Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Monday was accused in a court motion of hiring a romantic partner to work on former President Donald Trump’s election subversion case in Georgia.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the story about a motion filed on behalf of Michael Roman, former Trump campaign official. Roman was charged last year with seven felony counts in Fulton, accusing him of participating in a false-electors scheme in efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The motion filed on his behalf seeks to have charges against him dismissed and for Willis and members of her staff be disqualified from the case.
According to the filing, Nathan Wade, hired as a special prosecutor in Fulton County, took vacations with Willis using money he was paid for working on the Trump case. The motion further claims Willis and Wade “have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case …”
Newsweek reached out to Willis’ office via email on Monday night for comment. The Journal-Constitution quoted a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office as saying there will be a response to Roman’s allegations “through appropriate court filings.”
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The motion offers no evidence of an “ongoing, personal relationship” between Willis and Wade. It also gives no proof of vacations the two took together, including a Caribbean cruise.
“The instant Motion is not filed lightly,” Ashleigh B. Merchant, attorney for Roman, wrote in the filing. “Nor is it being filed without considerable forethought, research or investigation.
“Nonetheless, this Motion must be heard, as the issues raised herein strike at the heart of fairness in our justice system and, if left unaddressed and unchecked, threaten to taint the entire prosecution, invite error, and completely undermine public confidence in the eventual outcome of this proceeding.”
The Journal-Constitution wrote that Wade, whose compensation was authorized by Willis’ office, “has been paid nearly $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022.”
Roman, among the original 18 co-defendants charged alongside Trump in Willis’ 2020 election-racketeering case, has pleaded not guilty.
The New York Times has previously described Roman as doing “much of the legwork” in finding ways to challenge Trump’s losses in the key battleground states of the 2020 presidential election. Roman is also considered a major part of the plot to send fake electoral officials to falsely declare that Trump had won in states such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan.
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