I'm guessing that when Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis (D) launched her sweeping RICO prosecution against Donald Trump and a slew of other co-defendants, she wasn't expecting that she herself would end up entangled in a series of potentially case-threating and career-tarnishing ethics allegations. This probably wasn't part of the plan. And yet, as we detailed late last week, Willis is embroiled in scandal. It seems likely that the accusations lodged against her have merit because she has subsequently described herself as flawed, declined to outright deny any of what's being claimed, and exploited the occasion of a ceremony honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to shamelessly play the race card -- from the pulpit of a church. If you missed it, subsequent to that non-responsive and demagogic performance, the judge in the case ordered Willis to formally respond to the allegations by early February, with a full hearing into the matter slated for a few weeks later:
The Georgia judge overseeing former President Trump’s criminal case scheduled a hearing next month to weigh accusations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) hired her romantic partner as a top prosecutor on the case. Judge Scott McAfee scheduled the hearing for Feb. 15 and directed Willis to respond to the allegations in writing by Feb. 2...The accusation first surfaced last week in court papers filed by an attorney for Mike Roman, a Trump 2020 campaign operative who is one of the former president’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case. The filing did not contain any hard proof of the alleged relationship. Roman said the purported relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade makes the indictment “fatally defective” and asked the judge to dismiss the charges. He also asked the judge to block the Fulton County district attorney’s office from further involvement in the case...A hearing in Wade’s ongoing divorce case, which Roman’s lawyer has said would yield evidence to support the claim, is scheduled for Jan. 31, two days before Willis is required to reply. The district attorney was subpoenaed in the divorce case the day the accusations went public, according to a court document obtained by The Hill.
That full report from The Hill is here. Sure enough, Willis is now lashing out at the estranged wife of her alleged lover, whom she hired to help run the Trump case -- despite his glaring lack of relevant legal expertise and experience. Nathan Wade reportedly has never prosecuted a felony case in the state. The District Attorney is publicly attacking Wade's soon-to-be-ex-wife:
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is accusing the estranged wife of a special prosecutor she hired of trying to obstruct her criminal election-interference case against former President Donald Trump and others by seeking to question her in the couple’s divorce proceedings. A motion filed last week by a defense attorney in the election case alleges that Willis was involved in a romantic relationship with attorney Nathan Wade. A lawyer for Willis wrote in a filing Thursday that lawyers for Wade’s wife, Joycelyn Wade, served a subpoena to the district attorney last week. The filing says that the subpoena is being sought “in an attempt to harass and damage” Willis’ professional reputation and accuses Joycelyn Wade of having “conspired with interested parties in the criminal Election Interference Case to use the civil discovery process to annoy, embarrass, and oppress” the district attorney. Andrea Hastings, a lawyer for Joycelyn Wade, said they want to help her “resolve her divorce fairly and privately” and that any response to Willis’ motion will come in a filing with the court.
That is certainly a lot of heated language. What it's not? A denial. In fact, it's arguably confirmation of the underlying accusations. Remember, part of Willis' racially-charged response to this is that critics are obsessing over just one of three special prosecutors she hired on this case. The ones being ignored, she says, are conspicuously white. This is insulting, I explained, because the other lawyers appear to be experienced and qualified, unlike Mr. Wade. More importantly, they seemingly are not sleeping with the District Attorney, also unlike Mr. Wade, who has allegedly taken said District Attorney on a number of pricey and lavish vacations. He is being enriched by his involvement in the Trump prosecution, with mid-six-figures of taxpayer money flowing to his firm to date, in connection with the case. Willis asserted from the pulpit that she's paying these three men equal rates, but as we also relayed last week, evidence suggests this is a lie:
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was recently criticized for allegedly having an "improper" romantic relationship with a prosecutor, is now being accused of paying one of her attorneys $100 less per hour than her alleged lover, Nathan Wade, according to reports. The New York Post reported that Wade was billing the DA’s office $250 per hour in November and December 2021, as he worked on the prosecution against former President Donald Trump, who is accused of election interference in 2020. Court records alleged Wade had no experience in state racketeering law...But another prosecutor on the team, John Floyd, reportedly has considerable knowledge when it comes to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) cases. Floyd billed $150 per hour during the same months Wade billed $250 per hour, according to a contract obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation
The Daily Caller is also out with new reporting into a separate wrinkle within this element of the story:
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ hired her alleged lover’s law partner to work for her office at a rate of $150 an hour, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation — an arrangement that is raising eyebrows among legal experts who question her spending of public funds. Christopher Campbell, a partner at Wade & Campbell Firm, has received $126,070 from the Office of the District Attorney since 2021, according to county records. Willis hired Campbell to provide services as a “Taint Attorney” reviewing privileged evidence beginning in Jan. 2021 at a rate of $150 an hour, contracts obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show. “Taint attorneys” help sift through files obtained from a search warrant to filter out evidence covered by things like attorney-client privilege and prevent them from being passed to prosecutors...A co-defendant of former President Donald Trump accused Willis in a motion last week of awarding Wade, her alleged lover, a “lucrative” contract, claiming she benefited from it because he took her on trips and cruises using the money he earned from the position. The motion further alleged Willis never secured approval from the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to appoint Wade and paid him using funds she requested to clear a backlog of cases from the COVID-19 pandemic. The circumstances surrounding the contracts raise concerns about Willis’ allocation of funds, legal experts told the DCNF.
It remains astounding that someone in her position would do anything shady related to this case, given the hot glare of scrutiny that would inevitably accompany the proceedings. She's prosecuting a former president and current leading presidential candidate, for crying out loud. But instead of keeping things scrupulously above-board, and crossing her T's and dotting her I's, it seems she has instead chosen to go about matters...differently. Next month could get very interesting and embarrassing for her.
