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Former US President Donald Trump.
© Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register/Imago
In Georgia, Donald Trump is accused of attempted election fraud.
But the headlines are determined by the responsible public prosecutor.
Atlanta – The anticipated hearing on allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) had an improper personal relationship with the lead prosecutor in the election interference trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump is beginning to take shape: It Subpoenas have been issued for Willis and others to testify under oath in a trial that will likely determine whether the case goes forward.
The lawyer for Mike Roman, Trump's co-defendant who first raised allegations of misconduct against Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade more than three weeks ago, has subpoenaed both to testify under oath at a Feb. 15 evidentiary hearing about his request to dismiss them to be excluded from the case and to drop the charges against Roman.
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A statement forwarded Wednesday to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee shows that Ashleigh Merchant, Roman's attorney, plans to call at least 10 additional witnesses, including senior Willis associates and Wade associates, to support the claims to prove her client's prosecutorial misconduct.
She has requested financial records from Wade and his law firm to support her claims, including allegations that Wade used his income as special prosecutor to pay for vacations for him and Willis.
In addition to Willis and Wade, Merchant has also subpoenaed several prosecutors - including Daysha Young, a senior prosecutor who is also working on the Trump case;
Tia Green, an assistant to Willis;
Sonya Allen, an assistant district attorney who previously worked with Wade in Cobb County;
Mike Hill, an investigator working on the Trump case;
Dexter Bond, the senior prosecutor's officer;
Capers Green, the Director of Public Prosecutions' investigations;
and Thomas Ricks, an investigator who is part of Willis' security team.
It is unclear whether Willis will seek to challenge her subpoena or the subpoenas of her employees.
A spokesman for Willis declined to comment.
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Additional subpoenas were issued to Wade's current and former law partners, Christopher Campbell and Terrence Bradley, as well as Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a longtime associate of Willis who formerly worked in the district attorney's office.
Last week, an attorney for Joycelyn Mayfield Wade, Wade's estranged wife, reported in their divorce case that she had issued a subpoena seeking information about a home in Atlanta.
The address has previously been associated with Bryant-Yeartie, according to public records.
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Reached by phone before Merchant said she planned to call her as a witness, Bryant-Yeartie declined to comment.
“If I’m subpoenaed, I’m going to talk,” Bryant-Yeartie said before hanging up.
Trump's lawyers accuse Willis of bringing "racial animosity" into the case
Merchant also subpoenaed two Atlanta-area travel agencies — Vacation Express and H2O, Limited — seeking information about airline tickets, hotels and other travel expenses potentially tied to Wade and Willis dating back to 2020.
She also issued subpoenas to American Express, Capital One and Synovus Bank seeking financial records for Wade and his firm.
The announcement came a day after Wade and his estranged wife announced a tentative settlement in their divorce.
The last-minute agreement led to the cancellation of a hearing on Wednesday at which Wade was to be questioned under oath about his finances - including his income as special prosecutor in the Trump case and his expenses, such as buying airline tickets for himself and Willis in October 2022 and April 2023. Joycelyn Wade had also requested Willis' testimony in the divorce case.
Willis has until Friday to respond in writing to Roman's request to exclude her and her office from the election process.
Last week, Trump and another co-defendant, Atlanta attorney Bob Cheeley, joined Roman's motion to disqualify prosecutors and dismiss the charges.
Trump's lawyers accused Willis of bringing "racial animosity" into the case when she recently told a historic black church in Atlanta that racism was the cause of the attacks against her and Wade.
In her Jan. 14 remarks at Big Bethel AME Church, Willis did not directly address the allegations against her or name Wade or any of the defendants.
But in her only public comments to date in which she even vaguely addressed Roman's misconduct, Willis questioned why critics had only attacked her appointment of Wade, who is Black, and not the two other outside lawyers involved in the case named and are white.
Willis and Wade have neither directly addressed nor denied the allegations
Roman, one of Trump's remaining 14 co-defendants in the criminal case and a top campaign aide during the 2020 election, has alleged in a court filing that Willis had a "personal, romantic relationship" with Wade, whose firm received more than $653,000 from prosecutors , since he was named as an outside prosecutor for the case in November 2021.
Roman claimed Willis may have broken the law by hiring Wade as a special prosecutor and then allowing him to use her to pay for "vacations around the world" that were unrelated to her work on the case.
Wade and Willis, Roman claimed, “benefited significantly from this prosecution at taxpayer expense.”
Roman demanded in his statement of claim, which contained no evidence to support the sensational claims, that prosecutors be disqualified and the charges against him dismissed.
Willis and Wade have neither directly addressed nor denied the allegations.
However, bank records later released as part of Wade's divorce proceedings show that Wade purchased airline tickets for himself and Willis on two occasions - an October 2022 trip to Aruba on American Airlines and a second trip in April 2023 to San Francisco with Delta Air Lines.
It is unclear whether Willis refunded Wade for the tickets or whether she went on the trips.
A spokesman for Willis declined to comment.
Wade did not respond to requests for comment, and his divorce attorney declined to comment.
About the author
Holly Bailey
is the Washington Post's national correspondent in Atlanta, covering the South.
She was previously based in Minneapolis, where she reported on the Upper Midwest.
Since 2019, she has worked for the Post as a national political reporter covering the 2020 presidential campaign.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 1, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.