Get a load of Fani

I don’t know if it has a legal bearing on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s mammoth prosecution of President Trump and others, but the lady seems to have had a romantic relationship with the attorney whom she appointed a special prosecutor to lead the prosecution,. His name is Nathan Wade and it is alleged that Willis’s relationship with him compromised the fairness of the prosecution. Among the items collected in The Week, National Review editors summarize the pertinent facts:

The Georgia prosecution of Trump and 18 others is mired in scandal. One defendant alleges that District Attorney Fani Willis asked Fulton County for funding to address a Covid-era backlog of cases, then diverted nearly $1 million to hire private lawyer Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor on the case. The further allegation is that Willis has been romantically involved with the married Wade and benefited from the fees she paid him as the two jetted to or cruised in Napa Valley, Florida, and the Caribbean. Wade is an experienced attorney but has never tried a felony case, much less a complex RICO prosecution. There are questions about whether Wade filed required oaths of office with the court; meanwhile, Willis has been subpoenaed in the divorce case brought by Wade’s wife (from which some of the defendant’s allegations were mined before the file was mysteriously sealed). The defendant is seeking dismissal of the indictment and disqualification of Willis and Wade. In her first public comments on the allegations, Willis admitted that she is “flawed” but cried racism.

Willis’s pulling of the race card in church this past Sunday must be the functional equivalent of a confession to the relevant facts. Anyone with half a brain can see that. The linked New York Post column by Adam Coleman is a gem.

To the extent she raised an argument in her church sermon, Willis alleged that she has appointed three special prosecutors and yet they’re only picking on one — the black one. Yet he’s the only one with whom she is alleged to have had the romantic relationship. So what if he’s black?

Willis has now moved to quash the subpoena seeking her testimony in Wade’s divorce case. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution includes Willis’s motion at the bottom of its story on it. Professor Jonathan Turley comments on the motion here (and previously commented on the underlying legal issues bearing on the prosecution here).

As NR editors observe in the note above, the records in Wade’s divorce proceeding are sealed. Willis accordingly premises much of her argument “on information and belief” from which she draws her own inferences.

Willis argues that both parties to Wade’s divorce proceeding agree that their marriage has irretrievably broken down (and fault is not at issue). Indeed, both parties agree that the marriage had broken down “prior to Plaintiff Nathan J. Wade ever meeting Non-Party Deponent Willis” (Willis’s motion at page 6). Thus testimony regarding Willis’s relationship with Wade, if that is what is sought in Willis’s deposition, would be irrelevant to the divorce proceeding.

Professor Turley wonders at the blizzard of bad-faith accusations that accompanies Willis’s argument regarding relevance and leaves it at that. However, one might also infer that the accusations constitute the equivalent of the race card Willis played in church this past Sunday and that the allegations regarding Willis’s relationship with Wade are as alleged.

The AJC story observes: “Willis so far has not addressed [defendant Trump campaign official Michael] Roman’s underlying allegations, including if she inappropriately benefitted financially from him working on the Trump case.” Mrs. Wade’s attorney is quoted in the AJC story: “Ms. Willis alleges that her deposition is being sought in an attempt to harass and damage her reputation. Why would her truthful testimony risk damaging her reputation?” It ain’t necessarily so, as the song goes, but the inference fits in the larger picture, or so I say on information and belief.