A Georgia district attorney accused of hiring her lover to prosecute former US President Donald Trump broke her silence on the controversy, saying she and the prosecutor were targeted because they are black.
“They only attacked one,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said on Sunday at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta.
“First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now.’
“But no God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one?”
The comments were Willis’ first time addressing the allegations publicly — but she neither confirmed nor denied the relationship claims levelled at her and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who helped secure an indictment against Trump in an election interference case.
She called Wade “a great friend and a great lawyer,” along with a “superstar,” but failed to mention him by name once during her more than 30 minute speech, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade was allegedly having a relationship with Willis when he was appointed to the case.
Wade and Fani were accused by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman of having a “clandestine” and “improper” affair when appointments were made for the 2020 election interference case.
Roman, a former official on the Trump 2020 campaign, argued in a court filing last week that the integrity of the case had been compromised by their alleged affair and asked that all charges against him be dropped.
“The district attorney chose to appoint her romantic partner, who at all times relevant to this prosecution has been a married man,” the filing read.
Roman contended in the filing that Wade used some of the $654,000 in legal fees he’d earned on the case to take Willis on vacations to “Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean.”
Willis pointed out during her speech on Sunday that the other two prosecutors assigned to the case, Anna Green Cross and John Floyd, both are white, and noted that allegations have only emerged targeting the two prominent black members of the prosecution — her and Wade.
“Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years?” she asked.
Trump’s co-defendant, Roman was unmoved by Willis accusations of the charges being racially charged.
“The biggest difference between Ms. Cross, Mr. Floyd and Mr. Wade is that Ms. Willis is not in a relationship with Ms. Cross and Mr. Floyd,” he said in a statement to the Constitution-Journal on Sunday.
Fana Willis is planning to file an official response to the allegations, her spokesperson said.
Once that filing is in, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said he would schedule a hearing to address the matter.
