2024-02-18 04:40:00
Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton (Georgia, USA), is a tough woman, as she describes herself. In August of last year she accused Donald Trump and 18 other people as suspected of creating a mafia-type gang to rig the results of the 2020 elections in that State. The statement of charges in one of the most complicated judicial cases facing the former president was the result of two and a half years of meticulous investigation. But now it is she who finds herself under the judge’s scrutiny. Her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to help in the investigations, Nathan Wade, could remove her from the case and even end up forcing the case against the Republican to be shelved.
The hearing in room 5A of the Fulton court, for Judge Scott McAffee to decide whether Willis should abandon the case of his life, this week had all the ingredients of a television soap opera. The testimonies spoke of love affairs, trips to exotic destinations, cruises in the Caribbean, visits to tattoo parlors in Central America and stacks of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in homes, including alleged betrayals of former friends. And more serious episodes of insults, harassment and death threats in one of the most politically consequential court cases since, perhaps, special counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigations into President Bill Clinton a quarter century ago.
At the center of it all is Fani Willis, the first female district attorney in the county, black, Democratic and very combative, responding to questions of a very intimate nature with direct statements like kicks: “Mr. Wade is a Southern gentleman. Me, not so much”; “A man is not a plan. He is a companion ”; “Men usually consider that a relationship is over when there is no longer a sexual act. “We women don’t call it a day until that difficult conversation comes.” Or, in one of the most memorable moments of her testimony, she turned to defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant to criticize her: “You’re confused. You think they’re judging me. “Those people are going to be judged for trying to steal an election in 2020.”
The controversy had broken out in January, when the lawyers of Michael Roman, one of the accused along with Trump, presented an allegation that was a legal bomb: the existence of a sentimental link between Willis and Wade that – they claimed – created a conflict of interests. The prosecutor, as they maintained, has received an economic benefit for hiring her then boyfriend in November 2021, who with his salary as a special prosecutor – he has earned $650,000 (about 600,000 euros) during this time – has paid for a series of luxurious vacations. for both in places such as the Bahamas, Aruba or the Californian valley of Napa during the development of the investigation against the former president.
Wilis and Wade admitted in early February that they had had a “personal relationship” that ended in the summer of 2023. Both insist, however, that they only became a couple when he had already been hired. And they flatly reject that the prosecutor profited as a result of the relationship: according to both, she always paid for her share in their activities together.
This Thursday, defense lawyers questioned Wade about how he received his salary and how the prosecutor returned the money to him on those trips. “Mrs. Willis is a strong and independent woman… she will always pay for her own part,” said the special prosecutor. She, as he explained, returned the money in cash, which the lawyer never bothered to deposit into his bank account. Where did that money come from? “From my work and my sweat… My father always instilled in me since I was a child that as a black woman it is good that I always have bills at home to cover six months’ expenses,” she confirmed, in a fuchsia dress that contrasted with the suits. dark in the courtroom, reclining in the witness seat as if it belonged to her. Her father, John Floyd, a retired lawyer, also called to testify, confirmed that keeping stacks of bills at home “is a black custom.”
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Trump’s defense also cited a former friend and colleague of Willis – now in a fight with her – who stated that the relationship with Wade had begun when the two met, in 2019, much earlier than the two claim. Both refuted that statement.
Judge McAffee has indicated that he will call a new session for the end of next week or the beginning of the following week for final arguments. It is not known when he will issue his resolution. The judge has made it clear that he takes the situation very seriously: when he called this week’s hearing, he warned that “the appearance” of a conflict of interest would be enough to disqualify the prosecutor.
A historic trial
His decision, whatever it may be, will have a decisive impact on the future of the case, the only one of the four that Donald Trump faces that the Republican could not file if he returned to the White House. If Willis continues to lead the case, it is possible that she will be weakened in a trial that promises to be historic. Or that it is much more difficult to select an impartial jury before her figure.
If McAffee chooses to disqualify her—and with her, her entire team—the case would be assigned to another prosecutor in Georgia. The appointment would fall to the Fiscal Council of that State. The new person in charge could decide if he wants to continue the case as it is, introduce changes – they can be of all kinds: annul charges or accuse more people, add charges or withdraw them – or even archive the case.
Other voices have called for Willis to take the initiative herself and step aside from the case. Lawyer Norm Eisen, former Chief Ethics Officer in President Barack Obama’s White House, recently declared in a briefing that “it’s the sensible thing to do.” “The conversation about these issues has become a distraction” from the most important issue, “the overwhelming amount of evidence justifying the decision to charge Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators,” he said.
Each step in this process lengthens the deadlines for Trump’s trial, if it is held. It is something that works in favor of the former president, who seeks, in addition to exculpation, to delay each of his judicial processes until after the November elections. Willis had asked to start the hearings in August.
The task of finding a replacement is not easy either. Only a handful of prosecutors’ offices, all of them in the vicinity of the metropolis of Atlanta, have the necessary qualifications. And in this week’s hearings, the amount of abuse, violent incidents and death threats that Willis has received since she began the investigation against the former president has also come to light, and which forced her to change her address. The prosecutor has to move with an escort.
One of the witnesses at this week’s hearing, former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, hammered home that point. He was summoned to confirm that Willis first offered him the position that Wade ended up taking. Barnes, considered a legal eminence in that State, rejected him: the salary seemed insufficient and he had “mouths to feed” in his law firm. But, in addition, he knew that accepting the case would make him a target of that same violence. “I lived with bodyguards for four years of my life and I didn’t like it,” he declared on Friday, “I wasn’t willing to live with bodyguards for the rest of my life.”
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