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 the 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 and divorce lawyer Terrence Bradley and the 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,” he 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 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
