Fulton DA's office remains silent as judge sets hearing on Willis allegations
DA must respond to allegations by Feb. 2, judge says
The judge in the Fulton County election racketeering case has set a February hearing to examine allegations of impropriety against District Attorney Fani Willis as her office continues to remain largely silent on the matter.
The hearing is scheduled for February 15, and Judge Scott McAfee is giving the DA’s office until February 2 to respond to the accusations.
A pre-trial motion filed earlier this month by attorneys for co-defendant Michael Roman said Willis hired Nathan Wade, a private attorney from Cobb County and her alleged romantic partner, to help prosecute a case and that Wade has been using his DA-approved salary to pay for extravagant trips with Willis. Roman is asking the judge to dismiss the case and bar the DA’s office from continuing to prosecute it.
But the usually media-savvy Willis has yet to directly address the allegations, allowing criticism from Republican state leaders and conspiracy theories from former President Donald Trump and his allies to fill the air.
Her office said that they would respond to Roman’s motion “through appropriate court filings.” They have yet to take such action. The DA has not addressed reporters since the allegations surfaced, and she is seeking to quash a subpoena to testify in Wade’s divorce proceedings.
Several media organizations are now seeking the release of Wade’s divorce filings.
Willis hinted at the entire situation during her Martin Luther King, Jr. Day speech at an Atlanta church last weekend — without ever invoking Wade by name or the allegations themselves. She seemed to defend Wade’s hiring and suggested that he is being targeted because he is a Black man.
“The Black man I chose has been a judge more than 10 years, run a private practice more than 20, represented businesses in civil litigation,” she said, referring to Wade.
“How come, God, the same Black man I hired was acceptable when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate?” she asked, referring to his previous work with the Cobb County sheriff’s office. “Why is the white male Republican’s judgment good enough, but the Black female Democrats’ not?”
Her office’s lack of a direct response has created a vacuum that has been filled by some of the harshest Republican critics of the case. Far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, filed a criminal complaint with the state attorney general’s office requesting an investigation into Willis and Wade.
The case’s main defendant, who has been making several attempts to delay or dismiss the case to no avail, quickly pounced on the allegations. “You saw Fani Willis gave her boyfriend a million bucks to go get Trump, right,” the Republican presidential frontrunner incorrectly claimed of Wade’s salary. “She’s been exposed, I can’t imagine they can continue on with that case.”
Trump previously accused Willis of being in a relationship with a defendant in the YSL gang trial, but those claims were debunked and quickly fizzled out.
Republican state leaders, who had jumped to Willis’ defense last year after some of their own members called for a special session to oust her, are now striking a more critical tone. House Speaker Jon Burns called the allegations “extremely troubling” and is vowing to again pass a law aimed at expanding state oversight on local prosecutors.
Gov. Brian Kemp, a key witness in the case, also says he was troubled by the allegations. “Evidence should be presented quickly in order for Judge McAfee to rule and the public to have confidence in this trial moving forward,” he said.
There is no clear consensus within the legal community about how this could all impact the case, but many tend to agree that it could damage the public’s trust in the trial going forward.