Former President Donald Trump turned up the heat on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis Thursday with a court filing calling for the election interference charges against him to be dropped.
The filing piggybacked on a claim from co-defendant Mike Roman filed earlier this month alleging Willis had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the prosecutor in the case. Roman called for all charges to be dropped, as noted by The Washington Post.
Several days later, Willis made a speech in which she suggested she and Wade were being attacked because they are black.
The filing touched on Roman’s filing and Willis’s speech.
“President Trump moves the Court to adopt and supplement the above-titled motion filed by co-defendant Roman on January 8, 2024, which alleged, among other misconduct, that an improper intimate personal relationship existed between Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney (DA) Willis, that Wade has been paid over $650,000 by the DA, and that taxpayer monies were used by Wade to take the DA on lavish vacations,” the filing said.
Trending:
The filing said Willis used her speech “to make racially charged, extrajudicial statements designed to defend against, as well as divert and deflect attention from, the alleged misconduct outlined in Roman’s motion.”
The filing said that during Willis’s speech in a religious setting she “repeatedly and inappropriately injected race into the case and stoked racial animus by, among other statements, asking God why the defendants were questioning her conduct in hiring a Black man but not his White counterparts, and why the judgment of a Black female Democrat wasn’t as good as White male Republicans.”
The filing quoted Willis as saying “First thing they say. Oh, she going to play the race card now? But no. God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one?”
The filing said Willis’s “extrajudicial comments” amount to “a glaring, flagrant, and calculated effort to foment racial bias into this case by publicly denouncing the defendants for somehow daring to question her decision to hire a Black man (without also mentioning that she is alleged to have had a workplace affair with the same man) to be a special prosecutor.
Should Trump’s Georgia indictment be dismissed?
“These assertions by the DA engender a great likelihood of substantial prejudice towards the defendants in the eyes of the public in general, and prospective jurors in Fulton County in particular,” the filing said.
“Moreover, the DA’s self-serving comments came with the added, sought after, benefit of garnering racially based sympathy for her self-inflicted quagmire,” the filing said, adding that her comments violated the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.
“The awesome power to prosecute ought never to be manipulated for personal or political profit. In addition to the extensive misconduct alleged in Roman’s motion, the DA did just that in her speech by wrongfully inserting racial animus into this case to publicly denounce and rebuke the defendants, and to defend her personal and political reputation against the numerous and diverse allegations Roman made in his court filing,” the filing said.
“Although this Court may not have the authority to disbar DA Willis, it certainly does have the power to dismiss the indictment and to disqualify her, the special prosecutors she hired and her office from any further involvement in this case or any related matter, and should do so here,” the filing said.
Steve Sadow, an attorney for Trump, said the filing targets Willis for “her misconduct alleged in a motion filed by Mr. Roman as well as her extrajudicial public statements falsely and intentionally injecting race into this case,” according to NBC.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has filed a criminal misconduct complaint against Willis and Wade, according to WAGA-TV in Atlanta.
“I can say with 100 percent confidence that this issue is going to get this case off track,” Clark Cunningham, a Georgia State University College of Law professor said in speaking to the allegations that Wade and Willis had a personal relationship, according to WXIA-TV.
“It already has. … Even if the motion to disqualify isn’t granted, there’s a very, very good chance that it’s going to be appealed. And the appeal is going to slow it up,” he said.
