Donald Trump joins effort to bounce Georgia DA Fani Willis from election interference case

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday joined the legal effort to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, her office and her top prosecutor tossed from the election fraud case against him, alleging that Willis had engaged in misconduct by hiring an unqualified friend and alleged romantic partner to lead the sprawling prosecution.

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel, said Trump’s decision to join co-defendant Michael Roman in trying to have the case dismissed was based in part on Willis’s refusal to address the accusations − and her decision to blame those efforts on racism.

“The motion filed today on behalf of President Trump seeks to hold District Attorney Willis legally accountable both for her misconduct alleged in a motion filed by Mr. Roman, as well as her extrajudicial public statements falsely and intentionally injecting race into this case,” Sadow said in a statement to USA TODAY.

In doing so, he said, Willis had violated her responsibilities under the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct. “Her attempt to foment racial animus and prejudice against the defendants in order to divert and deflect attention away from her alleged improprieties calls out for the sanctions of dismissal and disqualification,” Sadow said.

More:Georgia DA Fani Willis breaks silence over Donald Trump case prosecutor

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A ‘great friend’

Roman, a longtime Trump associate and 2020 campaign official, first aired his bombshell allegations in a Jan. 8 motion, claiming without proof that Willis improperly picked Wade because of their personal relationship. He also alleged that Wade, a private attorney with scant major prosecution experience, then used some of the more than $650,000 in county money he’s been paid to take Willis on romantic trips to California wine country, to Florida and on Caribbean cruises.

In a follow-up hearing, Sadow said he wanted to wait to hear Willis’s response to the allegations before deciding to join in the effort to have her, Wade and the DA’s office disqualified − and to have the case against them dismissed entirely.

Sadow said the decision to join the case was based in large part on Willis’s impassioned defense of her leadership of the case − and Wade’s − during a Sunday sermon at the Big Bethel A.M.E. Church in Atlanta on Jan. 14. In her 35-minute speech, Willis defended her hiring of Wade as lead prosecutor, suggesting that those who have questioned his ability are being unfair and possibly racist.

Without mentioning him by name, Willis said Wade was not only a “great friend” but an experienced and well-respected lawyer with the “impeccable” credentials needed to be a special prosecutor overseeing the sprawling racketeering case.

More:New allegations of possible affair between Georgia DA Fani Willis and Trump case prosecutor

Willis also talked about how she had hired two other lawyers – a white man and a white woman – to help prosecute Trump and his 14 co-defendants.

Describing each one as a “superstar,” she asked, “Isn’t it them playing the race card when they only question one?”

“The Black man I chose has been a judge more than 10 years, run a private practice more than 20, represented businesses in civil litigation − I ain’t done y’all,” Willis said. “Served as a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special assistant attorney general.”

But while Willis admitted being an “imperfect” and even “flawed” human being, she did not address specifically whether she and Wade were involved romantically, or whether that influenced her decision to hire him to lead the investigation and subsequent prosecution.

An ‘effort to foment racial bias’

In his motion Thursday, Trump lawyer Sadow characterized Willis’s remarks as “a glaring, flagrant, and calculated effort to foment racial bias into this case by publicly denouncing the defendants for somehow daring to question her decision to hire a Black man (without also mentioning that she is alleged to have had a workplace affair with the same man) to be a special prosecutor,” the motion states. “These assertions by the DA engender a great likelihood of substantial prejudice towards the defendants in the eyes of the public in general, and prospective jurors in Fulton County in particular.”

“Moreover,” Sadow wrote, “the DA’s self-serving comments came with the added, sought after, benefit of garnering racially based sympathy for her self-inflicted quagmire.”

Wade hasn’t spoken publicly in response to the allegations, even when they came up in a previously scheduled court hearing. Willis has said through a spokesperson that she will address the allegations via the court process.

Prosecutor’s credit card statements

Superior Judge Scott McAfee has given Willis until Feb. 2 to issue a formal response to Roman’s accusations, and has scheduled a Feb. 15 hearing. The allegations are also expected to come up in a Jan. 31 divorce hearing between Wade and his estranged wife Joycelyn Wade, who said in court documents last Friday that Willis has been her husband’s “paramour” − and that Wade has been trying to hide the $650,000 in county earnings from her during settlement negotiations.

In her court filing, Joycelyn Wade included what she said were her husband’s credit card statements showing plane tickets he bought for himself and Willis for two trips to Florida and California since he was appointed special prosecutor in November 2021.

The accusations have prompted attacks on Willis by Trump, some GOP lawmakers in Congress and other critics who say it’s proof that Democratic politicians and prosecutors are engaging in a witch hunt against the former president.

Some legal experts, including Clark Cunningham, a professor of law and ethics at Georgia State University College of Law, have said that if the allegations are true, Willis should consider stepping aside from the case so as not to jeopardize the entire prosecution.

“Doing so would be an act of public service by Ms. Willis — and more important, offer the best option for keeping the criminal case on track and holding Mr. Trump and his co-defendants accountable for their actions in the 2020 election if that is the just outcome,” Cunningham wrote in a Jan. 24 opinion piece in the New York Times.

More:Will Trump’s trial in Georgia be on TV? Yes, it will. Here’s what that means for America.

General practitioner, or ‘brain surgeon’?

Chris Timmons, a former Georgia prosecutor, said the accusations have thrown a major monkey wrench into the prosecution, one of two that Trump is facing for allegedly trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election results.

“It’s not about the morality of it all, it’s about the legal ethics and being a good steward of taxpayer money,” said Timmons, an ABC News legal contributor. “You don’t spend more than $600,000 in taxpayer money to help and hire a friend if they’re not qualified to do the job.”

Timmons said the two other private-sector lawyers also hired by Willis, John Floyd and Anna Cross, do have much more relevant experience for such a high-stakes prosecution. Timmons, who said he is familiar with Wade’s legal background, said he “doesn’t have the experience that you would expect for somebody to run an investigation of this size.”

“If you go over to the doctor world, he’s the equivalent of a general practitioner,” Timmons said. “And she’s asking him to do brain surgery – and paying him like a brain surgeon.”