Judge moves ahead with Fani Willis hearing but documents not turned over | Georgia

A blockbuster hearing with details from the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade will continue Thursday, after the presiding judge decided not to immediately quash subpoenas for his testimony.

But the hearing revealed a possible new obstacle for Willis: County administrators have not delivered key documents cited by Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for former Trump White House aide Michael Roman, one of 19 defendants in the county’s wide-ranging election interference and racketeering case with the former president.

Willis said in filings and in front of an audience at an Atlanta church that Wade was paid as much as other special prosecutors. The trader is seeking employment records to potentially refute that claim. Records released by the district attorney’s office to date show that Wade has billed more than half a million dollars to the county for working on the case.

Employment contracts for special prosecutor Anna Green Cross and others that Merchant demanded are not in the possession of county government records administrators, Shalanda MJ Miller, Fulton County records custodian, said at a hearing Monday. Nor were two invoices for work done on Trump’s prosecution that Merchant said had been paid.

Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed questions at Monday’s preliminary hearing about whether Wade was qualified to be named prosecutor in the high-profile racketeering case. Regardless of his experience – or lack thereof – as a prosecutor, “as long as a lawyer has a heartbeat and a lawyer card,” Wade’s appointment is a matter of district attorney discretion, McAfee said.

But legal question Whether a personal relationship between the two leads to a personal enrichment conflict requires an evidentiary hearing, he said. “The State has admitted that a relationship existed.”

Roman and Merchant have raised allegations of an inappropriate relationship as they seek to disqualify Wade and Willis as prosecutors in the Trump case and have the charges dropped. In filings and in court, Willis’ office described the allegations as speculative and unfounded.

“The defense is not presenting them with facts. The defense does not bring the law to him. The defense is bringing you gossip,” said Fulton County Special Prosecutor Anna Green Cross. Willis will not benefit financially from prosecuting the case, she said, and even if the allegations made by Merchant are true, they are an insufficient legal basis to remove the district attorney and her appointees from the case.

Thursday’s hearing in McAfee’s courtroom will depend on testimony from Atlanta attorney Terrence Bradley, a business partner of Wade’s who previously represented him as his divorce attorney. Willis, Wade and a number of other potential witnesses subpoenaed by Merchant filed motions to have those subpoenas quashed, so that McAfee would rule that his testimony would be unnecessary.

McAfee said he would consider those motions more closely after hearing Bradley’s testimony.