Fani Willis wraps testimony in disqualification hearing

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has completed her testimony in a fiery hearing over whether she and her office should be disqualified from prosecuting the 2020 election interference case involving former President Trump in Georgia.

Prosecutors with the district attorney’s office said Friday morning they would not question Willis further over her relationship with a top prosecutor on the case, allowing her defiant testimony Thursday, elicited by the defense, to speak for itself.

For more than two hours on the witness stand, Willis defended her reputation and relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade in a sometimes tempestuous direct examination.

Defense attorneys contend Willis and Wade’s recent romance renders the sweeping racketeering indictment against Trump and his allies “fatally defective,” alleging the district attorney hired her romantic partner and has since financially benefited from his employment.

The push to kick Willis off the case was led by defendant Michael Roman, a 2020 Trump campaign operative, but has since been joined by Trump and other defendants.

Willis forcefully pushed back on the claims, starting her testimony by describing the disqualification motion filed by Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, as “dishonest” and accusing Merchant of spreading “lies.”

She accused the defense of intruding in her personal life and reminded them she’s not on trial — their clients are.

“These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” Willis said at one point, waving out at the crowd. “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

Willis and Wade, who testified earlier Thursday, remained firm that their relationship did not begin until early 2022 and said it ended in summer 2023. The prosecutors both said they met at a 2019 judicial conference and bonded as jurists of color, but shared a mentor-like relationship at the time, not a romantic one.

However, an ex-longtime friend of Willis’s contradicted their testimony. Robin Yeartie, who met Willis in college, said she had “no doubt” the prosecutors began seeing each other romantically in 2019, after the conference.

Defense attorneys also questioned how Willis and Wade paid for vacations they took as a couple, intimating that Wade’s income from the district attorney’s office funded their trips.

Both Willis and Wade testified that they split the costs, with Willis — an “independent, proud woman” who insisted on paying her own way, according to Wade — paying the special prosecutor back in cash. A defense attorney in the gallery suggested the prosecutors’ cash system didn’t “pass the smell test,” despite Willis’s own testimony she has kept a cash stash in her house “all my life.”

At a hearing Monday, Judge Scott McAfee said the allegations against Willis and Wade “could result” in their barring from the case. It’s “clear” disqualification can occur if evidence shows an “actual conflict of interest or the appearance of one,” he said.