A state judge involved in former United States President Donald Trump's Georgia election interference case ordered a hearing for evidence over misconduct allegations against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
The accusations against Willis include an alleged improper relationship between her and her lead prosecutor Nathan Wade. The district attorney is also facing claims that she mishandled public money.
In his order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee also wrote that Willis is required to respond to the accusations in writing by Feb. 2. The district attorney has so far refused to directly address the allegations that first surfaced last week in a filing from one of Trump's co-defendants, former campaign aide Mike Roman.
Despite the claims against the Fulton County district attorney, Roman's filing did not include evidence to substantiate his claims. The judge's latest order could force Willis to address the allegations against her in televised court proceedings.
This is the type of development that could at least be embarrassing for the Fulton County district attorney and at worst derail the Georgia investigation completely. Willis separately signaled on Thursday that she was planning to fight the efforts to disqualify her from the case, as per the Washington Post.
She did this by filing a motion to block a subpoena that could have forced her to testify in the contentious divorce case of her lead prosecutor. Roman's filing also called for Wade and Willis to be disqualified and for the entire case to be dismissed.
The former Trump aide along with the former president and 13 others are facing accusations of criminally conspiring to overturn the Republican businessman's 2020 election loss against Joe Biden in Georgia. Trump is currently the subject of three other criminal investigations, two of which are in federal court and the other is in New York.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Willis repeated the only statement that her office has so far issued on the allegations, which is that they will "respond in court." The district attorney broke her silence on the matter on Sunday when she delivered a fiery speech before the congregation of a historic Black church in Atlanta.
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Providing no Evidence
During her remarks, she accused the ones who have been accusing her and Wade of improper relations of playing the race card, noting that they targeted the two of them because they are Black, according to Fox News.
While Roman's initial filing against Willis did not provide any evidence, his lawyer said that sealed court records in the pending divorce case between Wade and his wife, Joycelyn, contained documentation that proved his relationship with the district attorney.
Willis' lawyer, Cinque Axam, argued that Joycelyn "conspired" with "interested parties" in the Trump case with the aim of annoying, embarrassing, and oppressing the district attorney. In a filing, he noted that Willis had been subpoenaed around the same time that Roman's lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, filed motions that sought to unseal the divorce records.
He added that Joycelyn had acknowledged having an affair with a longtime friend of Wade and that the couple had agreed that their marriage was "irretrievably broken" as early as 2017. This was a time before Wade and Willis had even met, said the New York Times.
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