Fani Willis accuses defense of lying in fiery testimony at Georgia hearing

In an extraordinary two-hour appearance, a visibly angry Willis sparred with defense counsel who have sought to disqualify her and her office over allegations that she engaged in an improper personal relationship with Nathan Wade, the outside lawyer she appointed to lead the case.

Willis, who initially fought to avoid sworn testimony, appeared during a day-long evidentiary hearing on the misconduct claims that currently threaten to disrupt the Georgia case against Trump, one of four criminal cases the former president is facing. She overruled her staff attorneys, who had objected to her appearance.

What resulted was a stunning scene: The fate of a criminal case against the former president and his allies, who are accused of conspiring to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, seemed to be in the balance as two of the prosecutors leading the case were questioned about their sex lives and finances by defense attorneys representing those they had indicted. There was talk of thousand-dollar cash stashes, Willis’s preference of Grey Goose versus wine and her admission that “hand-holding” was not her kind of romance.

At times, the hearing offered a preview of what the sprawling racketeering case might look like if it moves forward — as a crowd of defense attorneys took turns questioning the witnesses, passing notes and whispering to one another in the gallery like a team united in a common goal. At one point, one of the defense attorneys was seen pumping a fist in celebration.

From the witness stand, Willis angrily confronted an attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, a former campaign aide who first raised allegations of misconduct, accusing the attorney of being “dishonest” and of making “highly offensive” claims about her and Wade. At one point, Willis waved copies of Roman’s filings in the case, describing them as full of “lies, lies, lies.”

“You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives,” Willis told Ashleigh Merchant, Roman’s attorney. “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.”

“Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy, your honor, not to mine,” Willis told Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who called a brief recess to cool temperatures in the room.

McAfee, who scheduled another day of testimony for Friday, offered few hints about what he may be thinking as he considers the motions to remove Willis — a move that probably would delay if not outright kill the case. McAfee must decide if there’s a conflict of interest or appearance of one. He said he would not be ruling on the motions on Friday but gave no other timetable.

A former state and federal prosecutor, McAfee was occasionally stern with Willis, his former boss — urging her to maintain decorum. But he also quickly cut off defense attorneys when they strayed.

Willis’s appearance came at the end of a day of explosive testimony, including from a former friend and co-worker of Willis’s who testified that Willis’s relationship with Wade began years before she appointed him to the case.

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Willis and Wade both testified Thursday that their relationship began in early 2022, months after he was tapped to lead the investigation in November 2021.

Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a longtime Willis associate who had a falling-out with Willis after she resigned from the district attorney’s office in 2022, said there was “no doubt’ in her mind that Willis and Wade were involved in a romantic relationship beginning in late 2019. She testified under oath that she had talked to Willis about Wade and had personally seen them “hugging, kissing” before Nov. 1, 2021 — the date Wade joined the Trump case as a special prosecutor.

Willis forcefully rebutted Bryant-Yeartie’s claim, calling it a “lie.” She testified that she and Bryant-Yeartie had known each other since college but were not close friends. As Willis faced violent threats related to the Trump investigation and other cases, she fled her home and took over a lease for an Atlanta-area condo that Bryant-Yeartie had rented. Roman’s attorney suggested that Willis and Wade had lived there together, which both denied.

“I have not spoken to Robin in over a year,” Willis said. “I certainly do not consider her a friend now. I think that she betrayed our friendship.”

Both Willis and Wade, who also spent hours on the stand Thursday, testified that their romantic relationship did not begin until around March 2022 and ended in the summer of 2023 — before the August indictments against Trump and others were made public.

Wade said things ended around June 2023. When Trump attorney Steve Sadow pressed Wade on whether the romantic relationship had continued at any point after that, Wade said no.

“We’re very good friends, probably closer than ever because of these attacks,” Wade testified. “But if you’re asking me about sexual intercourse, the answer is no.”

Wade testified that he never spent the night at Willis’s condo, never rode in her vehicle with her security detail and never spent time at her condo with other members of her staff, including her security detail.

Wade also said he never discussed his personal relationship with Willis with anyone in social circumstances. “Our relationship wasn’t a secret. It was just private,” Wade said.

But Willis testified that while they had no longer had a physical relationship by June or July, she didn’t consider the romance over until early August after they had a “hard conversation.” “I just think men and women think differently,” Willis said.

“Mr. Wade is my friend right now. Mr. Wade, I would say, has been my friend since 2020. I think he started out as like a mentor and a professional colleague. He became my friend and somebody that I really respected,” Willis testified. “I feel very indebted to Mr. Wade for taking on the task of this job, and he is certainly my friend and one of the people that I respect the most.”

The hearing came more than a month after Roman claimed in a court filing that Willis and Wade had been involved in an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” that has financially benefited them both. Roman claimed Willis may have broken the law by hiring Wade, an outside attorney with scant experience prosecuting criminal cases, and then allowing him to pay for “vacations across the world” with her that were unrelated to their work on the case. Roman’s filing, which offered no proof to substantiate the sensational claims, called for the prosecutors to be disqualified and for the charges against him to be dismissed.

The allegations against Wade and Willis were underpinned by a bitter divorce battle between Wade and his estranged wife. Bank records made public as part of Wade’s divorce proceedings and introduced as evidence by Merchant on Thursday show Wade purchased plane tickets for himself and Willis on two occasions — a trip to Aruba purchased in October 2022 and a second trip purchased in April 2023 to San Francisco.

Wade said in a Feb. 2 affidavit that he and Willis had split travel expenses “equally” — a claim that he reaffirmed Thursday. An attached exhibit included receipts for airline tickets for a trip to Miami in December 2022 that Willis bought for herself and Wade. He insisted that Willis had not benefited from his salary as a special prosecutor.

On Thursday, Wade confirmed he had taken those trips and claimed that Willis had reimbursed him in cash. He also confirmed a third trip to Belize in 2023 for his birthday and said that although he had booked the tickets, Willis had repaid him for those costs in cash.

That claim drew a loud snicker from Trump co-defendant David Shafer, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, who was admonished by McAfee.

Under follow-up questioning from Craig Gillen, Shafer’s attorney, Wade claimed he did not deposit the cash Willis gave him and had no records that documented that cash.

“Do you have a little place in your house where you stack up all this cash that you apparently got to repay you for these benefits you bestowed on her?” Gillen asked.

“If I answered that, I’d put myself in jeopardy,” Wade replied. “If I tell the world that I have cash someplace in my home, don’t you think that that could be problematic?”

Wade also claimed that he and Willis had taken several day trips together — including to Alabama and Tennessee — to escape the stress of the case.

“If you’ve ever spent any time with Ms. Willis, you understand that she’s a very independent, proud woman,” Wade testified. “So she’s going to insist that she carries her own weight. And it actually was a point of contention between the two of us. She is going to pay her own way.”

Wade added that he didn’t keep track of such expenses. “In a relationship, ma’am — particularly men — you don’t go asking back for anything,” Wade said. “You’re not keeping a ledger.”

Defense attorneys pressed both Willis and Wade at length on their use of cash. Willis testified that she had been raised by her father to keep cash on hand and that she often carried cash on trips and to pay friends for dinners and other expenses.

“Mr. Wade is used to women that, as he told me one time, only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal. I don’t need anything from a man,” Willis testified at one point. “A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I was giving him his money back. I don’t need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who’s ever foot my bills completely is my daddy.”

Pressed on filings in his divorce case where Wade indicated “none” when he was asked to disclose gifts to a romantic partner, Wade said he answered truthfully, claiming that he and his estranged wife, Joycelyn Mayfield Wade, had agreed to divorce after she had an affair in 2015. He said that the couple agreed not to formally file until their kids were older but that he was “free to have a relationship.”

“In 2015, my marriage was irretrievably broken, so I did not have a relationship with anyone during the course of my marriage,” Wade said.

Andrea Hastings, an attorney for Joycelyn Wade, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hastings had previously described allegations of an affair by her client as “false.”

Wade said he ultimately filed for divorce in November 2021 — one day after he signed a contact to lead the election-interference case — because his estranged wife had been living in Texas and was back in Atlanta and that was the earliest date he could formally serve her the divorce papers.

In response, Sadow indicated he might subpoena Joycelyn Wade to testify — though McAfee quickly told him he would determine later if that is relevant.

Trump appeared to be paying close attention to the testimony, posting video clips from the courtroom and Fox News commentators on social media. One clip zoomed into a television and showed Bryant-Yeartie stating the relationship between Willis and Wade began in 2019. Another featured Wade answering questions from Gillen, asking if Wade had “entertained” Willis.

Willis was set to return to the stand Friday, where she is set to face questions from the prosecution. Special prosecutor Anna Cross told McAfee that prosecutors planned to present between four and five hours of rebuttal witnesses.

Mark Berman, Marianne LeVine and Azi Paybarah in Washington, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez in Phoenix, and Patrick Marley in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.