Ga. prosecutor denies improper relationship

A case charging former President Donald Trump and his allies with trying to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia took a detour Thursday into the details of the prosecutors’ romantic and financial lives — their sleeping arrangements, vacations and private bank accounts — in an unusual and highly contentious hearing.

Lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants have argued the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, and the special prosecutor she hired to manage the case, Nathan Wade, should be disqualified from the case because their romantic and financial entanglements had created a conflict of interest. Willis and Wade forcefully rejected those accusations in testimony Thursday, with Willis accusing defense lawyers of spreading “lies.”

“You think I’m on trial,” Willis told Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official who is a co-defendant in the case. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

At the hearing in Fulton County Superior Court, the prosecutors were grilled by the defense lawyers about the trips they took together, their breakup and who paid for meals and hotels.

Willis took the stand after a former friend testified Willis and Wade began a romantic relationship in 2019, before Willis hired him in November 2021. The timeline could be pivotal. If the defense can establish Willis and Wade began a romance before he was hired, it would help the argument they should be disqualified from the case.

The defense is arguing Willis had hired Wade because they would both benefit financially. Wade has been paid more than $650,000 since being hired, and defense lawyers say he charged thousands of dollars to his credit cards for vacations with Willis. The hearing will continue Friday.