A hearing will take place in Georgia next month over accusations that Fulton County District attorney Fani Willis and her lead prosecutor on the county’s election-interference case against former president Donald Trump had an improper relationship and mishandled taxpayer funds.
The hearing is scheduled for February 15, according to an order from Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. The judge gave Willis until February 2 to respond to the allegations, which were first reported in a legal filing from one of Trump’s co-defendants, former campaign aide Mike Roman.
Lawyers for Roman called for Willis and prosecutor Nathan Wade to be removed from the case and for the charges against Roman to be dismissed “on the grounds that the district attorney and the special prosecutor have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”
The filing does not include any hard proof of the pair’s alleged romantic relationship, but claims “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship.”
Wade has been paid more than half a million dollars through his involvement in prosecuting the Trump election-interference case.
Willis’s office said earlier this month they would respond to the allegations in a court filing, rather than issuing a public statement.
A Georgia grand jury indicted Trump and more than a dozen of his close allies in mid-August over allegations they schemed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump was charged with conspiracy to commit forgery, filing false documents, Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer, and violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Other defendants include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and several members of Trump’s legal team: Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell.
“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the indictment reads. “That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.”
Prosecutors allege that Trump and his allies were “engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury.”