The chairman of the Fulton County Audit Committee is demanding that District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump, respond to allegations that she “misused” funds by taking vacations financed by her own special prosecutor on the case.
Fulton County Commissioner Bob Ellis, the chairman of the county’s audit committee, sent a letter to Willis Friday evening asking whether she engaged in a “romantic relationship” with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, “misused” county funds, and “accepted valuable gifts and personal benefits from a contractor/recipient of County funds.”
“These allegations involve your decision to appoint Nathan Wade to serve as a special prosecutor in the matter in which former President Trump is a co-defendant. Mr. Wade is alleged to (1) lack relevant prosecutorial experience in a case of this type and complexity, (2) have paid for your portion of multiple instances of joint leisure travel, and (3) be in a romantic relationship with you that was not disclosed to the court or to the parties in the case,” Ellis wrote.
Ellis cited credit card statements from a leaked filing in Wade’s open divorce case showing the special prosecutor purchased a pair of airline tickets which included Willis’s name. The transactional records, part of the sealed divorce case in the Cobb County Superior Court, coincide with allegations in a recent motion made by one of Trump’s co-defendants, Mike Roman, that claimed Willis improperly benefitted from Wade’s contract by joining him on several vacations.
Wade filed for divorce from his wife, Joycelyn Wade, on Nov. 2, 2021, which was also the day after his taxpayer-funded contract with Willis’s office started. His wife alleged in previous filings that he did not reveal his earnings from the county to her but continued to draw from her bank account. Wade’s firm has been paid as much as $654,000 from Willis’s office since 2022, according to public records.
Roman’s motion was filed earlier this week in the Georgia election interference case. The motion seeks to have the indictment thrown out and to have Willis and Wade removed from the case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge McAfee has scheduled a hearing on the motion for Feb. 15, which will be live-streamed.
Ellis’s letter also demands Willis “assist” the audit committee by providing “invoices for services, expenses, costs, fees … utilized by your office from Jan. 1, 2021 through present” by Feb. 2, the same day Willis has been asked to respond in court to allegations made by Roman in the 2020 election interference case.
The Democratic district attorney’s alleged lover has been paid an hourly rate of $250, despite an attorney known as Georgia’s leading racketeering expert, John Floyd, being paid a $200 hourly rate, which was initially set at $150, according to contracts and billing statements obtained by the Daily Caller.
Willis has defended Wade’s experience and claimed during an appearance at a local church on Sunday that she “paid them all the same hourly rate,” referring to the other attorneys she hired for the case. She also admitted that she was a “flawed” person but did not comment directly on the recent allegations.
A relatively unknown video of Willis from April 2020 also surfaced Friday evening in a report by the Washington Free Beacon. In the video, she vowed she would never be involved in sexual affairs with her colleagues.
“I certainly will not be choosing people to date that work under me. Let me just say that,” Willis said on the Patricia Crayton Show, just months before she was elected.
Willis is also fighting to quash a subpoena request for her deposition from Joycelyn Wade’s counsel in the divorce case.
Although Willis has not officially responded to the recent allegations, the scathing claims come in one of the most significant prosecutions in the nation’s history, involving allegations that Trump and 18 co-defendants conspired to subvert the county’s election results. Four of the 19 people charged have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.
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The next courtroom development over the affair allegations will take place at the Cobb County Superior County on Monday over Willis’s emergency motion to quash the subpoena sought by Wade’s wife. The subpoena document seen by the Wall Street Journal did not include details about the types of questions Willis may face.
A spokesman for Willis has said she will be responding in a court filing to the allegations of an improper relationship with Wade.
Read the letter in full:
Request for Information by DA from Fulton County Commissioner Bob Ellis by Kaelan Deese on Scribd
