A prosecutor from the US state of Georgia, who is suing Donald Trump by accusing him of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, defended herself Thursday, in a passionate and sometimes outraged tone, of any conflict of interest linked to his private life.
Fani Willis accused the former president’s lawyers of spreading “lies” aimed at discrediting her.
“It’s extremely hurtful,” she said, forced to unpack part of her private life in court, the proceedings being also televised.
This hearing took place before a judge seized by Donald Trump who is asking for the charges against him in Georgia to be dropped, affirming that prosecutor Willis is guilty of professional misconduct linked to an intimate affair.
The magistrate, Scott McAfee, will have to decide whether or not the relationship between the prosecutor and the veteran investigator she recruited, Nathan Wade, amounted to a conflict of interest.
For Mr. Trump and his co-defendants, charged in this southern state with unlawful actions aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election, the case is clear: Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had an “intimate personal relationship inappropriate”.
In their argument submitted to the court, they claim that the sum of $650,000 paid to Mr. Wade for his work allowed him to offer Ms. Willis a “luxurious vacation,” including a cruise in the Caribbean.
For her part, the prosecutor responsible for investigating the case admitted a romantic relationship with the lawyer she had hired, but denied any professional misconduct.
Mr. Trump’s request is therefore “unfounded”, estimated Fani Willis in a court document, ensuring that she had no intimate relationship with Nathan Wade when she recruited him in November 2021.
The latter assured during the hearing that he had started this relationship with Fani Willis in 2022, and claimed to have derived no personal financial gain from his role as special prosecutor.
But Robin Bryant Yeartie, a former friend and colleague of the prosecutor who also testified Thursday, said that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade began a “romantic personal relationship” in late 2019.
To which Fani Willis retorted: “She betrayed our friendship”.
Put in the spotlight, the prosecutor nevertheless wanted to put things back in place, by naming her opponents.
“These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” she said. “I’m not being judged, no matter how harshly you were trying to judge me!”
Judge McAfee has scheduled another day of arguments in court.
Donald Trump, favorite in the Republican primaries for the November presidential election, has pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case.
Since the end of his mandate in 2021, several trials have targeted the former business mogul.
As part of another legal proceeding, relating to an alleged purchase of the silence of a pornographic film actress, he went to a New York court on Thursday, where the judge told him that he must appear in criminal trial from March 25, the first in history for a former president of the United States.
