Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’s election meddling case against Donald Trump is unraveling amid allegations she hired her lover to prosecute the former president.
It’s precisely the kind of inappropriate affair the Georgia Democrat swore she’d avoid while campaigning for office.
"I certainly will not be choosing people to date that work under me. Let me just say that," Willis said during an April 2020 appearance on the Patricia Crayton Show, months before she was elected. Willis also claimed in the interview that the public cares little when married men cheat on their wives.
"You know, we are at a place in society where things happen in people’s relationships—husband and wife sometimes there are outside relationships," Willis said. "I don’t think that’s what the community is concerned about."
Willis is allegedly "romantically involved" with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a married man with scant experience prosecuting criminal cases whom she appointed in November 2021. Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for former Trump campaign staffer Michael Roman, made the allegation in a bombshell January 8 legal filing.
Merchant said she has evidence proving that the pair cohabitate and have gone on vacations together to "Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean" paid for by the $654,000 in legal fees Wade has earned in the racketeering case against Trump and his co-defendants. Merchant alleged Willis’s conduct amounted to honest services fraud and demanded she and Wade be dismissed from the case.
Bank records released Friday show Wade spent thousands of dollars on flights to San Francisco and hotel stays in Napa Valley for himself and Willis in April 2023. He also spent $2,600 for a Royal Caribbean cruise and another $3,800 with a company that offers vacation packages in October 2022, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
It’s not clear when Willis initiated her alleged clandestine relationship with Wade.
Willis offered her thoughts on adultery in response to allegations that her predecessor, former Fulton County district attorney Paul Howard, had sexually harassed a member of his staff. Willis said it would be "very unfortunate" if Georgia taxpayers had to foot the bill for any inappropriate relationships initiated by the number one law enforcement officer in the state of Georgia.
Though a jury acquitted Howard of the charges in December, records indicate taxpayers have paid a hefty price for Willis’s alleged relationship with Wade.
The district attorney claimed Sunday while speaking at a black church in Atlanta that she paid the same hourly rate to Wade and the two other special prosecutors working the Trump racketeering case. But billing statements obtained by the Daily Caller show Willis paid her alleged lover $250 per hour, more than the $200 per hour it paid special prosecutor John Floyd, widely considered Georgia’s top racketeering expert.
Willis also said Sunday that she and her alleged paramour were being unfairly targeted because they are black. Without naming him, Willis said Wade was a "superstar," as well as a "great friend and a great lawyer."
Willis is also seeking to get out of a scheduled deposition next week in Wade’s pending divorce case with his estranged wife, Joycelyn Wade. The district attorney said in a filing Thursday that Joycelyn Wade conspired with Trump's allies to "annoy, embarrass and oppress" her, and added that any testimony she could provide would be irrelevant because the Wades’ marriage was "irretrievably broken" as early as 2017, long before she met Nathan Wade.
Wade has worked closely with Willis since 2019, when he was assigned to mentor Willis during her stint as a Fulton County municipal judge. He served in a key role in Willis’s transition team after her November 2020 election to serve as district attorney, helping her determine which employees she would keep from the previous administration.
Willis, who has not denied the allegations, did not return a request for comment.