Legal Arguments To Begin Over Fani Willis' Future In Trump Case

ATLANTA (AP) — After several days of extraordinary testimony, the judge in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump is set to hear arguments Friday over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed from the prosecution over a romantic relationship.

Lawyers for Trump and other defendants in the election case argue Willis’ romance with a special prosecutor she hired creates a conflict of interest. They say Willis paid outside lawyer Nathan Wade large sums for his work and then improperly benefited when he paid for vacations for the two of them.

Willis and Wade have acknowledged the relationship, which they said ended last summer, but they have argued it does not create any sort of conflict and has no bearing on the case. The pair said they didn’t begin dating until the spring of 2022, after Wade was hired, and that they split travel expenses.

Since the relationship was revealed in early January, the subject dominating the court’s time and the public’s attention has not been the crimes prosecutors allege Trump and his allies committed while trying to overturn the election, but rather the intimate details of Willis and Wade’s relationship.

The hearings have at times wandered into surreal territory: Atlanta’s mayor watching from the gallery as a former Georgia governor testified, Willis’ father talking about keeping stashes of cash around the house and details of romantic getaways.

Willis’ removal would throw the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against Trump into question as the former president seeks a return to the White House. But it wouldn’t necessarily mean the charges against him and 14 others would be dropped.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge