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Oh my. However much popcorn you prepared for passing during the February 15 hearing in Fulton County, double it. Late last night, the defense attorney in the RICO case of Georgia v Donald Trump et al that forced the hearing over misconduct allegations dropped another bombshell.
In her new filing, Ashleigh Merchant alleges that Fani Willis lied about the start of their romantic relationship. Willis told the court in her response a week ago that she and Nathan Wade did not start dating until after Willis hired Wade as a contract prosecutor. Merchant told the court that she has at least one witness who will testify otherwise — and that Willis’ claim isn’t even close to the truth:
The defense lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, said that a witness she hoped to put on the stand could testify that the romantic relationship between Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and the special prosecutor managing the Trump case, Nathan J. Wade, had begun before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade.
That would contradict Mr. Wade, who said in a recent affidavit that his relationship with Ms. Willis had not begun until 2022, after his hiring. The affidavit was attached to a court filing made by Ms. Willis.
Ms. Merchant identified the witness as Terrence Bradley, a lawyer who once worked in Mr. Wade’s law firm and for a time served as Mr. Wade’s divorce lawyer. “Bradley has non-privileged, personal knowledge that the romantic relationship between Wade and Willis began prior to Willis being sworn as the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia in 2021,” Ms. Merchant’s filing, which came late Friday afternoon, states.
The part about the information being «non-privileged» seems pretty important. If Bradley only discovered that during his legal work for Wade on his divorce from Jocelyn Wade, then Bradley couldn’t divulge it even in court (and no judge would countenance it either). Merchant’s filing suggests that the romance between Willis and Wade was commonly known at least in Wade’s offices, and perhaps in Willis’ as well. Merchant served subpoenas on people in both offices and may have other witnesses who will be forced to testify to their own knowledge of the start of the relationship.
Why does this matter? First off, if Willis lied about it in her filing, the court won’t just throw her off the case; they’ll refer her to the Georgia State Bar for committing perjury, at the least, which could result in disbarment. It’s also substantive to Merchant’s claim of a conflict of interest and that Willis receives financial benefits for pursuing the prosecution, and hired Wade to ensure it. That’s why Willis insisted that the romantic/sexual relationship started after the decision to hire Wade, to parry that accusation by making it appear incidental to the prosecution itself.
If Willis lied about the start of the relationship — and indeed, if it started before Willis even took office, let alone before hiring Wade to run the RICO case — it would explain why Wade suddenly rushed to settle his divorce case eleven days ago. Remember that Jocelyn Wade had subpoenaed Willis to testify and that Wade would have had no choice but to get questioned by Jocelyn’s attorney.
