Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade have been subpoenaed to testify at a Feb. 15 hearing about allegations that Willis has financially benefitted from Wade, her alleged romantic partner.
The subpoenas, first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, were revealed in a lawsuit against the Fulton County district attorney’s office filed by Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, who made the allegations about the relationship in an effort to have the charges dismissed.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who’s overseeing the Trump election interference case, scheduled the Feb. 15 hearing to address Roman’s motion to dismiss the charges and the misconduct allegations against Willis and Wade.
Merchant alleges in the lawsuit that the DA’s office is not complying with the Georgia Open Records Act by intentionally stalling requests for documents. She said that the office has “refused, without adequate explanation, to provide” Roman’s legal team “with many of the requested materials that are known to exist and which are not subject to any exception in the Act and some of which have been outstanding since September of 2023.”
Merchant asks the court to order the DA’s office to hand over the records she seeks or show that they can’t be provided. She also requested that the court award her team the expenses incurred in trying to get the DA to comply with the law.
In a statement to NBC News, Jeff DiSantis, a spokesperson for Willis, said her office “has provided Merchant with the information she is entitled to and an update on the status of the others, in compliance with the law.”
Merchant also says in the lawsuit that Roman “has asserted that Willis and Wade should be disqualified because Willis used taxpayer money to pay Wade, with whom she has had a romantic relationship at the time, and, in turn, has received financial benefits from such payments in the form of vacations, hotel stays and other personal gifts.”
Former President Donald Trump moved last week to adopt Roman’s motion to dismiss the election interference charges, citing the allegations of an improper relationship between the prosecutors.
Willis has not responded to the allegations. A judge has given her until Feb. 2 to file a written response with the court. Willis’ office said she plans to do so.
