Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney prosecuting former President Donald Trump, went on trips with the taxpayer-funded special counsel she appointed to the case, according to records revealed Friday in a divorce case involving his former spouse.
A motion filed last week by a defense attorney for one of Trump’s co-defendants accused Willis of being involved in a romantic and improper relationship with Nathan Wade, the main prosecutor leading the Georgia election interference case. On Thursday, Willis made clear she is seeking to quash a subpoena for her testimony in Wade’s divorce proceedings with his ex-wife, Joycelyn Wade, according to a court filing on Thursday.
But on Friday, a new filing seeking to keep Willis from dodging the subpoena was filed by attorneys for Wade’s ex-wife, revealing transactions by Wade that appear to show he and Willis went on a Royal Caribbean cruise together in October 2022.
The filing also references the pair’s travels to San Francisco and Napa.
“On December 22, 2023, Plaintiff only produced a portion of his outstanding required discovery responses,” Joycelyn’s attorneys wrote, referring to Nathan Wade.
“In these responses were credit card statements which demonstrated that Plaintiff had paid for and taken trips unrelated to his work with the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. Since Plaintiff filed for divorce, he has taken trips to San Francisco and Napa Valley, to Florida and even gone on Caribbean cruises, enjoyed a trip to Belize, another to the country of Panama and even just last month took a trip to Australia. The evidence is clear that Ms. Willis was an intended travel partner for at least some of these trips as indicated by flights he purchased for her to accompany him,” the filing added.
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 Wilis’s name. The tickets to San Francisco purchased on April 27, 2023, cost $817 each, according to the records. Another transaction on Oct. 4, 2022 showed a $413 plane ticket for someone named Clara Bowman.
Wade filed for divorce from his wife on Nov. 2, 2021, which was also the day after his contract with Willis’s office started. His wife alleged in previous filings that he did not reveal his earnings from the county to her but continued to draw from her bank account. Wade’s firm has been paid as much as $654,000 from Willis’s office since 2022, according to public records.
An attorney for Willis wrote in the motion to quash the subpoena that Willis’s testimony is being sought in a bid to “harass and damage” her professional reputation and accuses Joycelyn Wade of having “conspired with interested parties in the criminal Election Interference Case to use the civil discovery process to annoy, embarrass, and oppress” the district attorney.
Andrea Hastings, a lawyer for Joycelyn Wade, told the Washington Examiner following Willis’s motion that her client aims to “resolve her divorce fairly and privately” and that any response to Willis’s motion will come in a filing with the court.
But the statement from Hastings did not hold back from making the observation that “apparently Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis would prefer to use her public platform.”
“Clearly, this matter is personal for her,” Hastings added.
Willis was served with the subpoena on the same day defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide Michael Roman, filed a motion alleging an improper relationship between Willis and Wade. Merchant claimed that the allegations presented a conflict of interest and led to Willis profiting personally from the prosecution. Roman’s motion seeks to have the indictment thrown out and to have Willis and Wade removed from the case.
Trump responded to the revelation of Wade’s bank records in a post Friday on his Truth Social platform, claiming he and Willis “colluded” to “enrich” themselves.
“WOW! Just released Credit Card records (showing a small sample only) irrefutably prove that Fulton County, Georgia (Crime-ridden Atlanta) D.A. Fani Willis colluded with her Boyfriend/Lover to wrongfully target me in order to ENRICH themselves, and to live the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous! Cruises, Wineries, Shopping, and so much more – paid for with money they got by persecuting me and other honorable American Patriots!” Trump said.
While Willis has remained largely silent on the matter, she did address it during a livestreamed service at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta over the weekend.
Willis said during her remarks that she was a “flawed” person.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, reacted to the development by saying the “Justice Department has indicted corporate officials for using tickets and vacations for kickback schemes,” citing an October 2016 indictment involving executives from Indiana nursing home chain American Senior Communities.
“That does not mean that that is what occurred here, but such payments magnify concerns,” Turley wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding, “Willis can argue that this was simply a relationship where Wade paid for flights as he did meals and other expenses.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the election interference case, on Thursday scheduled a hearing over Roman’s motion on 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.
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Additionally, Willis’s motion to quash the subpoena for deposition in the divorce case will have a hearing before a judge on Monday.
The Washington Examiner did not receive a response from a spokesman for Willis’s office.
