Lawyers from Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ office and attorneys for former President Donald Trump and Trump co-defendants faced off on Friday, giving final arguments before a Superior Court judge who will rule whether the DA and her special prosecutor (and lover) Nathan Wade should be removed from their Trump election interference criminal case.
Fulton Co. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee
Willis and Wade admitted to a clandestine affair after they were outed in January — but they testified the relationship became official in 2022 after they brough the case. But witnesses including Willis’ former BFF and employee, and Wade’s ex-law partner said they knew of the attorneys’ being intimate as early as 2019.
Whether Willis and her entire office will be removed from prosecution could well hinge on if Judge Scott McAfee finds there’s proof that their relationship began before the time they’ve admitted to being lovers.
Texts sent to a Trump co-defendant attorney Ashley Merchant from Terrance Bradley, Wade’s attorney and also Merchant’s friend, were prominently featured. For example, just three days before she filed her motion against Willis, Merchant texted Bradley that Wade had taken Willis on a cruise and a trip to Napa Valley in California. In the text, she assumed Bradley knew about it. He responded that he didn’t and asked when the trips happened. But then texted it didn’t surprise him, adding that they had taken other trips together.
That same day, Merchant asked whether Bradley believed the relationship started before Willis hired Wade. He texted back: “Absolutely.” (That’s not “speculation” as Bradley later waffled during Friday’s testimony.)
The next day, they discussed a draft of her motion that she had sent him. He texted she should include money he had been paid by Willis’ office in a footnote detailing money paid to Wade’s firm.
Those details, along with the conflict-of-interest charge against Willis and Wade, will weigh heavily when it comes to the judge’s decision, which he said would be rendered sometime within the next two weeks.
Also weighing heavily against Willis that the defendants who have filed for their indictments to be dismissed complain that Willis engaged in “forensic misconduct.” That means, as Trump attorney Steve Sadow pointed out, that through her various media and church appearances, where she talked about this specific disqualification effort, she effectively denied the defendants a fair trial.
Sadow noted that Willis arrogantly marched into a pulpit at a black church in Atlanta, filled with potential jurors, and said God was on her side and that the lawyers attacking her were” racists.” And by telling them she had a 95 percent conviction rate, she implied that the defendants were guilty.
That’s a violation of Rule 3.8 under the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, which is specifically aimed at prosecutors. And the maximum punishment for that is disarmament.
