The clash is escalating between the district attorney of Georgia’s Fulton County, Fani Willis, and Republicans lawmakers — even as she was spotted traveling with her former deputy prosecutor with whom she conducted a secret romance. 

Georgia state senators, in a new filing, are demanding that a judge enforce their subpoena of Ms. Willis. They are investigating the district attorney for potential misconduct with respect to her handling of the racketeering case against President Trump and 18 others. The Georgia court of appeals disqualified her from the case on account of her amorous relationship with the deputy prosecutor, Nathan Wade.

The solons ask Fulton County court to “order” Ms. Willis to “comply with the Witness Subpoena at a time and date designated by the Special Committee” that is spearheading the investigation. The senators argue that because Ms. Willis did not “seek any attorney-client, work-product, or other privileged communications in connection with” the subpoena, there is no legal bar to her testimony. Ms. Willis has, in a separate suit, been ordered to pay $54,000 for violating Georgia’s open records law.

Ms. Willis claims that any communications between her and Mr. Wade are protected by attorney-client privilege. Courts have held that this “is one of the oldest privileges for confidential communications known to the common law.” The senators contend that she is “simply mistaken” that the privilege protects her correspondence with Mr. Wade, whom her office paid more than $650,000 despite him never having prosecuted a felony before he got the job.

The Georgia senate is seeking information relating to the “personal” correspondence between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade, as well as any documents germane to the process by which he was hired. Last month another district judge, Shukura Ingram, denounced as “absurd” Ms. Willis’s arguments for quashing the subpoena and asserted that it would result in “lost evidence, fading memories, and general inefficiency.” Judge Ingram concluded that she could not in “good conscience” find for Ms. Willis.

Even as Ms. Willis is trying to stonewall information related to her interactions with Mr. Wade, video obtained by the Daily Mail on Monday shows the pair, dressed in casual attire, lugging suitcases around LAX’s Terminal Three, and dining at a restaurant called Slapsfish, which describes itself as a “modern seafood shack” and whose menu includes the “Ultimate Fish Taco” and an “Epic Shrimp Burrito.” The terminal is primarily used for domestic flights.

The images of Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade recall the trips that the two took together to destinations like Belize, Aruba, and Napa Valley while Mr. Wade was employed by the district attorney’s office. Mr. Wade paid for those vacations with his credit card, and Ms. Willis testified that she paid him back with cash stored at home, a practice her father referred to under oath as a “Black thing.” 

This is not the first time that Ms. Willis has been seen with Mr. Wade after the election interference case was upended by the disclosure of their affair. In August, police body camera footage showed them together when Ms. Willis’s daughter, Kinay, was arrested by the side of the road for allegedly driving with a suspended license. Mr. Wade has said on television that workplace romances are “as American as apple pie.” 

As common as such affairs may be, the Georgia court of appeals determined that this was “the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.” The appellate court did not credit Ms. Willis’s testimony, under oath, that the two only began dating after he was hired.

The appellate court found that the affair generated “the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.” The court, though, did not dismiss the charges brought by Ms. Willis, reckoning that such a step would be “extreme.” The vote to disqualify Ms. Willis was two to one. The dissenter, Benjamin Land, worried: “It is not our job to second-guess trial judges or to substitute our judgment for theirs.”

The trial judge in this case, Scott McAfee, determined that Ms. Willis’s behavior emitted an “odor of mendacity,” amounted to a “significant appearance of impropriety,” and was “legally improper.” His prescription, though, was for either Ms. Willis or Mr. Wade to depart the case. The special prosecutor fell on his sword, which allowed Ms. Willis to continue until the court of appeals overruled Judge McAfee. 

Ms. Willis has appealed her disqualification to the Georgia supreme court. That body, like the United States Supreme Court, possesses the power of discretionary appeal, meaning it is are not obligated to hear the case. If the judges do not grant it certiorari, an independent prosecutor with discretion to drop the charges — or press on — will be appointed.