ATLANTA — Wednesday, Republican lawmakers said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis broke the law by not getting financial approval to hire a special prosecutor in the criminal case against former president Donald Trump.
Willis hired attorney Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor after they'd started an affair, according to a witness who testified at a special investigative committee hearing Wednesday at the capitol.
"It’s the fact that they were sleeping together, he was paying for trips for them to go on, and they were hiding it from the taxpayers," said attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents Michael Roman, a defendant in the racketeering case.
Merchant uncovered the relationship between Willis and Wade, to whom her office has paid some $650,000 as the case’s lead prosecutor, with no approval from Fulton’s board of commissioners.
Merchant said Willis and Wade started seeing each other at least a year before the 2020 election --- long before Willis admits the relationship started.
"If Ms. Willis had gone to the board of county commissioners and said, 'I’m having an affair with this man. But he is brilliant and would be an amazing prosecutor on this election interference case. Can I have an appropriation of 3 million dollars, and I will get it done? And I will go on vacations with him, and we’re going to date...' If she had said all that, we wouldn’t be here," Merchant said.
Merchant told the senate investigative committee that Willis hired Wade at an hourly rate far exceeding two other special prosecutors in the case. She showed invoices documenting instances where Wade charged the county for 24 hours of work in a single day and a receipt for a cruise ship vacation shared by Willis and Wade.
The chairman of the committee, state Sen. Bill Cowsert (R-Athens), told reporters after the hearing that hiring Wade without county approval likely violated state law. The state prosecuting attorney council said no such approval is required because the DA is a state constitutional officer.
But a Democrat on the committee pointed out that four of the original 19 co-defendants in the Trump racketeering case have pleaded guilty to the charges and suggested Wade deserves some credit for being an effective prosecutor.
"He’s not doing too bad, is he?" Jones asked Merchant.
"That would be up for dispute," Merchant answered.
Merchant revealed that prosecutors offered her client a plea deal that would have made the case go away for a $5,000 fine and the promise of testimony. She said Michael Roman declined the offer.
You can rewatch Merchant's full testimony below: