A Georgia judge moved to unseal the divorce proceedings involving Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who is leading the election interference case against former President Donald Trump, amid complaints that he engaged in an improper relationship with District Attorney Fani Willis.
Superior Court Judge Henry Thompson in Cobb County heard arguments on Monday over whether to enforce a subpoena issued to Willis as part of her top prosecutor’s divorce case, which she received amid allegations that she and Wade were involved in an improper relationship while prosecuting the case against Trump.
Thompson ruled first that he would vacate a previous order that kept records of the divorce proceedings sealed. That is what attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide Mike Roman, called on him to decide.
A hearing on Jan. 31 was already slated for deliberations over whether to unseal the case, though Thompson ruled on Monday that the case had been improperly sealed and moved to open it. The case can be located under case number “21108166.”
Willis’s deposition in the divorce case was set for Tuesday, but before a noon break on Monday, Thompson ordered the deposition of Willis to be delayed until after Wade is deposed on Jan. 31.
The district attorney has claimed in court filings that the deposition would be “outside the scope of discovery” in the divorce matter and that it amounts to an “attempt to harass and damage her professional reputation.”
Last week, a filing from the previously sealed divorce case leaked to the press. The filing revealed Wade’s credit card transactions, which show he and Willis went on a Royal Caribbean cruise together in October 2022 and that he paid for at least two of her flights.
On Oct. 4, 2022, two $1,387 and $1,284 payments for the Royal Caribbean cruise were made, according to documents included in the filing on Friday. Airline tickets to Miami for $477 each were also referenced in the filing, and one of the tickets is listed in Willis’s name. The tickets to San Francisco purchased on April 27, 2023, cost $817 each, according to the records.
Fulton County Commissioner Bob Ellis, the chairman of the county’s audit committee, sent a letter to Willis on Friday asking whether she engaged in a “romantic relationship” with Wade, “misused” county funds, and “accepted valuable gifts and personal benefits from a contractor/recipient of County funds.” He gave Willis until Feb. 2 to provide her response.
The transactional records, part of the previously sealed divorce case in the Cobb County Superior Court, come after allegations made in a recent motion by Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, that Willis improperly benefitted from Wade’s contract by joining him on several vacations.
Roman’s motion was filed last 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.
Willis has defended her hiring of Wade, who legal experts say has little prosecutorial experience, and has not directly denied a romantic relationship. She had accused Wade’s wife of attempting to obstruct the criminal election interference case against Trump and others by seeking to depose Willis for the divorce proceedings.
The affair allegations have distracted from the case, which charges Trump and 18 allies of attempting to subvert the 2020 election results in the state. The Republican primary front-runner and others have underscored the allegations to attack Wade’s qualifications as a prosecutor and Willis’s ability to perform her duties ethically.
Philip Holloway, an Atlanta-area attorney and legal analyst, told the Washington Examiner that the stay against Willis’s deposition “doesn’t change anything” because the public would not have gotten access to the deposition in the first place.
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“The damage to Willis has already been done. She is digging her hole deeper by attacking the wife of her alleged lover,” Holloway said.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has scheduled a hearing on the motion for Feb. 15, which will be livestreamed.
