'Lies,' drama, champagne and caviar: takeaways from Fani Willis fight in Trump Georgia case

ATLANTA − There were fireworks and bombshells galore Thursday during the marathon hearing over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump and 14 others due to the romantic affair she had with the special prosecutor she hired for the case.

After fighting for weeks to quash a subpoena requiring her to testify, Willis dramatically barged into the courtroom in mid-afternoon, she said, to set the record straight about her relationship with her top prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade.

“It’s highly offensive when someone lies on you,” Willis said angrily.

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In two hours of testimony, Willis denied the crux of the allegations lodged by defense lawyer Ashleigh Merchant in a Jan. 8 court motion seeking to have her, Wade and the entire DA’s office thrown off the case and the prosecution dismissed outright.

Willis said she wanted to put an end to “the lies” put forth by Merchant about the timing and details of her affair with Wade, the little-known private lawyer she hired to oversee the sprawling case in November 2021.

“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,” Willis told Merchant, gesturing to the defense table, in response to her persistent questioning. “I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

Wade himself took the stand hours before Willis to answer questions about his affair with Willis by Merchant and lawyers for Trump and other defendants charged with trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election results that saw Trump losing to Democrat Joe Biden.

More: Georgia judge rules evidence exists to possibly disqualify DA Fani Willis in Trump case

And before that, another key eyewitness − Robin Yeartie, a former Willis friend and DA’s office employee − gave bombshell testimony that the romantic affair between Willis and Wade actually began years earlier than both of them said it did in sworn affidavits recently.

If that is true, efforts to disqualify Willis, Wade and potentially the entire DA’s office could gain significant traction because it would mean that their affair was already underway when Willis hired Wade in November 2021.

The hearing continues Friday. No decisions are expected this week.

“I’m not ruling on any of this tomorrow,” Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee said. “This is something I’m going to be taking under advisement on all aspects.”

Here are the key takeaways:

Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a hearing in the case of State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., February 15, 2024. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/Pool ORG XMIT: LIVE (Via OlyDrop)

Willis denies wrongdoing in her affair with Wade

Willis denied that she and Willis began her affair with the married Wade before hiring him. She said she and Wade began dating about the time of a trip to Tennessee in April 2022, a belated birthday trip for him. In a recent court filing, both she and Wade said the affair began after she hired him on the case in November 2021.

“It’s not like when you’re in grade school and you send a little letter and it says, ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ and you check it,” Willis said. But, she added, “I don’t know the day we started seeing each other but it was early 2022,” or well after she hired Wade.

She said her romantic relationship ended in the summer of 2023, after the two had a “hard conversation” that August.

In her testimony, Yeartie testified that Willis told her about her romance with Wade shortly after the two met at a judicial conference in 2019, and continued until she and Willis had a falling out several years later. Yeartie also testified under oath that she personally saw the two “hugging, kissing” and expression affection.

Attorney Fani Willis speaks from a witness stand during a hearing in the case of State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., February 15, 2024.

‘Not a one.’ Wade says he has no documentation that Fani Willis reimbursed him for trips they took

Wade said that Willis paid him many thousands of dollars in cash as reimbursement for romantic trips they took together that he put on his credit card. But he said repeatedly that he kept no records of ATM deposits or anything else to corroborate that.

The question is central to defense lawyers’ allegations that Wade spent some of the more than $650,000 he has been paid by Fulton County for the Trump case on trips with Willis, thereby providing her with an allegedly improper financial benefit.

Defense lawyer Craig Gillen pressed Wade on that repeatedly, including on whether Willis reimbursed Wade for a $2,794 trip to the Caribbean that he paid for with a credit card for. Gillen asked: “Did you scamper down to the ATM with Ms. Willis” to deposit the money? Doing so would have created a record of the payment.

More: Why Nathan Wade, under fire for alleged affair with Fani Willis, is facing new scrutiny

“You don’t have a single solitary deposit slip to document depositing … these thousands of dollars?” Gillen asked.

Wade responded that he never went with Willis to an ATM together.

“Not a one,” Wade responded.

“Do you have a place in your house that you stack up all this cash Miss Willis paid you?” Gillen asked.

No, Wade responded.

Over more than 15 minutes of questioning, Wade said he has no away of documenting any of the cash he says Willis gave him. And he said that in a discussion of the controversy with Willis, he didn’t ask her if she had a way of documenting that she reimbursed him for trips to Aruba and elsewhere.

Willis herself said she routinely keeps thousands of dollars in cash on hand and that she doesn’t have a way of demonstrating her reimbursements to Wade. Both Willis and Wade said in recent affidavits that they split the cost of the trips and that neither of them received any improper financial benefit.

Attorney Fani Willis stands in the courtroom during a hearing in the case of State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., February 15, 2024.

Wade more reserved than Willis but with flashes of anger too

Wade was far more measured in his testimony than Willis, often taking time to answer questions so narrowly that defense lawyers had to ask frequent follow-ups.

But Wade showed a flash of indignation when pressed on why he and Willis wanted to keep their personal relationship a secret even as they have both insisted there was nothing wrong with it.

One reason he was hesitant about being in public with Willis, Wade said, was because of the people who would swarm her with questions, comments and attention.

More: Why the Fani Willis hearing could decide the fate of Trump’s Georgia election case

“I can’t count the number of people who would … accost us” in public places, including restaurants, Wade said in response to questioning by Trump defense lawyer Steve Sadow.

“We don’t want the world asking questions or interrupting that time” that the two had together before they broke up in the summer of 2023, Wade said.

After some especially aggressive questioning by Sadow, Wade retorted, “There is nothing secret or salacious about having a private life. Nothing.”

Living the high life with champagne and caviar

Much of the hearing, which lasted into the evening, revolved around how much money the two spent on their romantic trips together, who paid for them and whether any Fulton County money was used. Both Willis and Wade emphatically denied that.

But Willis went into great detail about how Wade was a travel connoisseur who had visited at least five continents and who not only had a dedicated travel agent but another who focused specifically on cruises.

She said they had lived the high life, describing numerous vacations, cruise, day trips and other get-togethers, some of them at times when she was severely cash strapped. One of their especially luxe outings, she said, was a wine tasting in Napa Valley California in which they sampled champagne, chocolate and caviar.

At 5:16 p.m., with the hearing adjourned, Willis strode down the courthouse hallway flanked by two police officers. Asked by USA TODAY if she had any comment on the day’s events, she said nothing, looked straight ahead and marched around a corner.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Lies,’ drama, champagne and caviar: takeaways from Fani Willis fight in Trump Georgia case