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A defense lawyer who claimed that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' former boyfriend is not qualified to prosecute Donald Trump previously volunteered for his election campaign, photos filed in court have revealed.
Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for one of Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia election fraud case, made headlines in February after a heated cross-examination of Willis and again for her cross-examination of the district attorney's former boyfriend, prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Merchant, who represents Trump's co-accused, Michael Roman, suggested during cross-examination and in court papers that Willis had only hired Wade because they were in a relationship and that Wade was not qualified to prosecute the election fraud case in Georgia.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all 13 charges against him and has said the case is politically motivated because he is the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. Roman, a former Trump staffer, has also pleaded not guilty to similar charges.
In an increasingly bitter court battle, Willis and Wade have now submitted Facebook posts of Merchant campaigning for Wade when he was running for a judgeship in 2016.
They include photos of Merchant campaigning at the Marietta Greek Festival in Georgia on May 15, 2016.
"Vote Nathan J. Wade! Enjoying some Greek music while getting the word out!" Merchant wrote in the post. Her two photos show the front and back of her Wade campaign T-shirt.
A week earlier, on May 9, 2016, she wrote a lengthy post in favor of Wade.
"Nathan is ethical," she wrote at the time. "Nathan has demonstrated his ability to be fair and impartial and to follow the law while serving as a judge. Nathan currently serves as an Associated Municipal Court Judge. He is a former Pro Hac State Court Judge. Experience Matters."
Willis' office submitted the Facebook posts to Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the trial of Trump, Roman and 13 others in the Georgia election fraud case.
Newsweek sought comment on Sunday from Merchant via Facebook Messenger and from Willis's office via email.
Writing about herself in the third person in a reply brief, Merchant accepted that she campaigned for Wade but said she only did so because the other candidate was accused of judicial misconduct.
"Included in the District Attorney's Response are pictures from Mr. Roman's counsel's Facebook page showing that she supported Wade in his 2016 judicial race against incumbent Reuben Green. It is no secret that Mr. Roman's counsel worked tirelessly to defeat the incumbent judge against whom Wade ran," Merchant wrote in her reply brief.
"With only two candidates in the race, one of whom had been accused of serious judicial misconduct, Wade was most definitely the most qualified of the candidates on the ballot."
Her posts are no longer publicly available.
Since 2010, Wade has run for Cobb County Superior Court judge at least four times. He twice challenged incumbent Judge Reuben Green—including in 2016, when Green was mired in ethics complaints stemming from alleged conflicts of interest that ultimately prompted the Georgia Supreme Court to vacate several convictions, The Washington Post reported.
She also reiterated that it was Wade and Willis who had ethical questions to answer.
"If they had nothing to hide in the first place because they did nothing wrong, then why did they intentionally not tell anyone about it until they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar? This highlights the very reason why this Court cannot just take their word for it," she wrote.
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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