A former friend of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis contradicted the timeline of her affair with Nathan Wade, the man she hired to help prosecute former President Donald Trump.
Summary
A former friend of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis contradicted the timeline of her affair with Nathan Wade, the man she hired to help prosecute former President Donald Trump. Willis herself testified at Thursday’s hearing, which could result in her removal from the case.
- Robin Yeartie, a former friend and employee of Willis, testified that Willis and Wade began their relationship shortly after meeting in 2019.
- Willis initially denied the allegations before reversing herself and admitting to the relationship while denying any charges of impropriety.
- Willis now claims their relationship began in 2022, after she had already hired him to work on the election case.
- Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee convened Thursday’s hearing to determine whether Willis, Wade, and her office should be removed from the Trump case after a defense attorney alleged that Willis was financially benefiting from an affair with her subordinate in a January court filing.
- Willis indicted Trump and 14 co-defendants in 2023, alleging they conspired in a widespread scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Trump claims the charges brought by Willis, a Democratic elected official, are illegitimate and politically motivated.
- An angry Willis took the stand herself later on Thursday. Willis repeatedly shouted at the defense attorney questioning her and at one point yelled “It’s a lie!”
- Later in her testimony, she told the defense attorney, “Do you think I’m on trial? 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.”
- The Guardian noted “Willis’ removal would be a stunning development in the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against Trump. An additional delay would likely lessen the chance that a trial would be held before the November election. He is currently the frontrunner to win the Republican nomination for president.”
- The New York Times published a news (not opinion) article by Clyde McGrady and Katie Glueck claiming to explain “why the case against Fani Willis feels familiar to black women.” The Times interviewed a dozen black women, some of whom felt that “Black women are held to a different standard and that Ms. Willis should have known that her identity, along with the enormous political stakes of the case, would create a white-hot spotlight on her personal conduct.” Notably, ex-DNC Chair Donna Brazile told the Times that Willis had “showed bad judgment” and that the scrutiny she’s under “comes with the territory” of being a public official.
- “Thursday will not even be the first time this week that the ex-president’s legal plight is playing out in two separate cities,” CNN observed. “On Monday for instance, Trump was in court in Fort Pierce, Florida, for a hearing over his indictment related to retaining classified documents on a day when his lawyers sent a filing to the US Supreme Court in Washington based on his expansive demands for absolute presidential immunity to shield him from his actions after the 2020 election.”
- “Lawfare as politics is risky business, as Democrats are discovering,” wrote the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. The Journal concludes, “If the case now collapses in an ethical ash heap, it will play into Mr. Trump’s campaign claims that he is the victim of partisan prosecutorial abuse. Ms. Willis has earned dismissal from her own prosecution.”
- The New York Post profiled Ashleigh Merchant, the Georgia criminal defense attorney who filed the Jan. 8 motion that first alleged that Willis had an “improper” relationship with Wade. Merchant is the attorney for Mike Roman, a Republican operative and one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering indictment.
- National Review’s Ryan Mills interviewed legal experts who, while disagreeing about whether Willis’s conduct would guarantee her removal, “agreed that if she and Wade are proven to have lied to Fulton County superior court judge Scott McAfee about the timeline of their relationship, they would almost certainly be removed from the case.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
