Donald Trump Receives Huge Boost in Fight Against Fani Willis

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said the allegations of professional impropriety against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis are "deeply troubling."

Kemp has previously denounced efforts by his fellow Republicans to go after Willis since even before she announced the indictment of former President Donald Trump and others for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, and he rejected calls for a special session to impeach Willis or defund her office.

But in a boost for Trump, Kemp has now joined a number of Republicans who have spoken out against Willis after one of the defendants in the case accused her of engaging in an "improper" relationship with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she hired for the case. A spokesperson for Willis said her office will address the claims in an upcoming court filing.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said on Friday that he is awaiting a response from the district attorney's office and expects to set a hearing to look into the matter in the coming weeks.

"These allegations are deeply troubling and evidence should be presented quickly in order for Judge McAfee to rule and the public to have confidence in this trial moving forward," Kemp said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kemp and Trump have been engaged in an ongoing feud since the governor rebuffed Trump's alleged requests to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, but the governor recently said he would still back Trump if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.

Newsweek has contacted the governor's office and the district attorney's office for comment via email. A Trump spokesperson has also been asked for comment via email.

The bombshell allegations were made in a motion filed last week by Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney representing Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer who was among the 18 people charged alongside Trump in the case last year. Roman is seeking to have the indictment against him dismissed and to disqualify Willis and Wade and their offices from further prosecuting the case.

The filing alleges that Willis "has been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship" with Wade, a private lawyer she hired to help prosecute the case, and that the pair have taken several trips together during the time Wade was being paid by Willis' office. It also questions Wade's qualifications for the job.

Merchant's filing offered no evidence of the alleged relationship or trips that Willis and Wade had allegedly taken together.

In her first public remarks since the allegations were made, Willis on Sunday pushed back against critics and defended Wade's qualifications.

Speaking to the congregation of Big Bethel AME Church at a service a day before the holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., she thanked church leaders who "didn't care what they said about me."

She said she had "penned a letter to my heavenly Father" at a low point in the past week, The Associated Press reported. "You did not tell me as a woman of color, it would not matter what I did. My motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked," she said in her speech, much of which was framed as a conversation with God.

She did not address the allegations of an improper relationship, but called Wade—without mentioning him by name—a "superstar, a great friend and a great lawyer."

She said she hired three special prosecutors for the election case—a white man, a white woman and a Black man—who are all paid the same hourly rate. No one has questioned the qualifications of the white lawyers, she said.