Georgia Senate Approves Investigation of DA Fani Willis

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis arrives at a press conference with prosecutor Nathan Wade after a Grand Jury brought back indictments against former president Donald Trump and his allies in their attempt to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, in Atlanta, Ga., August 14, 2023. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

The Georgia Senate voted on Friday to form a special committee to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis amid allegations she had an “unprofessional relationship” with a subordinate lawyer prosecuting the election-fraud case against former president Donald Trump.

Thirty senators voted to form the investigative committee, while 19 were opposed, according to a Fox News report.

Willis is leading the prosecution of the 2020 election-fraud case against Trump and 18 other defendants in Georgia. In August, she indicted Trump and 18 other defendants under Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, or RICO, for their alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

The special committee will have subpoena power to investigate Willis over various allegations of misconduct, including claims she hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade to work on the case even though the two were romantically involved. The nine-member committee will include at least three Democrats.

Republican state senator Greg Dolezal introduced Senate Resolution 465 to form the committee on Monday, saying that “the multitude of accusations surrounding Ms. Willis, spanning from allegations of prosecutorial misconduct to questions about the use of public funds and accusations of an unprofessional relationship, underscores the urgency for a thorough and impartial examination.”

The proposal to launch a senate investigation comes after Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Michael Roman, a former Trump White House aide and co-defendant in the Georgia case, filed a motion in court earlier this month alleging that Willis “without legal authority,” chose to “appoint her romantic partner,” Nathan Wade, to the lead the case against him.

The motion claims that Willis paid Wade “a large sum of money that was originally allotted to clear the backlog of cases in Fulton County following the Covid pandemic.” The motion claims that Willis and Wade then traveled to California, Florida, and the Caribbean together, and that Wade purchased cruise tickets for the two of them.

Willis has claimed that the allegations against her are racially motivated. However, she has neither confirmed nor denied having a romantic relationship with Wade.

Credit card receipts included in Wade’s divorce records, which were unsealed this week and obtained by National Review, show that Wade and Willis traveled together to San Francisco last April and to Miami in October. He also paid over $2,600 to Royal Caribbean Cruises in October and more than $3,800 to “Vacation Express” at the same time they traveled to Miami, though those records don’t name Willis.

Merchant’s motion claims that Wade was appointed even though he “has never tried a felony RICO case,” and “would not be qualified under Fulton County’s standards to be appointed to represent any defendant in this case.” The motion says that Willis “should be disqualified” from the case.

On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers joined the motion to have Willis disqualified, according to news reports. They also claimed that Willis violated state bar rules when she claimed that the effort to remove her from the case was based on her race.