The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is asking a Georgia prosecutor, Nathan Wade — who has admitted to having an affair with Fulton County’s district attorney, Fani Willis — to testify before his panel about the use of taxpayer funds during the investigation into and prosecution of President Trump. The judge overseeing the case against Mr. Trump has already forced the removal of Mr. Wade from the case because of the “odor of mendacity” surrounding the love affair and subsequent use of taxpayer funds. 

The Judiciary chairman, Congressman Jim Jordan, says Mr. Wade should appear before the committee to answer questions about his use of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars sent to his firm from Ms. Willis’s office after she hired him as her deputy, despite his never having prosecuted a criminal case. Mr. Jordan also wants to know about Mr. Wade’s involvement with the Select January 6 Committee and what role that relationship played in the prosecution of Mr. Trump.  

“There are serious concerns about your role in the politically motivated prosecution initiated by Ms. Willis against President Donald J. Trump,” Mr. Jordan writes to Mr. Wade. “You have reportedly ‘profit(ed) significantly’ from Ms. Willis’s prosecution, with unsealed court filings alleging that you have been paid ‘almost seven hundred thousand dollars since May of 2022 alone.’”

“The Committee understands that Ms. Willis reportedly compensated you and financed her politically motivated prosecution using a mixture of taxpayer funds, possibly including part of the $14.6 million in federal grant funds that her office received from the Department of Justice between 2020 and 2023,” the chairman continues. 

Mr. Jordan justifies his inquiry into the Fulton County DA’s office by pointing out that his committee oversees federal grant money sent to local prosecutors by the Department of Justice. He says that Mr. Wade’s testimony will play a part in the committee “considering potential legislative reforms establishing clear guidelines outlining the permissible uses of federal grant funds.”

The Judiciary Committee has been asking for information from Ms. Willis for months about her prosecution of the former president and the federal dollars she may or may not have used to initiate the investigation and trial. 

In August, Mr. Jordan launched his investigation into Ms. Willis shortly after a grand jury handed up the indictment of Mr. Trump. “Your indictment and prosecution implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether they are politically motivated,” Mr. Jordan wrote at the time. 

“The indictment seeks to criminalize under Georgia law internal deliberations within the DOJ, including a meeting where a former DOJ official requested formal authorization from his superiors to take an official act,” Mr. Jordan continued. “And in Count 1, the indictment seeks to criminalize under Georgia law the White House Chief of Staff arranging meetings and phone calls for the President.”

Just days later, Ms. Willis accused Mr. Jordan of launching an “illegal intrusion” into her prosecution of the former president. In March, the Judiciary Committee threatened to hold Ms. Willis in contempt if she failed to turn over documents related to the use of taxpayers’ funds and her professional relationship with federal prosecutors such as Special Counsel Jack Smith. 

She has yet to turn over that information, and the Judiciary Committee has not yet initiated the contempt proceedings. 

After Ms. Willis pushed back against the congressional investigation, a co-defendant of Mr. Trump made the accusation that Ms. Willis was having a secret affair with Mr. Wade and was using some of the money she paid him to fund romantic trips with her paramour to destinations such as Napa Valley for a wine tasting, and Belize. 

After days of testimony from those who knew about the affair and the trips abroad, Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Ms. Willis could remain on the case, but only if Mr. Wade stepped down, which he promptly did. 

After Judge McAfee issued his decision with regard to Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade’s conduct, Mr. Trump filed an appeal to a higher Georgia court, again asking that the district attorney be disqualified from trying the case any further. 

His comment about the “odor of mendacity” was made regarding Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade’s protestations that their romance began after he was hired as a special prosecutor. Ms. Willis’s former roommate and friend, Robin Bryant-Yeartie, testified that the romance predated Mr. Wade’s hiring.

On Wednesday, the Georgia appellate court agreed to hear Mr. Trump’s appeal, which asks that the jurists overrule Judge McAfee’s order that found Mr. Trump and his team “failed to meet their burden” even though the judge did find a “significant appearance of impropriety.”