Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis issued a public statement over the recent weekend for the first time after testifying in Fulton County Superior Court regarding her relationship with her special prosecutor involved in the Georgia case against former President Donald Trump.
“So when I was invited here, it was really heartwarming, because to me, this is family, because family helps you when you’re up and when you’re down,” she said. “There are things going on recently that I won’t talk about, but everybody did not embrace me during those times, and Berean has continued to embrace me.”
In the courtroom, Ms. Willis admitted to engaging in a romantic relationship with Mr. Wade, while he did the same. However, she denied financially benefiting from their relationship.
Trump co-defendant Michael Roman’s lawyers argued that the district attorney engaged in a “personal, romantic relationship” with Mr. Wade, whose law firm has been paid more than $653,000 by her office since he was hired in November 2021. Another witness, identified as a former friend of Ms. Willis, on Feb. 16 claimed that their relationship appeared to have begun in 2019, two years before she claimed it started and before his firm was hired by the district attorney’s office.
Mr. Wade confirmed that he purchased plane tickets and other items, claiming that Ms. Willis paid him back in cash. The pair also admitted to having no receipts and no record of the cash repayments, with Mr. Wade saying he only had credit card statements.
Lawyers for Mr. Roman alleged that Ms. Willis may have broken the law by hiring the special prosecutor and having him paid for vacations. They want the two prosecutors to be ultimately dismissed from the case and the charges dropped.
Ms. Willis’s father, John Floyd, claimed that the use of cash is “a black thing,” although he did not provide many concrete examples.
“I was trained—and most black folks—they hide cash, or they keep cash,” he said.
“I’ve told my daughter: ‘You keep six months’ worth of cash ... always. And as a matter of fact, I gave my daughter her first cash box and told her to always keep some cash.”
The father, who was formerly a member of the Maoist Black Panthers group that was active in the 1960s but later renounced it, said that he never met Mr. Wade until 2023. He also claimed that he and Ms. Willis received death threats after she was elected several years ago.
A Trump attorney, Steve Sadow, accused Mr. Wade of perjury on the witness stand in connection to when their relationship started.
“Mr. Wade committed perjury on the witness stand,” Mr. Sadow said in court. “A lawyer shall not knowingly fail to disclose a material fact to a tribunal, when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act.”
On Feb. 16, the state confirmed that Ms. Willis wouldn’t testify after she was scheduled to appear for another day of questioning.
The Georgia case is one of four criminal prosecutions that President Trump is facing as he closes in on securing the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the November election. The former president himself was in New York on Feb. 15 when a judge scheduled a trial on charges related to alleged hush-money payments to an adult performer to start on March 25.
President Trump has long presented the Georgia prosecution, and others he faces, as politically motivated attempts to prevent him from returning to power. He has highlighted the claims against Ms. Willis as evidence of misconduct by those pursuing him.
The former president also signed onto the disqualification effort, accusing the district attorney of improperly discussing race during a January speech in which she appeared to reference the allegations, suggesting that racism played a role. Ms. Willis, who is black, has said her remarks didn’t violate any ethical rules.
Judge Scott F. McAfee set the hearing, which is scheduled to continue on Feb. 23, to determine whether Ms. Willis’s office should be disqualified from prosecuting the election case. That would cast doubt on the future of the prosecution.
