AP Photo/John Bazemore, File; Elijah Nouvelage/The Washington Post via AP, Pool
- An ex-friend of Fulton County DA Fani Willis testified about Willis and Nathan Wade's relationship.
- She testified that Willis began dating Wade in 2019, contradicting what Wade said in an affidavit.
- Willis appointed Wade to lead the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump in 2021.
A longtime friend of the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney prosecuting former President Donald Trump and his allies over 2020 election interference testified on Thursday that the DA and the special prosecutor she assigned to the case began dating in 2019 —while he was married.
The testimony contradicts what the lead lawyer, Nathan Wade, said in an affidavit earlier this month. The salacious details of the alleged affair between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Wade have temporarily upstaged the charges against Trump and his co-defendants.
Willis and Wade started their romantic relationship in the fall of 2019 shortly after the pair met at a judicial conference, Willis' one-time "good" friend Robin Yeartie testified during an evidentiary hearing in Fulton County Superior Court.
Yeartie, who said she previously worked in the DA's office and once let Willis rent her condo, told the court that she had "no doubt" in her mind that from 2019 to the last time she spoke with Willis in March of 2022 that Willis and Wade were in a romantic relationship.
Additionally, Yeartie testified that she saw Willis and Wade kissing before Willis appointed Wade in November 2021 to lead the probe into Trump and 18 of his allies' efforts to overturn Trump's Georgia loss during the 2020 presidential election.
Yeartie, who testified that she became friends with Willis in college in either 1991 or 1990, said she resigned from her post at Willis' office in March 2022, and that they have not spoken since.
Thursday's hearing — which could result in the removal of Willis from the election interference case and derail it — comes after an attorney for one of the co-defendants in the case filed a motion alleging that Willis had an "improper" romantic relationship with Wade.
The motion that brought it on, filed by Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for former Trump campaign staffer Michael Roman, called for Willis to be disqualified and the charges dropped.
Roman's lawyer accused Willis of benefiting financially from hiring Wade because he paid for them to take extravagant vacations. But Wade has said they've shared all travel costs.
Attorneys for Trump, along with his co-defendant, lawyer Robert Cheeley, have also joined in on the motion filed by Merchant and were in the courtroom Thursday.
Dozens of reporters, local and national, also squeezed into the downtown Atlanta courtroom.
Pool/Getty Images
Nathan Wade said his marriage was broken since 2015
Earlier this month, Willis admitted in a court filing to having a relationship with Wade, with her attorney arguing that the efforts to disqualify her have "no merit" and "should be summarily denied without an evidentiary hearing."
An affidavit from Wade was included in the court filing in which he also admitted to having a relationship with Willis, but he claimed that there was not a "personal relationship" between them before he was appointed as a special prosecutor in the election case.
Willis appointed Wade to the case on November 1, 2021 — one day before he filed for divorce from his wife.
"While professional associates and friends since 2019, there was no personal relationship between District Attorney Willis and me prior to or at the time of my appointment as special prosecutor in 2021," Wade said, according to the filing.
"In 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship," said Wade, according to the court documents.
Wade was called to testify in Thursday's hearing where he stuck to the same story while under questioning from Merchant.
Wade, wearing a grey suit and blue pocket square, testified that his relationship with Willis began in around March of 2022.
He also testified that in 2015 his marriage was "broken," but that he and his wife stayed together because his children were still in school.
Since being hired as a special prosecutor by Willis, Wade has made at least $653,880 from the district attorney's office for his work overseeing one of the most high-profile criminal cases in US history — and in both of their careers.
He testified Thursday that the money he made from Fulton County in 2022, over $300,000, was split among the three partners in his law firm, and after that expenses were deducted.
Wade testified that for any trips he and Willis have taken, Willis paid her share.
"She's a very independent, proud woman, so she's going to insist that she carries her own weight," Wade told the court of Willis. "It was actually a point of contention between us — she's going to carry her own weight."
Legal experts have largely agreed that it will be a long shot for Roman's attorneys to prove that the relationship establishes a true conflict of interest in the Georgia election interference criminal case, but that it's not a good look for either Willis or Wade.
It could even be a potential ethics violation for Willis, legal experts have said.