Tipsheet

Teary-Eyed Fani Willis Testifies in Humiliating Hearing

Mia Cathell
Mia Cathell  |  February 15, 2024 5:00 PM

With a shaky voice, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked for tissues as she sat on the witness stand ready to answer questions under oath about her admitted affair with Nathan Wade, whom she hired to prosecute former President Donald Trump.

Thursday's evidentiary hearing, which could end in the Democrat DA's ousting from the Trump case, featured hours-long testimony from Wade on when exactly the romantic relationship started and who paid for the trips the two took together.

Moments before, sporting a pink suit like Legally Blonde's Elle Woods, Willis declared, "I'm gonna go," in a theatrical entrance.

"Ms. Willis, how'd you know to come into the courtroom right then?" Trump co-defendant Mike Roman's defense counsel Ashleigh Merchant questioned during cross-examination. To which, Willis said she heard someone yell, "His testimony is done," while she was pacing in her office. So, it "only made sense" she'd be the next witness, Willis said she assumed, "so I ran to the courtroom."

Asked how much she overheard, if any of the testimony, that's when things turned ugly.

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Merchant then asked if Willis met with Wade to discuss the defense's January 8 motion to disqualify her from the prosecution.

"I don't know if you can say talked about. I probably had some choice words about some of the things that you said that were dishonest within this motion. So, I don't know if it was a conversation," Willis replied, adding that the talk wasn't "substantive."

"As you know, Mr. Wade is a southern gentleman," Willis said, adding: "Me, not so much."

Later on, Willis said she finds it "extremely offensive" that Merchant would insinuate that she slept with Wade when they first met each other at a training conference in October 2019, where Wade was her teacher. "It's highly offensive when someone lies on you and it's highly offensive when they try to implicate that you slept with somebody the first day you met with them," Willis said.

At another point, Willis declaratively said during the interrogation: "Please do not yell at me."

The questioning got so intense that Judge Scott McAfee, who's presiding over the disqualification proceedings, ordered a five-minute break after a hysterical Willis repeatedly shouted "It is a lie!" in response to Merchant saying she and Wade cohabited.

"You all know what professionalism looks like; we all know what decorum looks like," McAfee stated, restarting the hearing.

At Monday's emergency conference, McAfee indicated he would maintain order in the courtroom and would not hesitate to "step in" if the defense counsel's arguments amount to what he deems "harassment or undue embarrassment" of the prosecutors.

McAfee was tougher on her when he issued a warning to Willis, stating he would strike her testimony if she did not directly answer the defense's questions. "Ms. Willis, I'm going to have to caution you [...] We have to listen to the questions as asked. And if this happens again and again, I'm going to have no choice but to strike your testimony," McAfee told a testy Willis.

Grilled on why her office has rejected the defense's public records request under the state's Open Records Act, Willis countered: "No, I object to you getting records. You've been intrusive into people's personal lives. You're confused. You think I'm on trial? These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I'm not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial!"

Wilis characterized the public probing into her relations with Wade—romantic or otherwise—as an invasion of her personal life. "It's like a woman doesn't have the right to keep life private..." she said. "I certainly didn't go out telling my business to the world."

An increasingly rattled Willis insisted she's not "a hostile witness," seemingly not understanding the legal term meaning someone who testifies against the party that called them as a witness. When told she could be considered "an adverse witness," given her interests are opposed to Merchant's, Willis suggested that the defense's intentions are anti-democratic.

"Ms. Merchant's interests are contrary to democracy, your honor, not to mine," Willis stated.

However, her tone momentarily softened when she reminisced about one of the Caribbean cruises the couple went on before staying at a four-star resort, spa, and casino in Aruba. Staying on the subject, Merchant asked if Willis ever paid Wade back for the bookings he had made on his Capitol One credit card, as documented on invoices dredged up in his divorce dispute.

Wade previously testified that Willis reimbursed him in cash, so there's no physical proof that the reimbursements happened.

Willis insisted she paid Wade beforehand with cash she already had on hand, stored in her house, telling Merchant there was no need to make withdrawals from an ATM. "No, lady," Willis told Merchant, saying she felt withdrawing cash was not necessary.

"At my best days, I probably had $15,000 in my house in cash," Willis stated.

When further questioned about the "cash hoard" she had collected over time, an appalled Willis responded: "A cash what?!"

After the phrase was spelled out for her by another cross-examiner, Willis said: "Oh, I thought you said something different!"

Why did she keep so much money around? Willis said her father, formerly a high-ranking Black Panther and co-founder of its political party faction, advised: "As a woman, you should always have [...] at least six months in cash at your house at all times."

The liberal talking heads at MSNBC defended Willis, stating that keeping a cache of cash is what black people do.

"I thought her portrayal of why it is that she pays for things in cash and has lots of cash on hand was very compelling. Basically, it was a life lesson she learned from her father and then sort of joked about the way that she was raised by that old, black man as she referred to him," commented MSNBC correspondent Lisa Rubin, who was the legal analyst for MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

"Anyone who has an elderly black parent or elderly black people in their life knows it's about keeping cash because you never know you're gonna need it. So, she's been very credible," ex-assistant Manhattan DA Catherine Christian assessed.