Well, all of a sudden, Fulton County DA Fani Willis has a bit of a nightmare scenario on her hands.
Reports are now blowing up all over the place that Willis was paying her alleged lover, Nathan Wade, about $100 more per hour than she was paying an expert RICO prosecutor for the work done on the Trump investigation.
Talking Points…
- Rumors are flying
- Willis paying expert less than an alleged lover
- Analysis
Willis got herself into a public relations nightmare when it was revealed that she was being subpoenaed in the divorce proceedings for special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who she booked to work on the Trump Georgia election case.
According to the reports, Willis and Wade were having an affair. The fact that Wade had billed her office for more than $600,000 in the process made things look incredibly shady. That led to Trump calling her "compromised" and demanding that the charges be dropped against him. Trump stated:
"You had a very big event yesterday as you saw in Georgia where the district attorney is totally compromised. The case has to be dropped. They went after 18 or 20 people. … She was out of her mind. Now it turns out that case is totally compromised.
"It's illegal. What she did is illegal. So we'll let the state handle that, but what a sad situation it is."
According to recent reports, Wade was billing Willis' office $250 per hour. However, in John Floyd's office, an attorney known as an expert in RICO cases was being paid $100 per hour less. The difference in hourly rate makes no sense when you consider the experience difference between the two men.
Willis has since started to push back on the reports of her affair, claiming this is all about race. Willis stated:
"They only attacked one. First thing they say, 'oh, she's gonna play the race card now.'
"But no God, isn't it them that's playing the race card when they only question one."
Her argument makes little sense, as Trump has lashed out at every prosecutor that has filed charges against him. This is just Trump being Trump, and race is clearly not playing any role in this. I would note, however, that Willis has not denied the affair.
As I stated in yesterday's report, I do not expect the charges to be dropped against Trump, but this has become an optics nightmare for Willis, especially now that it looks like she was paying her alleged lover a preferred rate for working on the case.
Regardless of the affair, in order for anything to happen regarding the charges, Trump's attorneys would have to prove that the charges were a result of that affair or that Wade had done something nefarious to ensure the indictment went through.
However, the one thing this has done is remove any leeway that Willis might have been given. The moment she makes a misstep, the media is going to be all over her in this case. And if she loses it, she might as well kiss her career goodbye.
