{"id":3196,"date":"2024-02-02T16:58:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T16:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/02\/deadline-arrives-for-fani-willis-to-respond-to-improper-affair-allegations-what-we-know-so-far\/"},"modified":"2024-02-02T16:58:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T16:58:41","slug":"deadline-arrives-for-fani-willis-to-respond-to-improper-affair-allegations-what-we-know-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/02\/deadline-arrives-for-fani-willis-to-respond-to-improper-affair-allegations-what-we-know-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadline arrives for Fani Willis to respond to ‘improper’ affair allegations: what we know so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

Embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis<\/a> has until the end of the day on Friday to respond to allegations of an “improper” relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired to work the case against former President Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to court documents filed earlier this month by Michael Roman,\u00a0a Trump co-defendant, Willis, who brought election interference-related\u00a0charges against Trump<\/a>, has been having an “improper” affair with Wade, whom she hired to help prosecute the 2024 GOP frontrunner. Roman and his lawyers say the alleged impropriety should disqualify her from the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the court documents, Wade, who\u00a0has no\u00a0Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act\u00a0(RICO) and felony\u00a0prosecution experience, billed taxpayers $650,000 at a rate of $250 an hour since his hiring.<\/p>\n

Willis and Wade were both subpoenaed by Roman\u2019s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, to testify at an evidentiary hearing on Feb. 15 before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAffee, who is presiding over the Trump case. \u00a0<\/p>\n

TRUMP PROSECUTOR FANI WILLIS’ WHITE HOUSE MEETINGS WARRANT ‘VERY DEEP INVESTIGATION,’ EX-PROSECUTOR SAYS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Roman\u2019s\u00a0filing alleges that\u00a0Wade billed Fulton County\u00a0for 24 hours of work on a single day in November 2021, shortly after\u00a0being appointed as a\u00a0special prosecutor, and that\u00a0Willis\u00a0financially\u00a0benefited from her alleged lover\u2019s padded\u00a0taxpayer-funded\u00a0salary by taking lavish vacations together to Napa Valley, Florida and the Caribbean together\u00a0on his dime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Merchant filed a separate lawsuit on Tuesday against the Fulton County DA\u2019s office for failing to turn over records in compliance with the Georgia Open Records Act, accusing Willis and her team of apparently “intentionally withholding information” ahead of the hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Merchant said she had to repeatedly file certain requests after they were prematurely closed, and she was incorrectly told certain records did not exist, the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Willis<\/a> related to the misuse of federal funds and allegedly firing a whistleblower in her office over the same issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

FANI WILLIS WHO ‘RELISHED IN’ DONALD TRUMP PROSECUTION SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM CASE FOR ILLICIT AFFAIR: EXPERTS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The subpoena requires Willis to turn over “all documents and communications referring or relating to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s receipt and use of federal funds, including but not limited to, federal funds from the Department of Justice’s Office Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.”<\/p>\n

Additionally, she is being asked to turn over all documents from the same offices “referring to or relating to any allegations of the misuse of federal funds.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Willis was scheduled to testify during the divorce proceedings of Wade and his estranged wife this week but narrowly avoided doing so. Just a day before that hearing was scheduled, the judge in that case announced that Nathan and Jocelyn Wade came to a temporary agreement, canceling Wednesday\u2019s divorce proceeding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Jan. 14, Willis addressed the allegations<\/a> for the first time at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta, and she seemed to insinuate she believed the allegations to be race-based.<\/p>\n

“They only attacked one,” she said. “First thing they say, \u2018Oh, she\u2019s gonna play the race card now.\u2019<\/p>\n

“But no God, isn\u2019t it them that\u2019s playing the race card when they only question one,” Willis asked.<\/p>\n

“You cannot expect Black women to be perfect and save the world,” Willis said, adding that “we need to be allowed to stumble. We need grace.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Georgia state legislature, two bills have been voted out of the House and Senate that would empower separate commissions to investigate Willis\u2019 office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GEORGIA DA FANI WILLIS’ ALLEGED LOVER ASKS FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER IN DIVORCE CASE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, Georgia’s GOP-controlled<\/a>\u00a0senate voted to form a special committee that would have subpoena power to investigate Willis. Republican Sen. Greg Dolezal, who introduced the measure, said that “the multitude of accusations surrounding Ms. Willis, spanning from allegations of prosecutorial misconduct to questions about the use of public funds and accusations of an unprofessional relationship, underscores the urgency for a thorough and impartial examination.”<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Georgia House members passed a bill to revive the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Qualifications Commission with powers to discipline and remove prosecutors, which Republicans could potentially use to target Willis.<\/p>\n

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp\u00a0signed legislation\u00a0last year<\/a>\u00a0creating the commission last year, but after the state Supreme Court refused to approve the rules governing the committee\u2019s conduct, it was unable to begin operating.\u00a0The new measure passed by the House that now advances to the Senate, removes the requirement for Supreme Court approval.<\/p>\n

John Malcolm, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, told Fox News Digital<\/a> in an interview that the allegations against Willis are “serious.”<\/p>\n

“They ought to be looked into, and it has certainly imperiled this prosecution and given a black mark, not only to Fulton County, but potentially to the entire state, so I can understand why the Georgia legislature is up in arms about this,” he said.<\/p>\n

Malcolm, who currently serves as the director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said “this is a difficult moment” for Willis, who he says could ultimately decide to recuse herself from the case.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The trial date for the sweeping racketeering case against the former president has not yet been set, and it\u2019s not clear that should Willis and her team be removed or recused, that a new prosecutor would pursue some or all of the charges against Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has until the end of the day on Friday to respond to allegations of an “improper” relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired to work the case against former President Trump.\u00a0 According to court documents filed earlier this month by Michael Roman,\u00a0a Trump co-defendant, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}