Trump plans to attend Georgia hearing on misconduct allegations against prosecutors – The Washington Post
ATLANTA — Former president Donald Trump plans to attend a Thursday hearing in Atlanta on allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) engaged in an improper personal relationship with the lead prosecutor on the election interference case, according to two individuals with knowledge of the possible trip.
Trump has a scheduled appearance in New York the same day for a pretrial conference in a case that’s slated to go to trial on March 25. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.
If he instead travels to Atlanta, it will be his first court appearance in the sprawling racketeering case since a grand jury indicted him and 18 others in August. They are accused of criminally conspiring to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. At least one of those defendants, former Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer, is also expected to attend. If more do the same, Thursday could provide an early glimpse of what a multi-defendant trial could look like.
If Trump attends Thursday’s hearing, he would be able to watch as Willis’s personal life and professional integrity are scrutinized and questioned. His appearance would likely draw even more attention and perhaps chaos to the already highly anticipated hearing. Courtrooms have in many ways become campaign stops for Trump as he runs for the Republican presidential nomination while facing 91 felony charges across four cases. By casting these charges as political persecution and attacking the prosecutors and judges involved, Trump has galvanized Republican support for his candidacy.
The former president spent part of Monday at a closed-door hearing in Florida for another one of his criminal cases — on federal charges that he improperly withheld classified documents and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. At that hearing, Judge Aileen Cannon met separately with prosecutors and Trump and his attorneys to determine what additional classified materials should be released to Trump as part of discovery.
In Georgia, it’s unclear if the Fulton County Courthouse is prepared for a visit from the former president. A spokeswoman for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the building’s security, said she was unaware of Trump’s plans. The two individuals who said Trump hopes to travel to Atlanta spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss it.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case, ruled Monday that the hearing would continue over Willis’s objections because an actual conflict or appearance of one is grounds for disqualifying Willis from the case. However, McAfee said he would not entertain testimony at the hearing related to prosecutor Nathan Wade’s alleged lack of qualifications for his job, noting that it is at the discretion of the district attorney to hire anyone with “a heartbeat and a bar card.”
McAfee said the hearing would focus on whether Willis benefited financially from hiring Wade, when their romantic relationship began and whether it continues.
“I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” McAfee said, noting that Willis’s admission of a relationship is already on record.
At the end of the hearing, Trump’s lawyer, Steve Sadow, asked for a private meeting with McAfee. He, his co-counsel Jennifer Little and McAfee disappeared into the judge’s chambers. Soon after, news of Trump’s plans emerged.
McAfee’s decision comes more than a month after Mike Roman, one of the former president’s co-defendants who worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign, claimed in a court filing that Willis and Wade had been involved in an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” that has financially benefited them both.
Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, claimed Willis may have broken the law by hiring Wade and then allowing him to pay for “vacations across the world” with her that were unrelated to their work on the case. Roman’s filing, which offered no proof to substantiate the sensational claims, called for the prosecutors to be disqualified and for the charges against him to be dismissed.
In a Feb. 2 filing, Willis acknowledged a personal relationship with Wade but denied it had tainted the proceedings. Willis’s filing included a sworn affidavit from Wade, who said there was “no personal relationship” between him and Willis “prior to or at the time” he was appointed to the case in November 2021. The filing did not say whether that personal relationship is ongoing.
McAfee also ruled against Willis and several others who sought to quash the testimony of several witnesses subpoenaed to appear Thursday — including Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former law partner who Merchant said will testify that Wade lied in his affidavit and that he and Willis were indeed dating before his hiring.
Merchant told McAfee on Monday that most of the individuals she subpoenaed have personal knowledge of the Willis-Wade romance, and that if they claim otherwise, Bradley will testify that he heard them discuss it directly.
One of the other prosecutors on the case, Anna Cross, retorted: “I will be shocked if Ms. Merchant is able to support that statement. I don’t believe that’s true.”
Cross said none of those subpoenaed to testify on Thursday have knowledge or facts that should be considered in the case.
“The defense is not bringing you facts,” she said. “The defense is not bringing you law. The defense is bringing you gossip. And the state cannot and the court should not condone that practice.”
Cross said she will call her own witnesses Thursday to rebut some of Merchant’s allegations — including one that Wade and Willis “cohabitated” at a rental property in South Fulton County and that Wade moved out only when Willis’s elderly dad moved in. Cross said Willis’s dad has lived with her full-time since long before she and Wade even met, and he will testify to that on Thursday.
Other lawyers representing potential witnesses argued that Merchant was on a “fishing expedition” and did not actually have reason to know what she was alleging.
The allegations against Wade and Willis have been underpinned by a bitter divorce battle between Wade and his estranged wife. Bank records made public as part of Wade’s divorce proceedings show Wade purchased plane tickets for himself and Willis on two occasions — a trip to Aruba purchased in October 2022 on American Airlines, and a second trip purchased in April 2023 to San Francisco on Delta Air Lines.
Wade said in his affidavit that he and Willis had “roughly” split travel expenses. An attached exhibit included receipts for airline tickets for a trip to Miami in December 2022 that Willis bought for herself and Wade. He insisted that Willis had not benefited from his salary as a special prosecutor.
“No funds paid to me in compensation for my role as Special Prosecutor have been shared with or provided to District Attorney Willis,” Wade said in the affidavit. “The District Attorney received no funds or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor.”
At McAfee’s request, Merchant quickly responded, urging the judge to move forward with an evidentiary hearing. She accused Willis and Wade of trying to “escape accountability” in a case where “freedom and lives are at stake.” She subpoenaed Willis, Wade and nearly a dozen associates — among them people she claimed would dispute Wade’s claim that his relationship with Willis began after he was appointed to the case.
Roman’s motion to disqualify Willis and her office was later joined by Trump and several other co-defendants, including Shafer, Atlanta-area attorney Bob Cheeley, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Cathleen Latham, a 2020 Trump elector. All filed motions pressing McAfee to hold an evidentiary hearing.
The judge’s decision prolongs a scandal that threatens to derail the high-profile case against Trump, one of four criminal prosecutions facing the former president and current candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Willis is also facing other headwinds that threaten her control of the case and her position — for which she is up for reelection later this year. A Georgia Senate committee with subpoena power is investigating the allegations, and a member of the Fulton County governing board has suggested he might also launch an investigation. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has referred the matter to the state ethics commission for potential sanctions and has also requested that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp or Attorney General Chris Carr, both Republicans, launch a criminal investigation into Willis.
Jacobs reported from Washington. Perry Stein contributed to this report.
The latest: Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has been investigating whether Trump and his associates broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. Willis recently admitted she had a personal relationship with Nathan Wade, the prosecutor she appointed, and asked a judge to reject motions from Trump and other defendants that seek to disqualify her and her office. Here’s how it could derail the Trump Georgia case.
Status of the case: Four of Trump’s co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the Georgia election case. Trump previously entered a plea of not guilty. The case does not currently have a scheduled trial date.
The charges: Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act. Read the full text of the Georgia indictment. Here’s a breakdown of the charges against Trump and a list of everyone else who was charged in the Georgia case. Trump now faces 91 total charges in four criminal cases.
Historic mug shot: Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail on charges that he illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss. Authorities released his booking record — including his height and weight — and mug shot.