Attorney who sought to remove Fulton DA Fani Willis: I had no choice but to act

On finding out about Willis and Wade’s relationship:

“I was friends with both of them. I mean, when I first walked in to negotiate (Roman’s) bond back in September, I hugged both of them. And it was not a fake hug. I can tell you, mostly it was disappointment. Disappointed that this happened, shocked that it happened, surprised. This is one of the cases where you would be extra cautious. And so it surprised me. I didn’t really understand the need for it either because Ms. Willis has some great lawyers on this case. She’s got great lawyers that work for her. She has the ability to hire great lawyers. There’s a lot of really good prosecutors in this state. And I didn’t really understand why this was something that was needed. Why do you need to bring someone in from the outside to manage this case, particularly someone who didn’t have any of the relevant experience? And that just sort of supported my belief that there was something improper about this.

“ ... Plus, when you look at the bills, the bills were quite frankly shocking. I don’t usually bill time, but when I have billed time, it’s always for a government entity, and we always have to bill in either six or 10 minute increments. And most of the time, if I bill for drafting, I have to attach what I drafted to prove that. We had a ton of time things that said draft, but we haven’t seen a single document that Nathan Wade drafted.”

(The DA’s office acknowledged the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade, which it said began in spring 2022 and ended around summer 2023. It said there was nothing improper about the relationship and that it began after Wade had started working on the case.

Wade had been paid more than $728,000 for his work on the prosecution, according to county documents. He received $250 an hour for his work, and his monthly income from the case was capped under the terms of his contract. Many of his invoices included large time blocks, including eight and even 24-hour increments, and were vague about what exactly Wade had worked on. Wade said he later tweaked his reporting to add more detail.)

On pushback from the DA’s office, both in court filings and at last month’s evidentiary hearing:

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called a liar so many times in my life. And it’s frustrating because I had spent so much time trying to corroborate everything. Particularly the fact that nobody knew (about the relationship), I filed it and then they admitted to 99% of it. So I’m being called a liar when 99% of it is not even in dispute. Literally, there’s only one tiny little bit that’s in dispute as to —and I didn’t even think that mattered that much, the part that was in dispute. When the relationship started and whether or not they had co-habitated, those seem to be the overwhelming lies, quote unquote, that I told.

“And a lot of that just comes down to what do you call cohabitation? To me, it’s if you share a bed. But I think that a lot of the liar phrases that I was called focused on that term.... And then when did the relationship start? I didn’t know that was gonna be such a point of contention. I alleged when I believe the relationship started based on what the two witnesses that told me. That was not something that I thought we were gonna go to the mat on.

“ ... I think that the attacks about lack of candor have been the worst because the one thing I have is my reputation.... I’ve always said this, I pride myself when I go into court, I wanna know the case file better than anybody, and if I don’t know a fact, I’m gonna tell you I don’t know it.... And so for people to say that I was making stuff up, or lying or not having candor with the court, that was difficult because it’s not about me and it’s not about my candor and it shouldn’t be, but it sort of shifted to that very, very quickly.”

(Willis and her allies had accused Merchant of lying about Willis and Wade cohabitating together, when the DA’s intimate relationship with Wade began, Willis’ daughter’s college attendance and whether Bradley could impeach Willis and her employees, among other issues.)

On Terrence Bradley’s testimony , which ended up largely being a bust for the defense:

“That was really disappointing because when we are prepping witnesses to take the stand, we just tell them to tell the truth. I wish I had known early on that he was claiming some of this was privilege. That would have definitely guided my investigation differently. I had never heard that, that any of the source of this information was privileged until he hired a lawyer and until Mr. Wade called his friend and mentioned — that was the first time I heard the term privilege out of Mr. Bradley’s mouth.... So that took me aback, but then immediately I realized, okay, that’s sort of the angle that they’re going to go after to try to keep him from testifying. And it was really one of those situations where it’s like, what all can they possibly do to try to keep people from testifying? I mean, you saw every single motion, every single subpoena had a motion to quash.

“ ... It’s hard when someone tells you to your face something and then they say something different in court because you know one time it wasn’t the truth. It was either not the truth what you were telling me when you weren’t on the stand and the world was watching or it’s not the truth now that you’re testifying.... I believe because of all the contextual details he gave me early on when he wasn’t under pressure that he was being truthful then. So having him say those things on the stand definitely was upsetting. I just wanted the truth to come out, really.”

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