Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis requested a judge ignore a recent court filing purporting to show cellphone “interactions” between herself and special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Wade oversees the racketeering (RICO) case against former President Donald Trump.
Trump’s attorney, Steven Sadow, filed a supplemental exhibit allegedly based on an analysis of cellphone records indicating that Wade was physically close to Willis before he was hire to work on the case. Early on Friday, Willis sought to dismiss the filing as in violation of the court’s standing order on how evidence is admit in the case, the Georgia rules of evidence, and U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
The Court’s Standing Case Management Order for Criminal cases was explicitly intend to prevent parties from ambushing opposing counsel with purported expert evidence without allowing opposing counsel a meaningful opportunity to review the evidence, review the purported expert’sexpert’s report and qualifications, and obtain its expert in rebuttal, Willis argued.
Willis has previously called the effort to remove her from the case “absurd” and said that it reflects a “basic misunderstanding” of “rudimentary” rules. However, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has said the issues raised by the defense are severe and could warrant disqualification.
In the Trump filing, investigator Charles Mittelstadt argues that AT&T records ” revealed over 2000 voice calls” and “just under 12,000 interactions” exchanged by Wade and Willis over 11 months in 2021. The investigator hired by Trump’s defense attorney also claims the data shows “specialized location data” for Wade’sWade’s cellphone number, which puts him near Willis’ address two days — during the early morning hours — in September and November 2021.
On November 1, 2021, Wade was hired to work on the RICO case. Both Willis and Wade, however, have testified (and averred in court documents) that their relationship did not become romantic until 2022.
Defense attorneys led by those representing co-defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump 2020 staffer, have alleged that Willis appointed Wade and then reaped something of a financial windfall in the form of various destination vacations, gift-like dinners and excursions during those trips, and other purchases. The prosecutors, conversely, say they more or less split their travel expenses equally. There is a very scant — admittedly almost nonexistent — paper trail to substantiate the state’s claims that Willis reimbursed Wade.
The state’s late Friday salvo largely sticks to the evidentiary issues — arguing Trump’s filing cannot satisfy numerous obligations under the court’s, the state’s, and the constitution’s procedural rules for the admission of evidence. Willis argues that the judge should not consider the Mittelstadt data when ruling on the disqualification motion.
The court has yet to make an on the matter, but the case has garnered significant attention due to its high-profile nature. The basic facts of the relationship and when it began are also critical to the judge’s ultimate determination over whether or not the DA, along with her entire office and prosecutorial team, will be tossed from the case.
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