OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Editor’s Note: An original version of this story featured a misleading headline, suggesting the case was over. As noted by a fact check from USA Today, the “Georgia case remained open as of Feb. 8, 2024, two experts and a Fulton County Superior Court staff attorney said.” We have updated our headlines and regret the error.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis admitted in court to being in a personal relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to work on the Donald Trump case.
Now, Willis is facing another call for her to be removed from the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump and others.
A 41-count indictment accuses Trump and eighteen other people of attempting to reverse his Georgia election defeat in 2020. The former president has consistently stated that the case is part of a political witch hunt meant to undermine his standing as the front-runner for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination. He has entered not-guilty pleas to all 13 of the charges brought against him.
Michael Roman, a co-defendant who used to work for Trump, made allegations about Willis in an attempt to remove her and Wade from the case. Although Willis and Wade acknowledged having a romantic relationship on Friday, they insisted it was not a conflict of interest. The matter will have an evidentiary hearing on February 16.
Now, a new filing by lawyers for former state GOP chair and Trump co-defendant David Shafer seeks to remove her for making a speech in January in which she questioned why Wade, who is black, was being singled out when her other two special prosecutors are white, Newsweek reported.
“All the causes of the disqualification are self-inflicted blows,” says the motion.
Willis has strayed “wildly from the legal guardrails that are designed to protect the accused from improper, extrajudicial comments.”
“The obvious intent of her remarks was to inject and infect the jury pool in Fulton County with unfounded allegations that anyone who dares question her or Mr. Wade’s conduct must have done so for racist purposes,” the motion adds. “These comments constitute prosecutorial and forensic misconduct and warrant her removal and that of her office from the prosecution of this case.”
Willis claimed that she did not get any financial benefit from the relationship with Wade.
“A co-defendant of former President Donald Trump alleged in a Jan. 8 motion that Willis improperly benefited from awarding Wade a lucrative contract when he took her on vacations using money he earned from his position, claiming this was grounds to disqualify Willis and dismiss the case. Willis responded in a 176-page filing Friday by arguing that their relationship does not represent a conflict of interest and never provided her with any financial benefit,” the report said.
“While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek,” her office said to the court.
“Roman’s motion wildly speculates that District Attorney Willis somehow benefited financially from the investigation and prosecution of this criminal case, but provides no support to justify that conclusion,” her office said. “To be absolutely clear, the personal relationship between Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit to District Attorney Willis.”
Steve Sadow, an attorney for Trump, said that the only purpose of Willis’ filing was to get rid of the hearing.
“While the DA admits to an intimate relationship with her employee, Special Assistant DA Wade, she fails to provide full transparency and necessary financial details,” he said. “Indeed, she says absolutely nothing about the so-called ‘coincidence’ of Wade filing for divorce the day after the DA hired him!”
But Willis has found herself in another scandal.
Audio has leaked of a former employee warning Willis of another employee misusing federal funds, and months after this encounter, the whistleblower was fired and escorted from her office by seven security members, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
It was less than a year after Willis became the Fulton County DA that she met with whistleblower Amanda Timpson, who informed Willis that she was demoted after warning a top Willis campaign aide to not misuse federal grant money that was allocated for a youth gang prevention initiative.
Timpson claimed that the aide, Michael Cuffee, wanted to use part of the $488,000 grant from the federal government to get “swag” computers and travel.
“He wanted to do things with grants that were impossible, and I kept telling him, like, ‘We can’t do that,'” Timpson said when they met on Nov. 19, 2021. “He told everybody … ‘We’re going to get MacBooks, we’re going to get swag, we’re going to use it for travel.’ I said, ‘You cannot do that. It’s a very, very specific grant.'”
“I respect that is your assessment,” Willis said. “And I’m not saying that your assessment is wrong.”
But less than two months after that meeting, seven armed investigators fired Timpson and led her out of her office.
When Timspon filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, the district attorney’s office said that she was fired because she was a “holdover” from the administration before Willis.
But Timspon, who spoke exclusively to the Washington Free Beacon, says there are similarities between her scandal and the other Willis’ scandal involving her alleged lover and employee Nathan Wade.
The former employee said she wanted to warn Willis so that she would not be involved in a scandal.
After that, she was wary of Willis, so during their next meeting, she recorded the conversation.
