Fani Willis (D), the district attorney in Fulton County who is leading the state-level criminal case in Georgia against former President Donald Trump, has been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a prosecutor who’s working with her on the case.
On Monday, a former staff member of Trump’s presidential campaign accused Willis of having a “personal and romantic relationship” with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor who the DA brought on for the case.
🚨 Fani Willis accused of hiring a man she was in a romantic relationship with to prosecute Donald Trump and play a prominent role in the election interference case, bombshell court documents claimhttps://t.co/4tbMbSUmlM
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 9, 2024
According to the filing, made by Michael Roman, Willis “engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship” with Wade while the case was still pending. Since Wade received $654,000 for helping the DA’s office bring formal criminal charges against Trump, he greatly benefitted from the relationship, Roman wrote in the filing.
Roman claimed “no substantiating evidence” existed that Willis even had authorization to pay Wade the salary that she did for his work on the case.
Beyond that, Roman claims that Wade used that money to fund expensive vacations that the two went on together. This includes trips to the Caribbean, Florida and Napa Valley, as well as multiple cruises, the filing states.
“Traveling together to such places as Washington, D.C., or New York City might make sense for work purposes in light of other pending litigation, but what work purpose could only be served by travel to this (sic) traditional vacation destinations?” Roman posed in the filing.
Some critics of this filing note that Roman is a co-defendant in the case, so he is biased about Willis’ intentions. Yet, his bias wouldn’t be that much different from Willis, an elected Democrat who has gone after the former Republican leader of the nation and others in his inner circle.
While it’s unlikely that the criminal indictment against Trump is in jeopardy as a result of Roman’s claims, it’s possible that there could be a shake-up in the prosecution team.
Chris Timmons, a current contributor to ABC News who once served as a prosecutor in Georgia, said this week that Roman’s filing “might result in some disqualification of prosecutors moving forward.”
