ATLANTA — An anticipated hearing over allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) engaged in an improper personal relationship with the lead prosecutor in the election-interference case against former president Donald Trump is beginning to take shape, with subpoenas issued seeking the sworn testimony of Willis and others in a proceeding that is likely to determine whether the case proceeds.
An attorney for Mike Roman, the Trump co-defendant who first leveled misconduct allegations against Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade more than three weeks ago, has subpoenaed both to testify under oath at a Feb. 15 evidentiary hearing on his motion to disqualify them from the case and have charges against Roman dismissed.
But a notice shared Wednesday with Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, shows that Ashleigh Merchant, Roman’s attorney, is seeking to call at least 10 other witnesses, including senior members of Willis’s staff and associates of Wade, to prove her client’s allegations of prosecutorial wrongdoing. She has subpoenaed financial records tied to Wade and his law firm as she seeks to back up her claims, including that Wade used his income as a special prosecutor to pay for vacations for him and Willis.
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In addition to Willis and Wade, Merchant has issued subpoenas to several employees of the district attorney’s office — including Daysha Young, an executive district attorney who is also assigned to the Trump case; Tia Green, an executive assistant to Willis; Sonya Allen, an assistant district attorney who previously worked with Wade in Cobb County; Mike Hill, an investigator assigned to the Trump case; Dexter Bond, the office’s chief operating officer; Capers Green, the office’s chief of investigations; and Thomas Ricks, an investigator assigned to Willis’s security team.
It is unclear whether Willis will seek to challenge her subpoena or those issued to her staff members. A spokesman for Willis declined to comment.
Other subpoenas were issued to Wade’s current and former law partners, Christopher Campbell and Terrence Bradley, and to Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a longtime Willis associate who previously worked at the district attorney’s office.
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Last week, an attorney for Joycelyn Mayfield Wade, Wade’s estranged wife, filed notice in their divorce case that she had issued a subpoena seeking information on an Atlanta home. The address was previously linked to Bryant-Yeartie, according to public records.
Reached by phone before Merchant gave notice that she planned to call her as a witness, Bryant-Yeartie declined to comment. “If I get subpoenaed, that’s when I’ll talk,” Bryant-Yeartie said before hanging up.
Share this articleShareMerchant also subpoenaed two Atlanta-area travel agencies — Vacation Express and H2O, Limited — seeking information on airline tickets, hotels and other travel expenses possibly tied to Wade and Willis dating back to 2020. She also issued summonses to American Express, Capital One and Synovus Bank seeking financial records for Wade and his law firm.
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The notice comes a day after Wade and his estranged wife filed notice of a temporary settlement in their divorce. The last-minute agreement led to the cancellation of a Wednesday hearing where Wade had been set to be questioned under oath about his finances — including his income as a special prosecutor in the Trump case and his spending, such as his purchase of airline tickets for himself and Willis in October 2022 and April 2023. Joycelyn Wade had also sought Willis’s testimony in the divorce case.
Willis faces a Friday deadline to respond in writing to Roman’s motion to disqualify her and her office from the election case.
Last week, Trump and another co-defendant, Atlanta-area attorney Bob Cheeley, joined Roman’s motion to disqualify the prosecutors and dismiss charges. Trump’s attorneys accused Willis of injecting “racial animus” into the case during recent remarks before a historic Black church in Atlanta where she suggested racism was at the root of attacks against her and Wade.
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Willis’s Jan. 14 remarks before Big Bethel AME Church did not directly address the allegations against her or name Wade or any of the defendants. But in what have been her only public remarks even to vaguely address Roman’s misconduct claims, Willis questioned why critics had only attacked her appointment of Wade, who is Black, and not the other two outside attorneys named to the case, who are White.
Roman, one of Trump’s remaining 14 co-defendants in the criminal case and a high-ranking campaign aide during the 2020 election, has alleged in a court filing that Willis was engaged in a “personal, romantic relationship” with Wade, whose firm has been paid more than $653,000 by the district attorney’s office since he was tapped as an outside prosecutor on the case in November 2021.
Roman claimed Willis may have broken the law by hiring Wade as a special prosecutor and then allowing him to pay for “vacations across the world” with her that were unrelated to their work on the case. Wade and Willis, Roman’s filing claimed, were “profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.” Roman’s filing, which offered no proof to back up the sensational claims, called for the prosecutors to be disqualified and for the charges against him to be dismissed.
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Willis and Wade have not directly addressed or denied the allegations. But bank records later made public as part of Wade’s divorce proceedings showed Wade purchased plane tickets for himself and Willis on two occasions — a trip purchased in October 2022 to Aruba on American Airlines, and a second trip purchased in April 2023 to San Francisco on Delta Air Lines. It is unclear whether Willis reimbursed Wade for the tickets or if she went on the trips. A spokesman for Willis has declined to comment. Wade has not responded to requests for comment, and his divorce attorney has declined to comment.
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