Trump Co-Defendant Sends Judge New Argument to Disqualify Fani Willis

A co-defendant in Donald Trump's election interference case in Georgia presented more evidence to support the argument that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her boyfriend Nathan Wade should be disqualified from prosecuting Trump and 18 co-defendants.

On Tuesday, David Shafer, a former chairman of the state Republican Party who has been charged with racketeering in connection with his efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election, submitted additional court filings to the motion seeking to disqualify Willis.

The new filing accuses Wade, a special prosecutor in the Georgia case, of having lied in his divorce proceedings. It presented the court with evidence that he had updated his answers to two questions asking if he had sexual relations with anyone aside from his spouse during his marriage and when he may have entertained a member of the opposite sex, not including his ex-wife, during that period.

The documents Shafer provided, which Newsweek has seen, show that Wade responded "none" to both questions on May 30, 2023, but that he updated those answers last month after the allegations of an "improper relationship" between himself and Willis were brought to light. He changed his response to "the Plaintiff declines to respond to this interrogatory and asserts his privilege pursuant to O.C.G.A. Sec. 24-5-505."

Georgia law states that no party is required to testify on matters that "incriminate" or "bring infamy, disgrace, or public contempt upon" parties, witnesses or their family.

Newsweek reached out to Wade via his law firm's inquiry page for comment.

Last month, co-defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump official, filed a motion to disqualify Willis and Wade from the case, accusing them of having a personal relationship that presented a conflict for the prosecution. Roman's attorneys, who are also seeking to have the criminal charges against their client dropped, argued in the January 8 filing that Willis misused state funds by hiring her boyfriend, who is a private attorney, and paying him to prosecute the Trump case.

Since Roman's filing, the relationship between Willis and Wade, which the district attorney has admitted to, has become the central focus of the Georgia case.

On Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, said that Willis' disqualification was "possible" if the allegations about the DA prove to be true. Although he said Willis should not be the first to testify on the matter, McAfee agreed that Roman's attorneys " established a good faith basis for relevance" for Willis to testify in an evidentiary hearing, which the judge said "must occur."

The hearing was scheduled to be held Thursday.

In Tuesday's filing, Shafer told the court, "The defendants have raised serious grounds in support of disqualification of the District Attorney and her office, and the defendants' allegations must be taken seriously by the Court and the State in order to preserve public confidence in the ''integrity and impartiality'' of the administration of justice."

The filing continued: "Any knowingly untrue statement submitted by, or on behalf, a prosecutor in responding to a disqualification challenge should be held to constitute misconduct amounting to forensic misconduct, and should be found to constitute an additional ground for disqualification."