Fani Willis’s Former Lover Could Soon Testify About Secret Romance That Doomed Criminal Case Against Trump

The former lover and handpicked prosecutor, Nathan Wade, of the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, is readying to testify under oath to Georgia lawmakers about his tenure on the legal team that prosecuted President Trump. A bespoke committee of the Georgia Senate convened to investigate Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis has issued a subpoena for Mr. Wade to testify about his tenure at the Fulton County office. The date, which was initially set for February 2, has been rescheduled multiple times, and an appearance in early March appears likely. Mr. Wade’s lawyers are willing to put their client on the stand. Ms. Willis appeared before the same committee in December, and told the lawmakers that “You all want to intimidate people from doing the right thing, and you think that you’re going to intimidate me.” Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones explains that Ms. Willis’s “story didn’t match her boyfriend’s testimony. We’ve subpoenaed Nathan Wade so we can determine who is telling the truth.”The contradictions to which Mr. Jones refers involve sworn statements the ex-lovers made about the timeline of their romance. Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade both claimed their romance wasn’t kindled until after Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade. Their claims were contradicted by evidence and witness testimony and the courts did not believe them – leading to Ms. Willis’ removal from the case. Now Georgia lawmakers are looking to prove perjury by parsing Mr. Wade’s and Ms. Willis’s separate testimonies. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testifies during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, February 15, 2024, at Atlanta. Alyssa Pointer/pool via APMs. Willis has locked horns with the committee, ignoring an earlier subpoena. That refusal has precipitated an ongoing legal feud, one not atypical of a dynamic in many Southern states ,where beet-red legislatures spar with elected, black Democratic leaders in their states’ biggest cities.When Ms. Willis finally appeared, she told lawmakers that “When I became Fulton County DA, the office was in absolute chaos. On the ground, the carpet was molded, there were holes in it, boxes in offices, some where you couldn’t open the door.” When Ms. Willis was asked if she spent too much on the case against Mr. Trump, she responded that “Whatever it cost, they tried to steal the rights of thousands of Georgians. It couldn’t have been enough.”Ms. Willis struck a defiant tone throughout that appearance, telling her inquisitors that “You want to investigate something? Investigate how many times they called me the n-word. Investigate them writing on my house, how many times my house has been swatted.” She asserted that she hired Mr. Wade, whose credentials she has called “impeccable,” because her office was “drowning” in work. Mr. Wade, who had never prosecuted a felony before, was hired by Ms. Willis to lead her criminal racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 others for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State. Mr. Wade earned some $700,000 from Fulton County taxpayers, and during his tenure he and Ms. Willis took vacations to Aruba, Belize, and Napa Valley.In 2024, Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis took the stand in front of Judge Scott McAfee, who was weighing whether to disqualify Ms. Willis from the case following the disclosure of her romantic relationship. Ms. Willis told her challengers that “You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. 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.”Ms. Willis insisted that she paid Mr. Wade back for their trips with the “work, sweat and tears of me.” She told Judge McAfee that “Mr. Wade is used to women that, as he told me one time, the only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal. I don’t need anything from a man.” Ms. Willis testified that she paid Mr. Wade back with cash. Her father testified that it was a “black thing.” Mr. Wade told the court that “Miss Willis, as am I, we’re private people. Our relationship wasn’t a secret; it was just private.” Ms. Willis testified that “That I kept something private that’s my private life is not any mystery to anyone. It’s like a woman doesn’t have the right to keep her private life private.” Both Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis deny their relationship predated his hiring. Telephone data, though, disclosed that the two exchanged thousands of calls before he came onboard.That timing could be of interest to the Georgia subcommittee. Judge McAfee declined to press the point, but he did banish Mr. Wade from the case, even as he kept on Ms. Willis. The Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified her, and appeared to conclude that the relationship predated Mr. Wade’s hiring and even that it affected Ms. Willis’s charging decisions. Mr. Wade has since said that workplace affairs are “as American as apple pie.”Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis represented that they were no longer a couple, but the two have been seen together at Los Angeles International Airport and following a roadside arrest of Ms. Willis’s daughter. Ms. Willis is separately trying to stave off an effort by Mr. Trump and her erstwhile defendants to put Fulton County taxpayers on the hook for $17 million in legal fees for her failed prosecution. Ms. Willis won reelection in November by garnering some 70 percent of the vote.

Fani Willis’s Former Lover Could Soon Testify About Secret Romance That Doomed Criminal Case Against Trump

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