Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, is facing allegations of having a personal, romantic relationship with a special prosecutor she hired to pursue the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump and 18 others in Georgia.
The allegations were first made public on January 8, 2024, by lawyers for Michael Roman, one of the co-defendants in the case, in a court filing that asked the judge to dismiss his indictment and disqualify Willis from further prosecutions.
The filing claimed that Fani Willis had engaged in an affair with Nathan Wade, an attorney she appointed as a special counsel to lead the prosecution of Trump and his alleged co-conspirators for interfering with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. It states that Willis had personally benefited from the relationship, and that she had intentionally failed to disclose it to the public and the court.
It also mentioned that Wade had lacked the necessary experience for the case, and was paid roughly $650,000 in legal fees after he was appointed. The filing further alleged that Wade and Willis had traveled together to places like San Francisco and Miami for not-so-professional reasons.
Willis denied the allegations unofficially during a church service and said that she has faced racism and sexism since taking on the case. According to her, numerous racist threats and insults have been hurled at her, and that she has been forced to leave her home for security reasons.
She also defended Wade’s qualifications and credentials saying,
“The Black man I chose has been a judge more than 10 years, run a private practice more than 20, represented businesses in civil litigation, I ain’t done y’all … served as a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special assistant attorney general.”
The case against Trump and his co-defendants is based on a phone call that Trump made on January 2, 2021, to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he pressured him to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in Georgia. It also involves other phone calls and meetings that Trump and his allies had with other Georgia officials, including the governor, the attorney general, and the U.S. attorney, to influence the election results.
The case charges Trump and his co-defendants with multiple counts of violating Georgia’s election laws, including conspiracy, solicitation of election fraud, false statements, and racketeering.
