Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis won praise from many observers for her spirited self-defense in an Atlanta courtroom this month, as lawyers representing Donald Trump and some of his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case grilled her about her personal relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Trump’s side sought to portray the personal relationship between Wade and Willis as disqualifying, since Willis’s office authorized Wade’s pay on the case during a period when they were involved. The defense also sought to characterize Willis as a financial beneficiary of Wade’s earnings in the form of dates and vacations he allegedly paid for.
Appearing for questions — against the advice of nearly every lawyer in the country with a social media account — Willis was combative, memorably replying to one line of questioning by saying: “You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. I’m not on trial — these people are on trial for trying to steal an election.”
But though Willis was not on trial, she was under oath, a circumstance that — as all the tweeting lawyers warned — presented an unnecessary risk. One of the facts Trump’s attorneys tried to establish was the start date of the romance between Willis and Wade, which both Willis and Wade said postdated his hiring.
Now reports of cell phone data from the devices of Willis and Wade, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are fueling doubts about the veracity of the timeline both Willis and Wade testified to. (The data don’t prove the timelines incorrect, but they do suggest the possibility.)
AJC is reporting discovery of 1000’s of texts exchanged between DA Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, the Special Prosecutor she appointed. There is also cellphone data chronicling his 35 visits to her neighborhood before she hired him. This powerful evidence in the motion to…
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) February 23, 2024
Media personality Geraldo Rivera — an attorney and career-long expert at using what might be called the “grammar” of the media — slammed Willis and her team for her “emotionally distraught” testimony and the naivete of their approach.
“This is exactly why you don’t want your emotionally distraught client to take the witness stand under oath to defend their character,” Rivera writes. “Media experts who rushed to cheer her on, saying she did great on the witness stand, don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Even if the relationship began earlier, that would not necessarily indicate prosecutorial misconduct. Lying about it, however, would. Even without concluding that Willis may have gotten her dates wrong, it is very easy to say — as again all the lawyers on Twitter did — that she should never have been on the stand in the first place. The move was passionate, goes the logic, but legally amateur.
“This is more than a mere appearance of a conflict. This is an earthquake,” Rivera says of the Willis situation. Rivera also warns that the aftershocks from the will be enormous.
Don’t apologize; also, don’t underestimate the difficulty in bringing in a new prosecutor.
This case is sprawling, with multiple defendants and even several guilty pleas. Exactly which prosecutor’s office in Georgia can pick up the pieces? That complexity is exactly why a… https://t.co/AuQwCR60cG
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) February 23, 2024