Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been hit with a new court filings accusing her of not being forthright about her relationship with a prosecutor she hired to work on the Donald Trump election-interference case.
In filings submitted in a Georgia court, a lawyer for Michael Roman said the DA’s relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade had begun earlier than they had disclosed.
Roman, a former White House aide to Trump, was charged alongside the former president and 17 others in Willis’ RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] probe. He has pleaded not guilty to seven counts in the Georgia case, and Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican primary race, pleaded not guilty to 13 charges under Willis’ probe. The former president has repeatedly said the case is a politically motivated witch hunt to stop him from winning November’s election.
Roman’s attorney Ashleigh Merchant has previously accused Willis of having an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” with Wade, including going on holiday together while working on the case. Willis admitted she had a personal relationship with Wade in court filings last week, but said that it started only after the case against Trump began. Newsweek emailed Willis’ office for comment on Saturday.
Wade also said in a recent affidavit that his relationship with Willis had not started until 2022. Willis has denied that the relationship amounts to a conflict of interest, nor should it affect the outcome of her 2020 election-interference investigation.
Fani Willis appears before Judge Scott McAfee for a hearing in the 2020 election-interference case at the Fulton County Courthouse on November 21, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Fulton County district attorney is accused of… Fani Willis appears before Judge Scott McAfee for a hearing in the 2020 election-interference case at the Fulton County Courthouse on November 21, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Fulton County district attorney is accused of lying about when her relationship with a special prosecutor on the Trump case began.
Dennis Byron-Pool/Getty Images
Merchant is now saying that the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade started long before the latter’s appointment to work on the Trump investigation in November 2021. Wade’s former law partner Terrence Bradley is alleged to have “non-privileged, personal” knowledge that the relationship began even before Willis took office in January 2021.
“Since Willis and Wade were not forthright about their relationship in the first instance, there is no reason to believe they are telling the truth now,” the court documents state.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney who was also charged under Willis’ probe, was one of those who described the latest filings as “bombshell” claims against Willis on social media.
The filings from Merchant also dismissed previous concerns that any information from Bradley would be protected under attorney-client privilege as he “obtained this information in a personal capacity as Wade’s friend prior to Wade’s decision to file for divorce.”
Willis and Wade are also accused of having “enriched themselves” by working on the case together, including taking trips to the Bahamas and Belize.
“That enrichment has taken various forms, not the least of which is incredible amounts of money paid to Wade by Willis that has, in turn, resulted in Willis’ personal financial benefit in the form of vacations, hotel stays and the like that have nothing to do with this case or her official duties as a prosecutor,” the filings add.
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