Fani Willis, who is prosecuting former President Donald Trump and his associates for election interference, is facing a motion to disqualify her from the case, due to an alleged affair with the special prosecutor she put on the case, Nathan Wade.
The motion was filed by Michael Roman, a former Trump White House aide who is one of the 19 defendants in the dubbed Trump case.
Roman and his attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, have claimed that the district attorney and Wade had a romantic relationship that started before she hired him as a special prosecutor, and that they went on trips together using county funds.
They have also claimed that Wade was overpaid and unqualified for the job, and that the alleged affair created a conflict of interest and a personal benefit for the two, violating the defendants’ due process rights.
Michael Roman has asked the judge to remove Fani Willis and Nathan Wade from the Trump case and have all charges against him dropped.
However, the district attorney and Wade have denied the allegations, calling them baseless and defamatory. While they have admitted to having a personal relationship, they still maintain that the special prosecutor was paid according to the county’s guidelines.
The judge overseeing the case, Scott McAfee, has scheduled an evidentiary hearing to decide if Fani Willis and her office should be removed from the Georgia election case.
The hearing will take place on Thursday and Friday, and will also be televised live.
The evidentiary hearing is the latest twist in the Trump election case, which was launched by Fani Willis in February 2021, after she opened a criminal investigation into the former president and 18 others for their attempts to overturn the election results in Georgia, where Joe Biden won by a narrow margin.
