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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was furious when she took the witness stand in a hearing that could see her disqualified from continuing to prosecute her case against former President Donald Trump and his codefendants.
She took the stand on Thursday and had several heated exchanges with defense attorneys that, at one time, caused Judge Scott McAfee to halt the proceedings.
The hearing, which is set to continue on Friday, came about because Trump codefendant Michael Roman alleged that Willis improperly benefitted from appointing her former lover, Nathan Wade, as a prosecutor in the case even though he had never prosecuted a RICO case before.
When asked if Wade visited the home where she was staying Willis became irate and snapped at the attorney and held documents that she said proved that the allegations were false.
“So let’s be clear ’cause you lied in this … let me tell you which one you lied in … Right here. I think you lied right here.” She said as she held the document.
The judge slammed his gavel to stop her as an unknown man started talking over her.
“No, no, no, this is the truth,” she shouted. “It is a lie! It is a lie!”
The judge then called for a five minute recess.
Testimony given on Thursday by Robin Yeartie, a former friend of Willis who worked in her office, indicated that Willis and Wade’s relationship began in 2019, and not after she appointed him as a prosecutor in the case in 2022 as Willis had said.
Legal analyst Caroline Polisi flat-out declared on Thursday that new testimony refuting Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s claims regarding her relationship with a colleague was “game over for her.”
Polisi, who frequently appears on CNN and MSNBC, did not mince words when he discussed the Fulton County DA’s terrible day.
“Don’t let the legalese fool you,” she opened. “This is epic. This is monumental. If things are going in the direction we think, Fani Willis lied to the court, and it’s game over for her. She will be disqualified. If they had a relationship before when they represented the truth to the court, it’s a huge deal. I can’t overstate.”
Polisi added further context in a statement to Mediaite, saying “Willis will be disqualified, which means her entire office is disqualified, which means the case will have to be re-assigned and languish with the PAC of Georgia, effectively killing the case. Her credibility is completely shot.”
How this will impact the election fraud case Willis filed against the former president is still unknown.
Given the apparent discovery that Willis lied under oath regarding the timing of her affair with her deputy, Nathan Wade, it could imply, at the very least, that her time as the case’s lead attorney is over.
The news for Willis has gone from bad to worse this past week after a co-defendant in her case against Trump leveled a new allegation.
In the 122-page filing submitted by Michael Roman’s attorneys, they claimed that they have a witness whose testimony challenges the denials made by Willis regarding the timeline of her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade after their relationship allegedly began following her appointment of him as a special prosecutor in the investigation concerning Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia.
In response to a motion by Roman’s attorneys filed on January 8 seeking her disqualification from the case, Willis acknowledged her relationship with Wade in a 176-page court filing.
In their filing, Roman’s attorneys named a friend of Wade who could corroborate that the relationship began before Willis assumed the role of the district attorney, contradicting claims made by Wade in an affidavit attached to Willis’s filing on February 2, wherein he asserted that the relationship did not begin before 2022.
“Willis and Wade claim they did not have a personal, romantic relationship before Willis appointed Wade as a special prosecutor, but Terrence Bradley (‘Bradley’) will refute that claim,” Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, said in the filing.
“Bradley is an attorney and a member of the Georgia Bar. Bradley and Wade were friends and business associates. Bradley has non-privileged, personal knowledge that the romantic relationship between Wade and Willis began before Willis being sworn as the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, in January 2021,” the filing continued, per the outlet.
