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Post by Webster on Feb 15, 2024 22:35:52 GMT -5
(The Guardian) There’s already explosive testimony in the evidentiary hearing in Atlanta on whether district attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from the criminal case against Trump and a host of co-defendants. Robin Yeartie, a former friend of Willis, testified that she had “no doubt” Willis and Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the case, were in a relationship before she hired him to work on the Trump case. That’s significant because Wade said in an affidavit to the court their relationship only began after he was hired. Anna Cross, a lawyer for Willis, sought to uncercut Yeartie’s testimony. She noted that Yeartie had resigned from the district attorney’s office in 2022 and suggested she had a falling out with Willis. Cross suggested that Willis told Yeartie she was going to be fired for poor performance. Yeartie also said on the stand that she had no knowledge of Willis and Wade living together, paying for each other’s expenses, or going on vacation together. That information is critical because it could establish whether their relationship meant there was an actual substantial conflict for Willis.
Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor in the criminal case against Donald Trump in Georgia, is himself on the stand in a misconduct hearing in that case against him and district attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the case. The two are accused by one of Trump’s co-defendants of a conflict of interest that should warrant them being thrown off the case, based on their romantic relationship, which they have admitted. The district attorney’s office has vehemently rejected the claim that the romantic relationship gave rise to a conflict, arguing in court filings that there was no impropriety under the law and there was no financial benefit to either Willis or Wade, as has been alleged. There is a lot of discussion on the crucial question of when their romantic relationship began, how he was hired onto the case as her No. 2 and whether they inappropriately benefited from public funds spent in the case. Having heard a witness say their relationship began in 2019, well before Trump was prosecuted, Wade is contradicting that. Wade and Willis claim they got together only after they started working on the case together – in March 2022, according to Wade.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 0:03:27 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 0:20:02 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Georgia special prosecutor Nathan Wade questioned on standGeorgia special prosecutor Nathan Wade is on the stand being asked about trips he took after he and district attorney Fani Willis became romantically involved and, crucially, how such trips were paid for. Wade is wearing a pale grey suit and looks uncomfortable, but is pushing back on minutiae about whether he did or did not rent a cabin in Tennessee for a stay with Willis, how trips for paid for, who paid whom back and how, that kind of thing.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 0:38:42 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The two most prominent co-defendants of Donald Trump in the Georgia election interference racketeering case are the former president’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his former attorney (and ex-mayor of New York), Rudi Giuliani. No defendants are in court today, but lawyers representing Meadows and Giuliani are there. Meadows has been trying, unsuccessfully, to move his case to federal court. As my colleague Hugo Lowell previously reported here, Meadows was charged last August with violating the state racketeering statute alongside Trump and other co-defendants by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, over their efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. The indictment also included a charge against Meadows for his role in setting up Trump’s infamous recorded phone call on 2 January 2021 asking the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” 11,780 votes so he could win the battleground state.
In the Georgia hearing, defendant Michael Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has been going through vacations prosecutor Nathan Wade and district attorney Fani Willis took together, in painstaking detail. She’s trying to show that Willis benefitted financially from Wade – something the two prosecutors vehemently deny. Merchant walked through vacations the two took to the central American nation of Belize, Napa Valley in California, and the Caribbean island of Aruba. “Our relationship wasn’t a secret. It was just private,” he said. Wade has said that even though they traveled together, they split expenses roughly equally. But Merchant has seized on the fact that Wade has only produced a single receipt showing Willis paying for travel. Wade said he frequently would pay for things and then Willis would reimburse him in cash. In March of 2023, for example, he paid for a trip to Belize for the two of them. But the trip, Wade testified, was actually a birthday trip for him and Willis wound up reimbursing him in cash for everything. When they traveled, Wade said the two didn’t keep a ledger over who paid for what, but would roughly split expenses when they traveled. “She’s a very independent proud woman. She’s going to insist she pays her own way,” she said. “In a relationship, ma’am, particularly men, we don’t go asking back for anything.”
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:44:55 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:46:09 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Nathan Wade: romantic relationship with Fani Willis ended last summerGeorgia Trump case special prosecutor Nathan Wade told the hearing in Atlanta that his romantic relationship with district attorney Fani Willis ended in the summer of 2023. He couldn’t tell the court exactly when. “Forgive me, I’m a man, we don’t do the date thing,” he said. There then followed an excruciating exchange between the lawyer for one of the defendants in the election interference case that Willis and Wade are leading and Wade. Nathan asked if the lawyer, who was using euphemism, wanted to know if he was still having “sexual intercourse” with Willis after that indeterminate time in the summer of 2023. The lawyer said he did. “No,” Wade said. But he said they remained close friends. He did not think others in the DA’s office knew about their romantic relationship because they worked hard to keep it private.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:48:04 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Willis takes stand in election interference caseFulton county district attorney Fani Willis has just taken the stand in the election interference case in Georgia. Almost as soon as she sat down, the judge called a five-minute break for certain documents to be copied and distributed. She’ll be testifying soon about the nature of her relationship with, and cash payments to special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who wrapped up his lengthy period of testimony just now. Willis furious at 'lies' told in court about herFani Willis said she was “very anxious” to testify today, and ran from her office to get to the courtroom when she heard special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s testimony had concluded. She said she had some “choice words” about the motion to disqualify her from Donald Trump’s election interference case but denies she had any substantive conversation with Wade, or anybody else about it: I would not have. I don’t believe I’ve had any conversation with him that is substantive related to this.
Willis has adopted a defensive, verging on aggressive stance, and says she takes exception to allegations she slept with Wade the first day she met him, at a conference:
Your motion tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find to be extremely offensive. Mr Wade was my teacher.
It’s highly offensive when they replicate that you slept with somebody the first day you met with them, and I take exception to this.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:49:01 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:51:24 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Willis tells hearing about a cruise Wade booked, saying: 'I gave him the money back'Fani Willis is talking about two cruises out of Miami that she took with Nathan Wade, one in October 2022. She says Wade booked and paid for the first one, but she reimbursed him “whatever it was”: He is the one that would book the travel. But we need to be clear when we’re talking about just because he’s booked it doesn’t mean I consider him ever having taken me any place. He paid for the cruise and the fights… whatever he told me it was, I gave him the money back.She was asked where the cash came from: I am sure that the source of the money is always the work sweat and tears of me. For many, many years, I have kept money in my house… on my worst day probably only $500 or $1,000. And my best days, I probably had $15,000 in my house, cash.
There’s always going to be cash in my house or wherever I’m laying my head.
But Willis said she never paid Wade more than $2,500 in any one payment.
There were only a handful of trips together with Nathan Wade, Fani Willis is now telling the court: We went to Aruba, I consider that one trip. On New Year’s Eve, we went on a cruise to the Bahamas. That’s the second trip.
We went to Belize. That was my trip, that was, you know, his 50th [birthday] and then Napa Valley. We went around May. I don’t know the dates, but it seems to me like it was close to Mother’s Day.
And those are the only trips.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:52:41 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Willis: 'I'm not on trial. These people are on trial for stealing an election'In one furious outburst, Fani Willis is angrily pushing back at what she says are personal attacks on her and Nathan Wade, and says opposing attorneys should focus their attention elsewhere. Asked if she objected to records of flights she took with Wade being demanded, she said: I object to you getting records. 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. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.Willis is also defending Wade’s character, saying they are “good friends”. The judge has ordered another short break.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 3:54:27 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Judge remarks on heated atmosphere in courtroom, calling on all parties to control their tempersJudge Scott McAfee says the heated atmosphere in the courtroom needs to cool down, and ordered a short break. When the session resumed, with Fani Willis still on the stand, he admonished all parties to respect the decorum of the court. Here’s my colleague Sam Levine’s latest take on this afternoon’s fiery proceedings: In her time on the stand, Fani Willis has twice sought to remind the audience about the stakes of the case. At issue isn’t her relationship with Wade, but democracy. “Ms Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy your honor, not to mine,” she said at one point.
In a heated exchange later she said “You’re confused... I’m not on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020.”
Willis’s testimony so far has sought to explain some of the biggest questions from Wade’s testimony this morning.
Explaining why she repaid Wade in cash for travel, Willis explained that she has always kept significant amounts of cash wherever she lays her head. She took from that stash to repay Wade. She has also been blunter about calling out “lies” in motions seeking to disqualify her.
By way of explanation, Ashleigh Merchant, mentioned above, is the attorney currently involved in the back-and-forth with Willis on the stand. She represents Michael Roman, one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the election interference case that Willis is prosecuting.
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Post by Webster on Feb 27, 2024 18:35:33 GMT -5
(The Epoch Times) Witness Confronted With Texts, Key Details He Shared About Wade-Willis RelationshipTerrence Bradley, former law partner and attorney to special prosecutor Nathan Wade, testified about Mr. Wade and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s relationship in a public court hearing on Feb. 27, responding to attorneys that accused him of misleading the defense with his representations of the relationship. Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis’s relationship has been at the center of a motion to disqualify the prosecutors from the high-profile election case naming former President Donald Trump and 14 others in an alleged racketeering scheme. During the testimony, several texts between Mr. Bradley and Ashleigh Merchant, representing defendant Michael Roman, were read aloud in court. The two had texted over a six month period and Mr. Bradley shared several details about the relationship, sometimes unprompted and sometimes in response to Ms. Merchant asking for confirmation. Among other things, Mr. Bradley had texted Ms. Merchant that he believed the relationship between Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis began after they met at a judicial conference in 2019, that they had gone on several trips together, that he wanted to review the motion to disqualify for accuracy, and that Mr. Wade was “absolutely” hired after he and Ms. Willis were already in a relationship. However, Mr. Bradley testified that this had all been “speculation.” Shown some of the text messages, Mr. Bradley said, “I see that message, but I do not recall that.” “And when I asked you if you thought it started before she hired him, and you responded ‘absolutely,’” Ms. Merchant added before being interrupted by an objection from state attorneys that the source of information was in question.
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Post by Webster on Mar 1, 2024 19:02:10 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Another major Trump-related court hearing will take place later today in Georgia, where attorneys for the former president are trying to get the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, thrown off the case she brought against them for allegedly tampering with the 2020 election result in the state. Here’s more about that, from the Guardian’s Sam Levine: A Fulton county judge will hear closing arguments Friday afternoon in a three-day evidentiary hearing to determine whether district attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from handling the election interference against Donald Trump because of her romantic relationship with a deputy handling the case.
The hearing has offered a dramatic deviation from the racketeering case against the former US president and 14 remaining co-defendants for trying to overturn the election in Georgia.
The matter kicked off in January when Michael Roman, a Republican operative and one of the defendants in the case, filed a motion claiming Willis financially benefitted from the case because of a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a top prosecutor in the case. Trump and several other defendants later joined the request.
Willis and Wade both admitted to a romantic relationship, but both said it only began after he was hired on 1 November 2021. They both testified about vacations they had taken together and revealed personal details about a romantic relationship that they say only began in 2022, after he was hired, and ended last summer.
A star witness who was supposed to undercut their claims ultimately failed to produce meaningful evidence.
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Post by Webster on Mar 1, 2024 19:23:13 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Trump lawyers argue not removing Fani Willis would undermine belief in legal systemA lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system. John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case. Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on ... the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported. If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.
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Post by Webster on Mar 1, 2024 19:25:27 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Trump lawyer says appearance of impropriety enough to disqualifyDonald Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow has argued that Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election interference case because she may have lied to the court about her undisclosed affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Sadow said Willis’s claim under oath that her relationship with Wade did not begin until after she hired him was not credible, Reuters reports. He told the judge: Once you have the appearance of impropriety ... the law in Georgia is clear: That’s enough to disqualify.
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