Fulton County (GA) District Attorney Fani Willis finally addressed the misconduct concerns surrounding her alleged relationship with Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade, both of whom were instrumental in indicting Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Willis touched on the allegations made last week when she spoke at Big Bethel AME Church on Jan. 14 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
In the speech, excerpted by The Hill, Willis defended herself from the accusations that her recruitment of Wade in the case was improperly handled. Willis suggested that the defamation against the two attorneys has racist motivations, noting that Wade, the sole man of color appointed as a special counselor, is the only one being attacked.
“I’m a little confused. I appointed three special counselors. It’s my right to pay them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one,” Willis said Sunday. “I hired one white woman, a good personal friend and a great lawyer, a superstar, I tell you. I hired one white man—brilliant y friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one Black man, another superstar, a great friend and a great lawyer.”
Willis also detailed the troubling double standard inherent in those accusations.
“God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one,” said Willis. “They’re playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some o
ther jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve [done] almost 30 years…I’m just asking, ‘God, is it that some will never see a Black man as qualified, no matter his achievements?’”Mike Roman, a co-defendant in the Trump indictment, and his attorney, Ashley Merchant, proposed that the two Black lawyers have been involved in a full-fledged romantic relationship. According to Merchant, the relationship began before Wade was appointed special counselor, urging that the revelation is grounds for the case to be dismissed.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene then requested an investigation into these claims, leading to Willis’ defending herself and Wade at the Sunday service.
“Dear God, I do not want to be like those that attacked me,” Willis shared. “I never want to be a Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has never met me but has allowed her spirit to be filled with hate. How does this woman, who has the honor of being a leader in my state, how is it that she has not reached out to me?”
Despite Willis’ calls that the controversy stems from a racial bias, her unveiled subpoena in Wade’s divorce trial by the Wall Street Journal complicates the matter further.