Things are getting ugly for Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis. She hopes to ride a prosecution against former President Trump on election interference in 2020 into a career-making case.
Things are not going well for Fani. It’s all of her own doing. She has gotten caught in some very unethical and corrupt behavior, allegedly, something she probably didn’t expect to happen. Her current term ends on December 31, 2024. She apparently thought that her high-profile case against the former president would be her ticket to re-election. Now there are calls for her to recuse herself from the case.
It’s an ugly intersection of professional malpractice and personal soap opera. As it turns out, Fani hired her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to serve as a special prosecutor in the case in which Trump is a co-defendent. Not only did she hire him though he had no experience in this kind of case (Willis is using RICO charges against the defendents) but he is being paid an incredibly high salary. Unfortunately for the two lovers, there are bank records and receipts that show some questionable expenditures by Wade that involve Willis.
Nathan Wade and Fani Willis are having an affair. He’s a married man, though, and his wife has become a part of this soap opera. Mrs. Wade said that not only did Wade and Willis travel together, as bank records show, but he paid for her travel expenses. Fani accused Jocelyn Wade of obstruction in the case when she came forward. Fani doubled down and said the marriage of Jocelyn and Nathan went into divorce proceedings because Jocelyn was unfaithful to her husband. That was a really bad move.
Jocelyn’s attorney produced the bank records because a full accounting of Wade’s finances and what he has done with them is necessary in the divorce proceedings.
The latest tidbit in this drama is more bad news for Willis. A judge has unsealed the divorce documents. This means more of her personal secrets are going to be exposed for everyone to see. What bombshells will be revealed? That’s the question.
Judge Henry Thompson ordered the unsealing of Wade’s divorce case in a brief hearing at Cobb County Superior Court in Georgia.
The judge put off a final decision on whether Willis will have to sit for questioning in the divorce case.
He also delayed a deposition the District Attorney had been scheduled to give on Tuesday.
So, the judge is going slow here and holding off on whether or not Willis should be questioned in he divorce case and if she must give a deposition. This is not what Willis wanted. She wants all of this personal drama to go away as quickly as possible. As it is, there are people calling for her to step aside, to recuse herself from the case. The unsealing of the divorce documents came from a request by the attorney for Jocelyn Wade. Jocelyn, by the way, has denied being unfaithful to her husband in their marriage. They have been married for 26 years.
There is no professional reason that Willis and Wade were traveling together. The travel records point to a romantic relationship. That is what Jocelyn’s attorney claims.
Judge Thompson said he cannot rule on whether Willis should have to sit for a deposition in the divorce case until after Nathan Wade himself is questioned later this month.
Hastings wrote in court papers filed Friday that Nathan Wade has taken trips to San Francisco and Napa Valley, Florida, Belize, Panama and Australia and has taken Caribbean cruises since filing for divorce.
Willis ‘was an intended travel partner for at least some of these trips as indicated by flights he purchased for her to accompany him,’ it was alleged.
The filing includes credit card statements that show Nathan Wade – after he had been hired as special prosecutor in the Trump case – bought plane tickets in October 2022 for him and Willis to travel to Miami, and bought tickets in April to San Francisco in their names.
It sure doesn’t look good for either one of them.
Will Fani WIllis be removed from the case? Willis is defiant. She has not admitted to the relationship. She delivered a political rant in a church recently as she claimed she is in this mess because of, wait for it, racism. Of course. Defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign staffer and White House aide Michael Roman, first exposed the relationship between Willis and Wade. Merchant filed a motion asking Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to remove both Willis and Wade and their offices from further prosecution of the case.
It isn’t the first time Willis has faced removal from a case.
In fact, another judge, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, took that step in July 2022 when he was presiding over the special grand jury investigation that preceded the indictment in the election case.
Then-Sen. Burt Jones, one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, had been told he was a target in the election case. He argued that Willis had a conflict of interest because she had hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race.
McBurney ruled in Jones’ favor, writing that the situation had gone beyond bad optics and had created “a plain — and actual and untenable — conflict.” He prohibited Willis and her office from prosecuting Jones in the case.
If McAfee decides to take similar action and to remove Willis and her office from the election case, it would be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take the case. That person could continue on the track that Willis has taken, could choose to pursue only some charges or could dismiss the case altogether.
The irony. Willis thought she could do the unprecedented by filing RICO charges against Trump and his co-defendants. She hoped to get a conviction against Trump and toss him in jail, therefore denying him another term in office. Instead, her professional corruption has been exposed. This case just gets messier and messier.
.