Former President Donald Trump has rebuked Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after her public admission to having an affair with the top prosecutor on her election interference case against the former president.
Besides expressing criticism, President Trump called for the case against him to be dismissed.
When the Jan. 8 motion was filed, and it was first publicly alleged that Ms. Willis was in a romantic relationship with Mr. Wade, President Trump said that the Fulton County DA had been “totally compromised” and the case against him should be dropped.
The former president on Feb. 2 reiterated this call in a scathing reaction to Ms. Willis’ Friday court filing, in which she denied any financial benefit from her relationship with Mr. Wade and rejected calls for the case to be dismissed as unfounded.
The former president alleged that Ms. Willis had exploited the fact that the case targets
“By going after the most high-level person, and the Republican Nominee, she was able to get her ‘lover’ much more money, almost a Million Dollars, than she would be able to get for the prosecution of any other person or individual,” President Trump continued in his post. “THAT MEANS THAT THIS SCAM IS TOTALLY DISCREDITED & OVER!”
Serious Scrutiny
Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney representing Michael Roman, one of the co-defendants in the case, alleges misconduct on the part of Ms. Willis in the Jan. 8 filing.Besides alleging that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were engaged in an “improper” relationship, Ms. Merchant also accused Ms. Willis of having used funds meant for clearing a pandemic-era backlog of cases in Fulton County to pay Mr. Wade a large sum of money.
In response to Mr. Merchant’s allegations of misconduct and broader calls for the case to be dismissed and for Ms. Willis to be disqualified, the Fulton County DA alleged in the Feb. 2 filing that the legal basis to force her off the case fell “woefully short of that which would meet the applicable standards.”
Ms. Willis alleged that the point of all the attention on her relationship with Mr. Wade was to generate “more breathless media coverage” and to “intrude even further into the personal lives of the prosecution team in an effort to embarrass and harass” her personally.
“This is not an example of zealous advocacy, nor is it a good faith effort to develop a record on a disputed legal issue—it is a ticket to the circus,” Ms. Willis wrote.
Further, she argued that there is no evidence to establish an actual conflict of interest pursuant to her personal relationship with Mr. Wade while denying any proof that she or he acted out of any financial motivation.
“The record before the Court falls far short of requiring disqualification or dismissal of the indictment,” Ms. Willis argued while calling for Mr. Merchant’s motion to be denied.
Unlike the impeachment resolution and the special investigative committee that both target Ms. Willis directly, the Georgia House bill is a more general measure that lays out grounds for discipline or removal of wayward prosecutors.
