The Fani Willis Misconduct Scandal Just Got a Lot Messier

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade began years before Willis hired Wade to work on Georgia’s election interference case against Donald Trump, according to testimony given by Willis’ former co-worker Robin Yeartie.

Willis vehemently disagreed during tense testimony before the court later on Thursday in which she lashed out against and rebutted the “lies” fueling the scandal surrounding her relationship with Wade and its potential impact on her case against Trump.

Yeartie’s testimony, given Thursday at a hearing over whether Willis will be allowed to remain on the case, contradicts statements and admissions made by the DA and Wade. Earlier this month, Willis and Wade acknowledged that they had had an affair — but claimed in court filings that the relationship began in 2022 after Wade was tapped to serve as a special prosecutor in the state’s sprawling RICO case against Trump. Yeartie threw a bombshell into the timeline, telling the court that she had “no doubt” Willis and Wade’s relationship actually began in 2019. She added in her testimony that she had seen the pair “hugging, kissing, being affectionate” before November of 2021.

Willis explicitly denied that her relationship with Wade was romantic in nature before Nov. 2021 — when he was hired — and said the relationship developed beyond friendship in early 2022. Willis also added that her physical relationship with Wade ended “pre-indictment,” when questioned by Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow. Trump’s indictment “had absolutely nothing to do” with the collapse of the relationship, she said, citing long-standing tensions and “brutal arguments” between the pair over their roles as partners as the reason for their split.

In January, Trump co-defendant Mike Roman accused Willis of engaging in an improper romantic relationship with Wade and requested she be removed from the case. The accusation casts doubt on Willis’ own assertions that her relationship with Wade couldn’t have had any bearing on her decision to involve him in the case, and calls into question the over $600,000 in state funds Wade was paid for his work on the case.

In her own testimony, Willis accused Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, of being “dishonest” in their statements before the court. “It seems today that a lawyer writes a lie and it’s printed for all the world to see,” she said upon taking the stand. At one point Judge Scott McAfee called a 5-minute recess after Willis outright accused Merchant of lying when she suggested that she and Wade had cohabitated.

“You’re confused. You think I’m on trial,” Willis told Merchant during questioning. “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.”

Willis denied a suggestion made by Yeartie that she and Wade had begun their affair immediately after they met at a conference in 2019. “I think in one of your motions you tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find extremely offensive,” Willis said. The District Attorney expressed her dismay that Thursday’s hearing took place given “how dishonest” she considered the claims Roman’s attorneys have made about her.

Wade contradicted Yeartie’s timeline of the events during his testimony on Thursday, but acknowledged that he had paid for travel expenses for himself and Willis using his business credit card, and was reimbursed in cash by the district attorney. Willis herself stated that money she had reimbursed Wade for trips and expenses had come from her personal funds earned through her own employment.

Trump himself was not present at the hearing, he was in New York attending to a separate criminal case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alving Bragg. Should Willis be removed from her case in Georgia, it could potentially derail the state’s prosecution of Trump and his co-defendants for election interference — or at least delegitimize the case in the eyes of the public.

“Fani Willis, the D.A. of Fulton County, just admitted to having a sexual relationship with the Prosecutor she, in consultation with the White House and DOJ, appointed to “GET PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month. “THAT MEANS THAT THIS SCAM IS TOTALLY DISCREDITED & OVER!”

On Thursday, after learning of the developments in the hearing, Trump claimed that even MSNCB “STATED GAME OVER FOR THE FAKE FANI WILLIS CASE IN GEORGIA.”

“ANOTHER SCAM COORDINATED WITH THE BIDEN WHITE HOUSE FOR PURPOSES OF ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!” he added. The former president’s Truth Social post referenced a comment from MSNBC Legal Analyst Caroline Polisi, who stated that “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.”

Judge McAfee will weigh the testimony provided Thursday in his upcoming ruling on whether Willis should be disqualified and another prosecutor appointed in her place. Hearings are expected to continue on Friday, and no set date for McAfee’s decision has been announced.

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