The legal and political worlds were rocked this month when Michael Roman, a former Trump opposition researcher and co-defendant in the massive RICO case brought against Roman, Trump and others by Fulton County GA District Attorney, Fani Willis, filed a bombshell motion to dismiss the indictment. Through his lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, Roman alleges that DA Willis and her “Special Prosecutor” Nathan Wade have been having a:
“clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”
“Willis and Wade have traveled personally together to such places as Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean and Wade has purchased tickets for both of them to travel on both the Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines. Wade has also purchased hotel rooms for personal trips with funds from the same account used to receive payments under his contract with Willis.”
Nathan Wade is a private lawyer who was awarded a peculiar but lucrative no-bid contract to serve as “Special Prosecutor” in the case. The DA already has a large stable of experienced felony prosecutors who work full time as Assistant District Attorneys. It’s a mystery why Willis needs to hire an outside criminal defense lawyer to prosecute Donald Trump. Roman notes that Wade is woefully underqualified for such a massive undertaking as prosecuting a sprawling RICO case involving a former president.
“Based on her longstanding personal knowledge of Wade and additional research, undersigned counsel is unaware of, and is unable to find any history of, Wade ever having prosecuted a single felony trial, much less at the rate Willis is paying him. Based on his current experience, and based on the current appointment guidelines, Mr. Wade would not be qualified to serve as defense counsel in this RICO case because he has not tried “at least two criminal trials of similar offenses.”
In short, Roman claims Willis is steering massive sums of taxpayer money to her married lover and in turn receiving a financial benefit, a kickback, from her lover in the form of luxury travel. Roman suggests that Willis and Wade might have violated federal law through this alleged kickback scheme in the form of “Honest Services Fraud” and, ironically a RICO violation.
This filing set off a firestorm that is enveloping the DA’s team. Since Roman’s filing, we have seen proof that Wade met with Biden’s White House counsel in the lead up to the indictment and that he coordinated with the January 6 commission. We have learned that days before confirming the existence of the Trump probe to GA Governor Kemp, Willis spent large sums of taxpayer money to hire a media monitoring firm to track her media exposure.
We’ve also learned a judge booted Willis from investigating GA Lt. Governor Burt Jones as a potential co-defendant in the Trump case because of a conflict of interest after she hosted a fundraiser for Jones’ election opponent.
When Willis tried this week to weasel out of having to testify in her alleged lover's pending-divorce case, we learned from the wife’s lawyer through court filings that she has receipts: credit card statements show Wade paid for travel and purchased tickets in Willis’ name for their personal alleged romantic getaways.
And we have now also learned that Willis did not disclose any gifts from Wade on her annual Income and Financial Disclosure for 2022, which required her to disclosure any gift or favor above $100 from a “prohibited source,” defined as anyone “doing business with the county” or seeking to do business with the county. If Willis accepted personal gifts – from a lover – who is doing business with the county that would be bad enough but if she fails to disclose such on the required form – the form designed to root out kickback schemes – then she may have bigger problems headed her way beyond whatever may happen with the Trump RICO case.
How do we get from an alleged affair to a possible dismissal of the case?
For starters, if these allegations are true, and Willis has not denied them as of this writing, Willis has a financial interest in the very existence of and in the continuation of the case by virtue of the taxpayer funds finding their way back to her in the form of plane tickets and travel. Roman’s motion claims: “Wade has also purchased hotel rooms for personal trips with funds from the same account used to receive payments under his contract with Willis.” Some might call this a kickback. Regardless, it shows that Willis has no business anywhere near this case because she has an irreconcilable conflict of interest.
But it’s more than kickbacks and conflicts of interest. When you put it all together, we see a case that is structurally unsound and that violates the due process rights of the defendants.
Due process boils down to “fundamental fairness” and that means prosecutors are expected to carry out their duties in a fundamentally fair way. Prosecutors are required to be objective and wield their awesome power without bias and certainly not to use the criminal justice system as a political weapon. If there is the appearance that she’s using the criminal process to enhance her personal media profile or for personal political advancement, or for personal economic gain, we could be witnessing a real-time derailment of this indictment.
If Willis pursued this case with such un-pure motives that this case was not brought and maintained in the spirit of fundamental fairness, then it should be dismissed, and the rest of the chips can fall where they may.
The judge might simply recuse Willis, and by extension every lawyer working for her. Her recusal would be appropriate, but recusal is not enough. Assuming a replacement prosecutor willing to take the case could even be found, and the case was tainted from the start due to a financial conflict of interest, recusal will not cure that taint. The only way to cure the conflict of interest and due process violation created by this case being brought for political and personal gain is a complete dismissal.