ATLANTA: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged in a court filing on Friday having a “personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she hired for the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump but argued there are no grounds to dismiss the case or to remove her from the prosecution.
Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade in November 2021 to assist her investigation into whether the Republican ex-president and others broke any laws as they tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Since Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, Wade has led the team of lawyers Willis assembled to prosecute the case.
Among the acts listed in the indictment was a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump urged fellow Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help “find” the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have said he was within his rights to challenge election results.
The filing was the first time that Willis or Wade has directly addressed the allegations of a relationship in the nearly four weeks since they first surfaced in a filing by a defendant in the election case. In an affidavit accompanying the filing, Wade said that in 2022, he and the district attorney had developed a personal relationship in addition to their “professional association and friendship.”
But he also said that he had never lived with Willis or shared a financial account or household expenses with her. He said that none of the funds paid to him as part of the job have been shared with Willis, an attempt to undercut defense lawyer claims of a conflict of interest.
Wade described himself and Willis as “both financially independent professionals; expenses or personal travel were roughly divided equally between us.”
“At times,” Wade said, “I have made and purchased travel for District Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and purchased travel for she and I from her personal funds.”
“I have no financial interest in the outcome of the 2020 election interference case or in the conviction of any defendant,” he wrote.
The Friday filing by Willis’ team came in response to a motion filed last month by defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents Trump co-defendant Michael Roman. The motion alleged that Willis and Wade were in an inappropriate romantic relationship that created a conflict of interest. It said Willis personally profited from the case, saying she had paid Wade more than $650,000 for his work and then benefited when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations the pair took together.
Roman asked the judge to dismiss the case and to have Willis and Wade and their offices barred from further prosecuting the case. Trump and at least one other co-defendant, Georgia attorney Robert Cheeley, have filed motions to join Roman’s effort to dismiss the indictment and remove Willis from the case.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who’s presiding over the election case, has set a Feb. 15 hearing on Roman’s motion. Willis and Wade are among a dozen witnesses Merchant has subpoenaed to testify at that hearing, and Friday’s filing says the district attorney plans to ask McAfee to toss out those subpoenas.
The Friday filing asks McAfee to dismiss the motions without a hearing, saying they “have no merit.”
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, said Willis is asking the judge “to turn a blind eye to her alleged personal and financial misconduct” and says her only goal is to stop the Feb. 15 hearing. Though she admitted to the relationship, Sadow said, “she fails to provide full transparency and necessary financial details.”
Merchant filed an initial response to the prosecution filing Friday. She argued that a hearing is needed because Roman has the right to cross-examine and test the prosecution’s claims. She listed questions she would ask Wade that suggest she believes his relationship with Willis began earlier than he asserted and that the pair had lived together at certain times.
Willis’ team’s filing argues that Willis has no financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies removing her or her office from the case. The filing calls the allegations “salacious” and says they “garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain.”
Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor who’s been following the case, said this was “as strong a response as she could have made,” noting that the filing acknowledged the relationship, explained the timing and addressed the financial issues.
“I’m just left with the question of why did they not respond sooner,” he said. “As a legal matter, I think it’s done. As a political matter, it still seems a little messy.”
Trump and other critics of Willis have capitalized on allegations about the relationship between Willis and Wade, using them to try to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the case. The former president has also accused Willis — and the prosecutors in three other criminal cases against him — of engaging in political attacks as he appears poised to become the 2024 Republican nominee for president.
Willis, an elected Democrat, is up for reelection this year. The personal relationship with Wade does seem to contradict a statement she said while running to become district attorney in 2020. During an appearance on public access television, she said, “I certainly will not be choosing people to date that work under me, let me just say that.”
Roman’s motion questions Wade’s qualifications to be involved in a complex prosecution under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law.
The response from the district attorney fiercely defended Wade’s qualifications to lead the prosecution team, saying he “has long distinguished himself as an exceptionally talented litigator with significant trial experience.”
Exhibits attached to the filing include pictures of awards Wade has received over the years for his legal work. Willis also attached Facebook posts from Merchant in 2016 supporting Wade’s campaign to become a Cobb County Superior Court judge. In one post, Merchant described Wade as “ethical” and said he has “demonstrated his ability to be fair and impartial.”
During an address at a historic Black church in Atlanta about a week after Roman’s motion was filed, Willis suggested that questioning of Wade’s qualifications and her decision to hire him was rooted in racism.
In joining Roman’s motion, Trump attorney Steve Sadow had accused her of inappropriately injecting racism into the case. Willis’ filing in response says her public comments were “well within all legal and ethical rules and guidelines.”
Sadow rejected that, saying, “Apparently, the DA believes she can make public out-of-court statements about race, this case, and the defendants whenever she wants, and the Court is powerless to punish her by disqualification.”
Fani Willis acknowledges a ‘personal relationship’ with prosecutor she hired in Trump’s Georgia case
https://arab.news/bkw6c
Fani Willis acknowledges a ‘personal relationship’ with prosecutor she hired in Trump’s Georgia case
- Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade in November 2021
- A Democrat, Willis is up for reelection this year
Trump warns Maduro against playing ‘tough’ as US escalates pressure campaign on Venezuela
- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday fired back at Donald Trump, who has ordered US naval forces to blockade the South American country's oil wealth, saying the US president would be "better off" focusing on domestic issues rather than threatenin
- The Defense Department, under Trump’s orders, continues its campaign of attacks on smaller vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that it alleges are carrying drugs to the United States and beyond
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President Donald Trump on Monday delivered a new warning to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the US Coast Guard steps up efforts to interdict oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea as part of the Republican administration’s escalating pressure campaign on the government in Caracas.
Trump was surrounded by his top national security aides, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as he suggested that he remains ready to further escalate his four-month pressure campaign on the Maduro government, which began with the stated purpose of stemming the flow of illegal drugs from the South American nation but has developed into something more amorphous.
“If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’ll ever be able to play tough,” Trump said of Maduro as he took a break from his Florida holiday vacation to announce plans for the Navy to build a new, large warship.
Trump levied his latest threat as the US Coast Guard on Monday continued for a second day to chase a sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration describes as part of a “dark fleet” Venezuela is using to evade US sanctions. The tanker, according to the White House, is flying under a false flag and is under a US judicial seizure order.
“It’s moving along and we’ll end up getting it,” Trump said.
It is the third tanker pursued by the Coast Guard, which on Saturday seized a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries that US officials said was part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet.
The Coast Guard, with assistance from the Navy, seized a sanctioned tanker called Skipper on Dec. 10, also part of the shadow fleet of tankers that the US says operates on the fringes of the law to move sanctioned cargo. That ship was registered in Panama.
Trump, after that first seizure, said the US would carry out a “blockade” of Venezuela. Trump has repeatedly said that Maduro’s days in power are numbered.
Last week, Trump demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from US oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a blockade against sanctioned oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees the Coast Guard, said in a Monday appearance on “Fox & Friends” that the targeting of tankers is intended to send “a message around the world that the illegal activity that Maduro is participating in cannot stand, he needs to be gone, and that we will stand up for our people.”
Russian diplomats evacuate families from Caracas
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry started evacuating the families of diplomats from Venezuela, according to a European intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The official told The Associated Press the evacuations include women and children and began on Friday, adding that Russian Foreign Ministry officials are assessing the situation in Venezuela in “very grim tones.” The ministry said in an X posting that it was not evacuating the embassy but did not address queries about whether it was evacuating the families of diplomats.
Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil on Monday said he spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, who he said expressed Russia’s support for Venezuela against Trump’s declared blockade of sanctioned oil tankers.
“We reviewed the aggressions and flagrant violations of international law that have been committed in the Caribbean: attacks against vessels and extrajudicial executions, and the unlawful acts of piracy carried out by the United States government,” Gil said in a statement.
The scene on a Venezuelan beach near a refinery
While US forces targeted the vessels in international waters over the weekend, a tanker that’s considered part of the shadow fleet was spotted moving between Venezuelan refineries, including one about three hours west of the capital, Caracas.
The tanker remained at the refinery in El Palito through Sunday, when families went to the town’s beach to relax with children now on break from school.
Music played on loudspeakers as people swam and surfed with the tanker in the background. Families and groups of teenagers enjoyed themselves, but Manuel Salazar, who has parked cars at the beach for more than three decades, noticed differences from years past, when the country’s oil-dependent economy was in better shape and the energy industry produced at least double the current 1 million barrels per day.
“Up to nine or 10 tankers would wait out there in the bay. One would leave, another would come in,” Salazar, 68, said. “Now, look, one.”
The tanker in El Palito has been identified by Transparencia Venezuela, an independent watchdog promoting government accountability, to be part of the shadow fleet.
Area residents on Sunday recalled when tankers would sound their horns at midnight New Year’s Eve, while some would even send up fireworks to celebrate the holiday.
“Before, during vacations, they’d have barbecues; now all you see is bread with bologna,” Salazar said of Venezuelan families spending the holiday at the beach next to the refinery. “Things are expensive. Food prices keep going up and up every day.”
Venezuela’s ruling party-controlled National Assembly on Monday gave initial approval to a measure that would criminalize a broad range of activities that could be linked to the seizure of oil tankers.
Lawmaker Giuseppe Alessandrello, who introduced the bill, said people could be fined and imprisoned for up to 20 years for promoting, requesting, supporting, financing or participating in “acts of piracy, blockades or other international illegal acts against” commercial entities operating with the South American country.
The Defense Department, under Trump’s orders, continues its campaign of attacks on smaller vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that it alleges are carrying drugs to the United States and beyond.
At least 104 people have been killed in 28 known strikes since early September. The strikes have faced scrutiny from US lawmakers and human rights activists, who say the administration has offered scant evidence that its targets are indeed drug smugglers and that the fatal strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.
