’t a secret. It was just private,” he said. When questioned by
Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, he said there wasn’t always a record that
they split the cost of vacations and other expenses because she paid him back
in cash.
“She’s a
very independent proud woman. She’s going to insist she pays her own way,” she
said. “In a relationship ma’am, particularly men, we don’t go asking back for
anything. You’re not keeping a ledger for things you pay for versus things she
pay for.”
Wade said
his and Willis’s romance was over in “the summer” of 2023 and that he could not
put a date on its ending. Willis later said that men often consider a
relationship over when “the physical” part is over, but it actually ended with
later, with “a tough conversation”, after Trump was indicted in August last
year.
Still,
other early testimonies on Thursday put Willis in a defensive position.
Robin
Yeartie, a former college-era friend of Willis, testified that she had “no
doubt” Willis and Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the case, were in a
relationship before Willis hired him to work on the Trump case. That’s
significant because Wade said in an affidavit to the court their relationship
only began after he was hired.
Anna Cross,
a lawyer for Willis, noted that Yeartie had resigned from the district
attorney’s office in 2022 and suggested she had a falling-out with Willis.
Cross suggested that Willis told Yeartie she was going to be fired for poor
performance.
Yeartie
also said on the stand that she had no knowledge of Willis and Wade living
together, paying for each other’s expenses or going on vacation together. That
information is critical because it could establish whether their relationship
meant there was an actual substantial conflict for Willis.
Willis
later testified that Yeartie was not a consistent or close friend.
But some
spectators remained skeptical.
“I heard
the two witnesses basically say ‘we saw the relationship begin well before
2021,’” said Josh Schiffer, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor
in Atlanta, at the courthouse.
“And they
are two witnesses that there wasn’t a lot of impeachment about other than
casting some aspersions. But the evidence is very clear and uncontroverted that
there were two witnesses contradicting the affidavit. Done. Done.”
The
allegations first surfaced in an 8 January motion filed by Roman’s lawyer
Ashleigh Merchant, who complained about a potential conflict of interest
arising from what she described as “self-dealing” between Willis and Wade as a
result of their then-unconfirmed romantic relationship.
Roman’s
filing, in essence, accused Willis of engaging in a quasi-kickback scheme,
where Wade paid for joint vacations to Florida and California using earnings of
more than $650,000 from working on the Trump case. The filing also alleged the
relationship had started before he was hired.
The filing
itself, however, provided no concrete evidence that showed alleged
self-dealing.
The
district attorney’s office acknowledged on 2 February that Willis and Wade had
been romantically involved but only after he had been hired as a special
prosecutor, and insisted there was no financial benefit because travel costs
had been split.
Richard Luscombe contributed reporting
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