Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis may have made the headlines with her histrionics in a misconduct hearing that could end up disqualifying her from prosecuting former President Donald Trump, but her alleged lover managed to make some waves of his own for the opposite reason: his deafening silence.
Willis is accused of an improper relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she paid to work on her office’s election interference case against Trump and others who challenged the outcome of the 2020 presidential race in Georgia.
In January, according to The New York Times, court filings from one of the defendants, Michael Roman, indicated that Willis had paid Wade $650,000 in legal fees.
Later reports from the New York Post indicated that she had paid Wade significantly more than John Floyd — “regarded the state’s foremost expert on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) cases,” the statute under which she’s charging Trump and the other defendants.
NBC News noted that both have signed affidavits that a personal relationship began in 2022 after Wade was hired in November 2021. However, a friend of Willis’ testified Thursday that the relationship began as early as 2019.
NEW: Former Fulton County DA employee and friend of Fani Willis since college says she was definitely in a relationship with Nathan Wade since 2019.
This completely contradicts the filings of Wade and Willis in which they claimed it began in 2022.
Giving false statements to the… pic.twitter.com/mt5FUIDqUu
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 15, 2024
Willis made the most viral headlines with this outburst in which she said she was not “on trial but “these people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020!”
Fani Willis pushes back against efforts to obtain her personal records: “You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.” pic.twitter.com/6AfHlq325Q
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 15, 2024
Wade’s testimony was more muted. It also was potentially a lot more damaging.
For instance, he said during the hearing that the two took a series of lavish trips together during their relationship: Aruba, Belize and Napa Valley, California, were among the destinations.
Wade said he put the trips on his business credit card. She paid him back in cash.
BREAKING: Nathan Wade testifies that he paid for all the vacations he took with Fani Willis with his business credit card.
And that she then reimbursed him in CASH.
This what at a time he was getting paid by Willis’ office for the prosecution of Trump. pic.twitter.com/9DUq3hedOX
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 15, 2024
And where did Willis get this cash from? Uh, you know. Places.
Fani Willis is claiming she paid Nathan Wade back for all of her vacations in cash that she kept at her house and has no trail.
How convenient. pic.twitter.com/gg4bkC7jJx
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) February 15, 2024
Those trips are bad enough, but lawyers for the defense thought Wade wasn’t being totally forthcoming. They asked him if he had booked a cabin in Tennessee for him and Willis to stay in roughly six months ago.
“No,” he responded, furrowing his brow slightly
“Do you remember booking a cabin?” the attorney asked.
There was a slight pause after that question, then Wade’s unintentionally hilarious response: “I book lots of cabins.”
Sure. Don’t we all?
OK, let’s try again: “Did you go to a cabin with Ms. Willis, ever?” the attorney asked.
“Ever?” Wade responded.
Yes, ever, the attorney repeated.
What followed was 21 seconds of Wade casting his gaze ceiling-ward, furrowing that brow even deeper and looking like a man considering the question as a first-year algebra student considers a differential equation.
Then, finally: “No.”
Nathan Wade is asked if he remembers paying for a cabin for him an Fani Willis in Tennessee.
“I book lots of cabins,” he replies.
He then goes on to say that he and Willis would drive to TN from Atlanta to have lunch and come back because she would be recognized in public. pic.twitter.com/pKXIpeoCAw
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 15, 2024
He went on to say the reason he was in Tennessee with Willis was that she was just so famous in the Fulton County area that they literally needed to escape to another state hours away to have lunch. Totally normal eating behavior that has nothing at all to do with the kind of, um, human biological activity that, say, one might theoretically book a cabin for.
And, after all, the man books lots of cabins. Just ask him.
To give Wade the absolute minimum amount of credit, his considered silence was at least a bit more cautious than Willis’ outraged dramaturgy, which earned her a caution from the judge because she frequently interrupted questions.
She would have been better served had said judge warned her that her performance was coming off like someone who was trying to launder “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” righteous outrage through “Law & Order”-style testimony, and very unsuccessfully at that. (I’m pretty sure that’s not standard courtroom procedure, however.)
Should the Fulton County case against Trump be thrown out?
That being said, nothing that came out of his mouth — or even the stuff that didn’t come out of his mouth when it should have — made things any easier for Willis.
He sat motionless and silent considering whether he had ever booked a cabin for the two of them before finally answering no, then providing a weak explanation of why they had to leave the state for lunch (Fani Willis, despite the importance she might play in Trump’s re-election efforts, is about as famous as Pauly Shore’s dog — at least before she made headlines with her performance Thursday) and not providing a particularly exculpatory answer as to where the cash Willis paid him back for the trips with came from.
Yes, Willis is not the one on trial — yet, anyway. This was a misconduct hearing, after all, and that misconduct has to do with whether Willis financially benefited from her relationship with Wade.
Elsewhere in his testimony, NBC News reported, Wade said the two are no longer romantically involved but remain “very good friends.”
After Thursday’s testimony — and that 21 seconds of near-motionless silence regarding his cabin expenditures and the somewhat unconvincing answer after he broke it — I think that might change in a hurry.
