Nathan Wade appears during a Fulton County court hearing on Feb. 15, 2024. (Law&Crime Network)
“We’re private people,” special prosecutor Nathan Wade testified during a hearing examining several aspects of his disputed romance with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis early Thursday afternoon. “Our relationship wasn’t a secret, it was just private.”
The dispute, however, is not about the existence of that relationship — the basic fact was acknowledged by the pair in court filings earlier this month. The judge overseeing the case, rather, is concerned largely with when the relationship went from platonic to amorous. And, on that question, there are now two starkly contradictory accounts.
Wade, for his part, insisted under oath on Thursday that he and Willis did not become romantically entangled until 2022.
But Wade, the lead prosecutor in the racketeering (RICO) and election subversion case against Donald Trump and others, taking the stand at all was a significant procedural victory for co-defendant Michael Roman and his attorney, Ashleigh Merchant. As the state has roundly complained in both the courtroom and court filings, opposing counsel being forced to testify by the defense is considered something of an anomaly and rarity for a criminal proceeding in the United States.
Roman previously worked as a staff member for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign — he faces seven charges in the underlying, 41-count RICO indictment. In early January, the defendant and his attorney raised the prosecutorial romance in an effort to dismiss the indictment and disqualify the two prosecutors from the case.
Under a lengthy direct examination by Merchant, Wade mostly discussed his spending habits during the relationship, offered insight into how Willis often reimbursed him — but always in cash — for various vacations and day trips, pored over receipts, and took issue with other bits of minutiae related to their lodging, spending, and travel.
“She is going to pay her own way,” Wade testified at one point — stressing that Willis is a strong and independent woman.
Bookending the mostly dollars-and-cents-centered testimony was a shorter series of questions related to Wade and Willis’ relationship.
Early on, Wade attempted to add caveats to dueling answers he gave in response to two different interrogatories about extramarital affairs.
In the first court filing, Wade said he had not had sexual relationships with anyone outside of marriage up to May 30, 2023. In the second and later court filing, Wade admitted to entertaining someone other than his wife.
To try and bridge that admitted divide, Wade said, he considered his marriage “irretrievably broken” as of some time in 2015 — Wade and his estranged wife, however, remain legally married.
“I was free to have a relationship,” Wade added.
Later on, and just before a lunch break, Merchant asked twice in a row: “Did you discuss your relationship with Ms. Willis in social settings?”
Wade said he didn’t understand the question after the second ask, prompting a quick defense clarification.
“Did you discuss your personal relationship — your private, personal, romantic relationship with Ms. Willis — in social settings?” Merchant asked.
To which the witness replied: “No, ma’am.”
The defense attorney then asked Wade if he ever discussed their relationship in front of Robin Yeartie, a former member of the district attorney’s office, and a longtime former friend of Willis.
Again, Wade answered in the negative.
Earlier in the day, Yeartie testified that Willis and Wade began their romance in late 2019. Her testimony was what convinced Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to enforce the defense subpoena on Wade.
After lunch, the defense planned to grill the special prosecutor again over a series of documents recently admitted into evidence.
Before that, an attorney representing another defendant in the RICO case revisited Wade’s divorce interrogatories. This time, over a series of numerous objections and clarifications, Wade admitted on the stand that he and Willis had sexual relations by May 30, 2023 — directly contradicting the earlier averred statement that he had not had sexual relationships with anyone outside of marriage up to May 30, 2023.
Developing …
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