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Former President Donald Trump's lawyers subpoenaed a prosecutor's cellphone records to show he was sleeping at the home of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, according to a court filing.
Trump and 18 co-defendants have been accused of conspiring to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election win in Georgia. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed that the case was politically motivated as he is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
A tech expert hired by Trump's team fed Nathan Wade's records into CellHawk online software to track Wade's phone on the nights he stayed at Willis' condominium. Trump's team is trying to prove that Willis and Wade were in a relationship when she hired him to lead the prosecution's racketeering case in 2021. Willis and Wade said their relationship started in the spring of 2022 after Willis hired him and that neither financially benefited from it.
Last week, Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, held a series of hearings to determine if Willis and her office will be disqualified from the case. Trump and some of his co-defendants not only argued for the removal of Willis' office but for the case to be dropped because of what they perceive as a conflict of interest.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's lawyer and Willis' office via email for comment on Monday.
Sunday night's filing shows that Trump's team subpoenaed records from Wade's phone company to find the serial numbers of cell towers with which Wade's phone had been in communication.
Private investigator Charles Mittelstadt then fed the data into CellHawk, which allows users to "quickly produce easy-to-understand visual representations of evidence that you can confidently take to court," according to its website.
The filing explained that a phone doesn't have to make calls or send texts to be located. When a phone is switched on, it is repeatedly sending "pings" to the nearest cell tower, revealing where the phone is at any time.
Mittelstadt said in an affidavit attached to Sunday's filing that the data showed that in 2021, Wade arrived at Willis' home late at night twice and left in the early morning hours, once in September and the other time in November.
The September trip allegedly showed Wade staying at Willis' home on Dogwood Court in Hapeville, Georgia, until after 3 a.m. and then texting her when he returned to his home in East Cobb, an affluent northern Atlanta suburb.
"On September 11, 2021, Mr. Wade's phone left 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," Mittelstadt's affidavit says.
In November 2021, Wade is alleged to have received a call from Willis and he then started driving to her home while still talking to her on the phone. On that occasion, he allegedly stayed at her home until nearly 5 a.m.
"On November 29, 2021, Mr. Wade's phone was pinging on the East Cobb towers near his residence and, following a call from Ms. Willis [more accurately, from Mr. Willis's phone] 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 Dogwood address at 12:43 A.M on November 30, 2021. The phone remained there until 4:55 A.M," Mittelstadt's affidavit says.
Trump's lawyers wrote in their filing: "The prosecution will surely point out that nobody knows what was happening in the house between midnight and 3:28 a.m. on September 12, or between midnight and 5:00 a.m. on November 30. Mittelstadt does not claim to know. Neither does President Trump or any other defendant in this case.
"Only two people know. They are certainly the ones who should testify and say exactly what was happening on those occasions, so nobody will complain about improper speculation, or improper efforts to distort the truth, or nefarious contacts with the media."
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more