A judge overseeing the case against former President Donald Trump in Georgia scheduled a hearing for mid-February to examine recent allegations that Fani Willis, the lead prosecutor in the case, has a conflict of interest in it.
Judge Scott McAfee set the hearing in Atlanta for Feb. 15, and he ordered Willis to submit to the court any response to the allegations by Feb. 2, according to an order filed Thursday.
The hearing will center on salacious allegations made last week by one of the co-defendants in the case, Michael Roman.
Roman’s attorney claimed in a detailed filing that Willis carried on an improper relationship with Nathan Wade, one of the three special prosecutors Willis appointed to help with the case. The attorney called for the case to be dismissed in its entirety and for Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, to be disqualified from it.
Willis used taxpayer dollars to hire Wade, a private sector attorney, and county records show he has been paid at least $654,000 since taking on the Trump case. Local attorneys first raised questions about her arrangement with Wade months ago.
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One called it “unorthodox,” while another pointed to Wade’s scant experience with Georgia’s racketeering laws, which Willis accused Trump, Roman, and 17 others of violating. Willis is able to hire private sector attorneys, who tend to be far more expensive than using state attorneys, but she will now have to go on record and defend her justification for hiring Wade.
Roman’s attorney also accused Willis of potentially committing honest services fraud, claiming she went on vacations with him that Wade paid for from the same bank account in which he accepted Fulton County payments.
