The Fani Willis 'Sex Scandal' Is Proof that Team Trump Is Running Scared

Co-hosts of 'The View' & other pundits have slammed the Fulton County DA for an alleged affair with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade. Here's what they've failed to mention about this red-herring sex case.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis via her campaign website

Of the many looming indictments against former President Donald Trump, the RICO racketeering election fraud case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is the one he fears most.

Here’s why: Even if Trump regains the White House, he cannot outrun a criminal conviction in a state court. He can’t pardon himself. And he can’t use the power of the Executive Branch to force the Justice Department to undermine the two major federal cases brought by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith (classified documents & January 6th).

As we’ve all seen, Donald Trump has used the indictments and his court appearances to raise money for his presidential campaign and to promote the argument that his legal woes are political only—what he calls election interference from the Biden Administration. As expected, MAGA loyalists have swallowed the kool-aid.

But as the Nikki Haley insurgency demonstrates, that strategy has not worked with many college-educated Republicans and independents. Haley lost the first two GOP primaries, but she walked away from New Hampshire with 9 convention delegates to Trump’s 12 in that state.

His relentless, often misogynistic attacks on Haley demonstrate that he’s afraid of her. Nikki Haley brings up his losses in 2020 and in the 2022 off-year elections. She also mentions his (and Biden’s) age—a sore point with many younger voters who don’t want to see a do-over of 2020. Attacking Haley at rallies and rage-posting on social media are Trump’s go-to strike-back strategies.

Attacking Fani Willis required a different approach.

And her alleged romantic relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade gave Trump and his 18 RICO co-defendants the perfect weapon. Those allegations came in a motion filed by the attorney for one of those defendants—political operative and Trump campaign official Michael Roman.

By pointing out that Willis and Wade may have been involved in a romantic relationship, Team Trump hopes to distract from the substantial and very damning RICO election fraud indictments.

Here’s the thing:

Trump’s legal team already knows that Fani Willis’s romantic relationships have nothing to do with the RICO case. Who she chooses to sleep with does not provide a legal basis to disqualify her from the case. And they know that.

Here’s how legal scholars at the Just Security forum at NYU framed it:

As a matter of both common sense and Georgia law, a prosecutor is disqualified from a case due to a “conflict of interest” only when the prosecutor’s conflicting loyalties could prejudice the defendant—leading, for example, to an improper conviction.

None of the factual allegations made in the Roman motion have a basis in law for the idea that such prejudice could exist here—as it might where a law-enforcement agent is involved with a witness, or a defense lawyer with a judge.

We might question Willis’s judgment in hiring Wade and the pair’s other alleged conduct, but under Georgia law that relationship and their alleged behavior do not impact her or his ability to continue on the case.

Trump’s legal team knows all this.

They also know how the media operates. As local GOP representatives call for investigations into Fani Willis, Trump’s lawyers understand that the media will be obliged to cover every new development. Thus keeping Willis’s alleged misconduct in the spotlight—and Trump’s interference in the 2020 Georgia election out of it.

Why is that important?

Because Trump does not want the details of a televised RICO trial coming out during his presidential campaign. He does not want voters to be reminded of his efforts to “find votes” in Georgia and the conspiracy to send fake electors to the U.S. Capitol. Given his weakness among independents and many college-educated Republicans, the RICO trial could prove devastating to his campaign. Team Trump had to find a way to take down Fani Willis.

This alleged sex scandal is not only a red herring

It is also a delaying tactic. Team Trump wants to get the RICO trial delayed until after the 2024 election. They’re also hoping to smear Willis enough to get her defeated in her own campaign for reelection this year. If she’s defeated and the case gets delayed long enough, maybe the state felony charges would become moot.

The estranged wife

What you’re not hearing about the alleged romantic relationship between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade is that the allegations are rooted in Wade’s divorce. Wade’s estranged wife Joycelyn Wade reportedly had an affair with his best friend in 2017, which permanently damaged their marriage. The Wades have not lived together since August of 2021, and both parties to the divorce proceedings admit that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

But Wade’s estranged wife wants money in the divorce and believes he has not been forthcoming about all of his income. It was this estranged wife Joycelyn who brought Fani Willis into the divorce proceedings, filing an exhibit with the court that showed Nathan Wade used a credit card to purchase plane tickets for himself and Willis.

What’s suspicious about her involvement in the Trump case is that in 2022 Joycelyn Wade had asked the court to seal the divorce records. But on January 8th of this year, she asked to have them unsealed.

That’s the same day the attorney for Trump’s indicted co-conspirator Michael Roman filed the so-called “bombshell” motion with the court asking that Willis and Nathan Wade be disqualified and the RICO case dismissed.

In a subsequent court filing, Willis claimed Joycelyn Wade had conspired with parties in the RICO case to “annoy, embarrass, and oppress” the DA.

Roman’s defense attorney had no proof of an affair.

So far, the unsealed records have failed to provide any. Roman’s attorney (Ashleigh Merchant) has to know the motion to disqualify Willis will not stand up under Georgia law. But that doesn’t matter.

All she needed to do was toss a hand-grenade into the case. And the media would take care of the rest. Leading to a flurry of side investigations, court appearances, and other distractions. To delay, delay, delay. And also poison Willis’s reputation during her own re-election campaign.

The co-hosts of The View bought into this plot by condemning Willis. African Americans on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) have chided Willis for not understanding that when you’re a Black person involved in a high profile case like this, you have to be untouchable morally and ethically. The View’s Ana Navarro received applause when she made a similar remark.

This smacks of segregation-era thinking that put enormously unreasonable standards on African-Americans. Things like: In order to be equal to whites, you have to be better than they are.

Optics

The optics are certainly not good in the Fani Willis/Nathan Wade story. But is it wrong to have a romantic relationship with someone who has not lived with his estranged wife for several years? Hardly.

More worrying is the charge that Willis might have benefited financially from Nathan Wade’s earnings as a member of the RICO legal team. Unless Wade’s only source of income came from Fani Willis, it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that he used public funds to pay for any trips they might have taken together. Why? Because he paid for those trips with credit cards.

When American Express sends a bill, they don’t care where the money comes from. They just want the bill paid. So even if Wade’s credit-card records become public, they will not be able to prove the source of the funds he used for travel.

Dirty tricks

What we have here is an estranged wife seeking a financial settlement in divorce proceedings. We have her lawyer possibly sharing information with a Trump RICO defendant. And we have the media playing into Team Trump’s efforts to distract and delay.

All of this smacks of “dirty tricks” we saw during the Nixon years. A few social media users have suggested that former Nixon-era operatives like Roger Stone may have orchestrated the Willis/Wade hand-grenade. Michael Roman himself is a political operative. Others have suggested someone on Joycelyn Wade’s team may have benefited financially from the bombshell.

Without proof, that’s just more conspiracy theory. But I wouldn’t rule out a dirty-tricks operation behind the effort to pillory Fani Willis. Which doesn’t matter a lick.

Two media groups

What matters is that the case against Fani Willis is not a case but a smear campaign. Because there’s no proof she’s done anything wrong. And none of the unproven allegations against her constitute legal grounds for her disqualification from the Trump case or her removal from office.

What also matters is that piecemeal reporting about Fani Willis without context is also lazy reporting. It’s just as bad as uninformed punditry on TV. And it demonstrates once again that the media is divided into two groups. Useful idiots in the mainstream media. And politically biased hacks whose only purpose is to get their guy back in the White House. No matter what.

©2024 Andrew Jazprose Hill

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