The growing dispute over the tales told by telephone records of the “personal relationship” between the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, and her special prosecutor and former boyfriend, Nathan Wade, could determine whether the pair will try the case they charged. 

At issue are reams of cellular data adduced from AT&T by attorneys for President Trump, who is one of the 19 defendants charged by Ms. Willis in her sprawling racketeering case. Those logs disclose nearly 12,000 text messages and 2,000 phone calls between Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis prior to Mr. Wade joining the case. They also allegedly show at least 35 nocturnal visits by Mr. Wade to Ms. Willis’s rented apartment at Atlanta’s Hapeville neighborhood.

Ms. Willis contends that the analysis “was not filed in good faith but instead is nothing more than another attempt to garner salacious headlines in the media.” Remarkably, she speculates whether Mr. Trump “illegally obtained cell site location information, which is generally only obtainable after a finding of probable cause and issuance of a search warrant.” Mr. Trump’s team says a private detective in their employ gained the phone records through a lawful subpoena.

The content of the texts remains private, but if the correspondence proves a romance that antedates Mr. Wade’s appointment, that would contradict the claim both prosecutors have made — under oath — that their intimacy began only after Mr. Wade was named special prosecutor and could not have been the motivation for his hiring. Mr. Trump and other defendants posit that the handsome payments Mr. Wade has received — and spent on joint trips — amount to an incurable conflict of interest. 

The decision as to whether the phone records will be entered into evidence is Judge Scott McAfee’s to make, and he will likely do so ahead of a March 1 hearing he has called for further argument on the disqualification question. Ms. Willis, in a Friday filing, argued that they  “do not prove anything relevant” and “do not prove, in any way, the content of the communications between Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis.”

Ms. Willis labels Mr. Trump’s submission, which is founded on an analysis by a private investigator, Charles Mittelstadt, as “unqualified opinion evidence.” She claims that Mr. Mittlestadt’s qualifications have not been fully vetted. Mr. Trump’s attorneys, though, respond that the analyst’s credentials are not at issue — instead, the ballast of the claim that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade are lying are “data that was produced by AT&T in response to the lawfully issued subpoena.” 

Sensing the danger to her stewardship of the case posed by the phone logs, Ms. Willis writes that the “records do nothing more than demonstrate that Special Prosecutor Wade’s telephone was located somewhere within a densely populated multiple-mile radius where various residences, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and other businesses are located.” 

Ms. Willis adds that the proffered pieces of evidence “do not prove that Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis were ever in the same place during any of the times listed.” Her filing also notes that “on multiple relevant dates and times” Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were “VISITING THE THREE CRIME SCENES WHERE A MASS MURDER MOTIVATED BY RACE AND GENDER BIAS HAD TAKEN PLACE.”

While much of the supporting emails are redacted, Ms. Willis could be referring to a crime spree that rocked three Atlanta spas in spring 2021. Eight people were murdered, six of them Asian women. The perpetrator, Robert Aaron Long, claimed that he was motivated by sexual “addiction,” and that he slew the women to avoid “temptation.” He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to a life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

Also on Monday, Judge McAfee met in camera, or behind closed doors, with a former law partner of Mr. Wade, Terrence Bradley. Mr. Bradley also handled Mr. Wade’s divorce from his wife of 26 years, Joycelyn. The defendants maintain that Mr. Bradley possesses information that Mr. Wade’s affair with Ms. Willis predated his appointment. Mr. Bradley admitted on the stand that he left Mr. Wade’s employ due to accusations of sexual harassment. 

The defendants challenging the prosecutorial pair, though, have been unable to pry out the information because of Mr. Bradley’s invocation of attorney-client privilege. Mr. Trump’s attorneys allege that Mr. Wade perpetrated “fraud upon the court,” and thus cannot claim the privilege. Monday’s colloquy was “ex parte,” meaning just involving Judge McAfee, Mr. Bradley, and his counsel.  

Adding to Ms. Willis’s woes is the announcement from Congressman Jim Jordan that his House Judiciary Committee is in touch with a former employee of Ms. Willis, Amanda Timpson, who has turned whistleblower. Ms. Timpson, who is Black, sued the DA’s office in August 2022, claiming that the office was misappropriating grant funds and that her colleagues, fueled by racial animus, made fun of her hair. The district attorney calls Ms. Timpson “a holdover employee from the previous administration who was terminated for cause.”

Mr. Jordan, who has also subpoenaed documents from Ms. Willis’s office, explained at the Conservative Political Action Conference  that the “whistleblower, I think she’s like 4-foot-11, but Fani Willis had seven police escort her out when she fired this lady because this lady raised the concern that Ms. Willis was … not following the rules.”