Willis, RICO prosecutor had text 'interactions': Lawyer

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Left: Fani Willis appears during a Fulton County court hearing on Feb. 15, 2024. (Law&Crime Network). Right: Nathan Wade appears during a Fulton County court hearing on Feb. 15, 2024. (Law&Crime Network)

The special prosecutor in the Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald Trump spent time in the residential neighborhood of the district attorney with whom he is accused of having a romantic relationship before he was hired for the high-profile case.

As Law&Crime has previously reported, Nathan Wade and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis were romantically involved as they worked together to prepare the case against the former president. According to Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, a senior staff member for Trump’s failed 2020 reelection campaign now accused of plotting to send a slate of fake electors to vote for Trump, Willis and Wade had an “improper” relationship from which she benefited financially. He wants the DA — and her entire office — disqualified from the case.

Co-defendants, including Trump, have joined in this effort. Key to their claim is the start date of the prosecutors’ involvement with each other. Both Wade and Willis testified that their romantic relationship didn’t start until 2022, after Wade had already accepted the special prosecutor role.

During a hearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Wade said that their relationship “wasn’t a secret, it was just private.” Willis similarly testified that the pair started dating in 2022. Witnesses for Roman, however, including a woman who claimed to be longtime friends with the district attorney, have said that the entanglement started sooner than that.

Now, Trump attorney Steven Sadow says that an analysis of cellphone records indicates that Wade was in physical proximity to Willis prior to the time in 2021 when he was purportedly hired — and before Willis and Wade said their relationship began.

An affidavit by Charles Mittelstadt, the investigator working for Sadow on Trump’s defense in the case, explained that he conducted an analysis based on the results of a records request submitted to AT&T. Those records revealed interactions between Willis and Wade that “included voice call/text history as well as specialized location data” for Wade’s phone number, the filing says.

The report generated from that data “revealed over 2000 voice calls and just under 12,000 text messages exchanged over the 11-month period in 2021,” the affidavit says. An attached “heat map,” Middelstadt says, “highlights the interaction patterns which demonstrate a prevalence of calls made in the evening hours.”

Notably, on Friday afternoon, Trump’s lawyer filed a corrected version of the affidavit, in which the finding of “just under 12,000 text messages” was changed to say “just under 12,000 interactions” exchanged over the 11 months.

“I was directed to conduct a deeper analysis on two specific dates: September 11-12, 2021 (before I understand Mr. Wade was hired) and November 29-30, 2021 (prior to what I understand was the in-court testimony that the romantic relationship began in 2022),” the affidavit says.

Mittelstadt explained what he found:

Specifically, on September 11, 2021, Mr. Wade’s phone let the Doraville area and arrived within the geofence located on the Dogwood address at 10:45 P.M. The phone remained there until September 12 at 3:28 A.M. at which time the phone traveled directly to towers located in East Cobb consistent with his routine pinging at his residence in that area. The phone arrived in East Cobb at approximately 4:05 A.M. and records demonstrate he sent a text at 4:20 A.M. to Ms. Willis.

Additionally, on November 29, 2021, Mr. Wade’s phone was pinging on the East Cobb towers near his residence and, following a call from Ms. Wills at 11:32 P.M., while the call continued, his phone left the East Cobb area just after midnight and arrived within the geofence located on the [redacted] dress at 12:43 A.M. on November 30, 2021. The phone remained there until 4:55 A.M.

Willis has called the effort to remove her from the case “absurd” and reflects a “basic misunderstanding” of “rudimentary” rules.

Read the filing here.