Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made her first public feedback on Sunday since a co-defendant of former President Donald Trump alleged she had an inappropriate relationship with a particular prosecutor she employed to supervise the case.
The defendant, former Trump marketing campaign staffer Michael Roman, is one in every of 19 folks charged in Willis’ sweeping election subversion case over efforts to undermine Georgia’s 2020 presidential election outcomes. Roman filed a bombastic movement final week, accusing Willis of getting a secret romantic relationship with prime prosecutor Nathan Wade, who has been paid greater than $650,000 in authorized charges since Jan. 2022.
Roman claimed Willis employed Wade as a part of a “self-serving arrangement” that offered monetary advantages to each of them. The movement didn’t embrace any proof to again up the claims.
Willis on Sunday spoke concerning the accusations throughout a speech on the historic Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta, defending her hiring selections and calling Wade a person of “impeccable credentials.”
“I’m a little confused. I appointed three special counselors,” Willis stated Sunday. “It’s my right to do, paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one. I hired one white woman, a good personal friend and a great lawyer, a superstar, I tell you. I hired one white man — brilliant — my friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one Black man, another superstar.”
She didn’t tackle any romantic hyperlink between the pair however known as Wade a “great friend and a great lawyer” who was paid the identical price as two different particular prosecutors employed to work on the Trump case.
The movement, she steered, gave the impression to be motivated by race.
“First thing they say, ’Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now,” Willis stated whereas studying a letter to the congregation. “But no God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one? Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years?”
“You did not tell me as a woman of color, it would not matter what I did,” she added. “My motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked.”
Trump has seized on the authorized submitting, saying it amounted to proof that the case needs to be thrown out because it was now “totally compromised.”
“It’s illegal. What she did is illegal,” the previous president claimed, with out proof. “So we’ll let the state handle that, but what a sad situation it is.”
Willis went on to discuss the psychological toll the continuing trial has had on her skilled and private life. She particularly pointed to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R), who has roundly attacked the district legal professional and final week filed a grievance towards her.
“I never want to be a Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has never met me but has allowed her spirit to be filled with hate,” Willis learn from her letter, addressed to God. “How does this woman, who has the honor of being a leader in my state, how is it that she has not reached out to me?”
The district legal professional is anticipated to answer Roman’s movement in an upcoming courtroom submitting, in accordance to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
