Drama in hearing to remove Willis from Trump Georgia case

Testimony includes details of affair, accusations of ‘lies’

ATLANTA − There were fireworks and bombshells galore Thursday during the marathon hearing on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump and 14 others due to the romantic affair she had with the special prosecutor she hired for the case.

After fighting for weeks to quash a subpoena requiring her to testify, Willis dramatically barged into the courtroom midafternoon after watching the hearing on TV, she said, to set the record straight about her relationship with her top prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade.

“It’s highly offensive when someone lies on you,” Willis said angrily.

In two hours of testimony, Willis denied the crux of the allegations lodged by defense lawyer Ashleigh Merchant in a Jan. 8 court motion seeking to have her, Wade and the entire DA’s office thrown off the case and the prosecution dismissed outright.

Willis said she wanted to put an end to “the lies” put forth by Merchant about the timing and details of her affair with Wade, the little-known private lawyer she hired to oversee the sprawling case in November 2021.

“You’ve been intrusive in people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” Willis told Merchant, gesturing to the defense table, in response to her persistent questioning. “I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

Wade himself took the stand hours earlier to answer questions about his affair with Willis from lawyers for Trump and other defendants charged with trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election results that saw Trump losing to Democrat Joe Biden.

Before that, another key eyewitness − Robin Yeartie, a former Willis friend and DA’s office employee − gave bombshell testimony that the romantic affair between Willis and Wade actually began years earlier than both of them said it did in recent sworn affidavits.

If that is true, efforts to force Willis, Wade and potentially the entire DA’s office to be disqualified from the case gained significant traction because it would mean that their affair was already underway when Willis hired Wade in November 2021.

Willis denies wrongdoing in her affair

Willis denied that she began her affair with the married Wade before hiring him. She said she and Wade began dating about the time of a trip to Tennessee in April 2022, a belated birthday trip for him. In a recent court filing, both she and Wade said the affair began after she hired him on the case in November 2021.

“It’s not like when you’re in grade school and you send a little letter and it says, ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ and you check it,” Willis said. But, she added, “I don’t know the day we started seeing each other but it was early 2022,” or well after she hired Wade.

She said her romantic relationship ended in the summer of 2023, especially after the two had a “hard conversation” that August.

In her testimony, Yeartie testified that Willis told her about her romance with Wade shortly after the two met at a judicial conference in 2019, and continued until she and Willis had a falling out several years later. Yeartie also testified under oath that she personally saw the two “hugging, kissing” and expressing affection.

‘We’re private people,’ Nathan Wade testifies

Wade said that Willis paid him many thousands of dollars in cash as reimbursement for romantic trips they took together that he put on his credit card. But he said repeatedly that he kept no records of ATM deposits or anything else to corroborate that.

The question is central to defense lawyers’ allegations that Wade spent some of the more than $650,000 he has been paid by Fulton County for the Trump case on trips with Willis, thereby providing her with an improper financial benefit that could result in her disqualification.

“I’ve never purchased a gift for Ms. Willis,” Wade testified, saying they shared expenses when traveling together. Wade said he would often book the flights and hotels, and Willis would reimburse him for her share in cash, he said.

“She’s a very independent woman so she’s going to insist she carries her own weight,” Wade said of Willis. “She is going to pay her own way.”

Wade noted that he submitted documents in his divorce case twice in 2021 and updated in May 2023 stating he had no receipts – “none” – for spending on travel, hotels and restaurants with women. Wade explained that he has statements from his credit card company, but not receipts.

Willis herself said she routinely keeps thousands of dollars in cash on hand and that she doesn’t have a way of demonstrating that she reimbursed Wade. Both Willis and Wade said in recent affidavits that they split the cost of the trips and that neither of them received any improper financial benefit from it.

Wade showed a flash of indignation when pressed on why he and Willis wanted to keep their personal relationship a secret even as they have both insisted there was nothing wrong with it.

He said that he and Willis weren’t trying to conceal their romantic relationship, although he didn’t discuss it with others. “We’re private people,” he said. “Our relationship wasn’t a secret. It was private,” he said.

After some especially aggressive questioning by Sadow, Wade retorted, “There is nothing secret or salacious about having a private life. Nothing.”

Evidentiary hearings in McAfee’s courtroom are scheduled to continue Friday.