A former friend of Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis contradicted her claim about the timeline of her relationship with a top prosecutor in the criminal case against former President Donald Trump.
Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered top prosecutor Nathan Wade to testify about his relationship with Willis after a witness claimed that the pair started dating earlier than they claimed, according to Politico.
Robin Yeartie, a former employee at the D.A.’s office and longtime friend of Willis who said they lived together for a time, contradicted Willis’ claim that the relationship did not begin until after Wade was hired to work on the case in 2021.
Yeartie, who said she had a falling out with Willis two years earlier, said she had “no doubt” the pair were in a romantic relationship beginning in 2019.
Willis claimed in a court filing that her relationship with Wade began in 2022.
Yeartie said she knew of the relationship because she saw “hugging, kissing, just affection.”
Robin Yeartie, a former employee at the Fulton County DA’s office, testifies that DA Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor in the Trump Georgia election interference case, began a romantic relationship in 2019. pic.twitter.com/SlKJvB05jP
— The Recount (@therecount) February 15, 2024
Prosecutors argued that Yeartie was a disgruntled former employee seeking to take down Willis.
Wade was ordered to testify by the judge and insisted that the relationship began in “early” 2022, according to The New York Times.
“It's starting to feel like the dispute in Fulton County is going to come down to semantics - for example, Wade and Willis may have dated occasionally before 2022, but did not begin a ‘relationship,’ at least as Wade defines it, before his appointment,” tweeted Randall Eliason, a law professor at George Washington University. “Let's not get out over our skis in Fulton County - so far a single defense witness, who may have an ax to grind with the DA, has testified that the relationship began earlier than Wade said it did,” he added.
Thursday’s hearing came about after Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant and former campaign official Mike Roman, alleged an improper relationship between Willis and Wade and claimed that Wade had used his earnings from the case to finance lavish trips for the pair.
Wade claimed on Thursday that Willis reimbursed him for the trips in cash, calling her an “independent strong woman” who insisted that “she is going to pay her own way.”
The hearing was recessed until after 1 pm. It’s unclear if McAfee will order Willis to testify.
Georgia State University Law Prof. Eric Segall described the hearing as a “literal soup opera” playing out in Fulton County Superior Court.
“Unless there’s a surprise ending, the Ga case is in big trouble,” he predicted.
MSNBC legal analyst Caroline Polisi called Yeartie contradicting Willis “epic” and “monumental.”
“If things are going in the direction we think, Fani Willis lied to the court, it’s game over for her. She will be disqualified. If they had a relationship prior to when they represented truth to the court, it’s a huge deal. I can’t overstate,” she said in a clip flagged by Mediaite.
Polisi told the outlet that Willis could be “disqualified, which means her entire staff is disqualified, which means the case will have to be re-assigned and languish with the PAC of Georgia, effectively killing the case. Her credibility is completely shot.”
Eliason argued that the hearing so far has only established that “Willis and Wade have a relationship and that Wade went through a messy divorce, both of which were uncontested. Nothing about Willis having any financial stake in the case that would justify disqualification.”
But Segall argued that the prosecutors needed to make sure everything was “kept squeaky clean” in their prosecution of Trump.
“No matter what happens next, this was terrible judgment by the DA and Wade,” he wrote. “Really sad, maybe tragic. Infamous phone call happened here.”
