Trump Georgia prosecutor hits back at misconduct claims during hearing

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The Georgia district attorney who indicted Donald Trump fought back against accusations of misconduct related to her relationship with an outside attorney hired by her office during a dramatic hearing that could have significant ramifications for the case.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who indicted the former president over seeking to overturn the 2020 election, took the stand on Thursday in a courtroom in Georgia, where lawyers for Trump and some of his co-defendants are seeking to disqualify her from the case.

In often-heated exchanges, Willis denied accusations of conflicts of interest and defrauding the public in connection with her relationship with Nathan Wade, a special counsel she hired to work on the criminal case. 

During her testimony, Willis accused Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants, of having “interests contrary to democracy”.

“These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” Willis told Merchant. “I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.” She also accused Merchant of lying in filings. “You’ve lied . . . right here, I think you lied right here,” Willis said, holding up court documents.

The hearing has added fuel to a controversy that threatens to overshadow the Georgia case, one of four criminal indictments brought against Trump. If the motion to disqualify Willis is granted, it could significantly delay or derail proceedings in the sprawling case.

Already, the former president and others have seized upon it to cast doubts on the case, which they have described as politically motivated. It has also drawn scrutiny from Republican lawmakers in Congress and Georgia’s state legislature.

Willis last summer obtained a 98-page indictment alleging the ex-president and 18 others interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Then, last month, Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official, filed a motion seeking to dismiss the case and disqualify Willis, claiming Wade had used parts of his Fulton County salary to pay for vacations while they were dating.

The motion, which has been backed by Trump and other co-defendants, cited Wade’s divorce proceedings with his estranged wife. Credit card statements filed in that case showed he had bought plane tickets in his and Willis’s name.

Willis and Wade, who also testified on Thursday, said their relationship began in 2022 and ended last year. He was hired by the Fulton County district attorney’s office in November 2021.

Earlier in the hearing, an estranged friend of Willis’s and former employee of the district attorney’s office said the relationship had started in 2019, which Willis denied. Referring to a conference where she first met Wade in 2019, Willis told Merchant: “I think in one of your motions you tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find to be extremely offensive.”

The hearing at times delved into intimate details of the relationship between Willis and Wade, including trips they took to locations including California, Belize and Aruba. Willis and Wade respectively said that in those cases where he paid for the pair upfront, she often paid him back in cash. 

“I didn’t take gifts from him,” Willis said. “I don’t need anybody to foot my bills.”

“You know that public funds are scrutinised . . . you understand you are under a microscope,” Merchant told Willis as she asked whether she had physical records of cash payments made to Wade. For the most part, there is no written record of these payments, Willis said.

Wade, who is also a partner at a law firm, pushed back against allegations that trips were paid with public funds. “To say that I’m paying a credit card statement with funds coming from Fulton County or the state of Georgia would not be an accurate statement because the funds could have very well come from my private practice,” he told the court.

Willis’s testimony will continue on Friday.

Trump, the frontunner to clinch the Republican nomination to run as president later this year, was not present at the hearing on Thursday, opting instead to travel to Manhattan, where a judge there denied his motion to dismiss a separate criminal indictment alleging he falsified business records to conceal “hush money” payments to a porn star with whom he allegedly had an affair. A trial in the Manhattan case is set to begin on March 25.