Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis attends a Harrison Floyd bond revocation hearing, at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. November 21, 2023.
Dennis Byron | Reuters
A Georgia judge on Monday blocked — for now — a deposition of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis by lawyers in the divorce of special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom Willis appointed to oversee the criminal election case of former President Donald Trump.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Henry Thompson said he needed to hear what Nathan Wade said in his deposition before determining if Willis should be deposed in the divorce by Jocelyn Wade’s lawyers.
“It seems to me that Mr. Wade would be the first and best source of information on what his income has been and how he’s been spending it, and that he would have firsthand knowledge of whether he’s engaged in an extramarital affair,” Thompson said.
Willis is seeking to block the deposition amid questions of whether she engaged in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade at the same time he and his law firm were being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Fulton County to act as special counsel in Trump’s criminal case.
Trump is charged with racketeering and other charges related to his efforts to undo his loss in Georgia’s 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Thompson also Monday said he would unseal the Wades’ divorce case, after noting that procedures for sealing the case from public view were not followed.
One of Trump’s co-defendants in the criminal case alleges that Willis and Nathan Wade engaged in misconduct by having “engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”
Jocelyn Wade, in a court filing, said that since her husband filed for divorce he has taken multiple trips, and “the evidence is clear that Ms. Willis was an intended travel partner for at least some of these trips as indicated by flights he purchased for her to accompany him.”
“Defendant seeks to depose Ms. Willis in order to determine details surrounding her romantic affair with Plaintiff, as there appears to be no reasonable explanation for their travels apart from a romantic relationship,” the filing said.
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