All eyes have been on the Trump criminal case. Now millions are stunned.
Because this one huge development in Trump’s criminal case has left everyone lost for words.
A new court filing states that Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in Georgia, had thousands of text messages and telephone conversations with Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, in 2021. It also appears that Wade spent the night at or near Willis’ residence months before the two of them claim to have started an intimate relationship.
Attorneys for Donald Trump filed the motion on Friday morning in their continuing effort to disqualify Willis and Wade from prosecuting the case of election fraud involving the former president and over twelve other co-defendants.
The defense team claims that the undisclosed connection between Willis and Wade created a conflict of interest. They also claim that the assertion that the affair started in early 2022, after Willis appointed Wade as the main attorney in the lawsuit against Trump and others for election fraud, is unfounded.
Charles Mittelstadt, an investigator for Trump’s attorneys Steve Sadow and Jennifer Little, analyzed Wade’s mobile data.
An affidavit attached to the complaint states that Mittelstadt sought Wade’s cellphone data from AT&T’s Subpoena Compliance Center for the majority of 2021 as part of his research. He then analyzed the received data using an application called CellHawk.
Mittelstadt stated in his declaration that he compiled a record showing that between January and November of 2021, Willis and Wade had over 12,000 text messages and over 2,000 phone conversations, with a “prevalence of calls made in the evening hours.”
Mittelstadt created a “very conservative geofence” by isolating two cell towers within one mile of Willis’ Hapeville, Georgia condo in order to ascertain the exact moments when Wade’s phone was in the area. According to Mittelstadt, there were at least 35 instances where Mr. Wade’s phone was in touch for an extended period of time with one of the towers that were closest to Willis’ unit.
It all started on September 11, 2021, just before Willis appointed Wade as special prosecutor in the high-profile case. At 10:45 p.m., Wade’s phone entered the geofence and stayed there until 3:28 a.m., when it started making its way to the East Cobb region, where Wade resided.
In addition, the investigation revealed that on November 29, 2021, after Willis had hired Wade but before they claimed to have started dating in 2022, Willis’ phone called Wade at 11:32 p.m., his phone departed the East Cobb area shortly after midnight, and it reached the geofenced location at approximately 12:43 a.m.
The phone was left there until 4:55 A.M., according to Mittelstadt’s affidavit.
The filing follows a two-day hearing that took place last week before Judge Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court. In support of assertions they had previously made in a court document, Willis and Wade stated at the hearing that their love connection did not commence until early 2022.
In the course of his interrogation of Willis and Wade, Sadow hinted that he had cellphone proof that the connection had begun earlier.
Willis declined to guess on the frequency of Wade’s visits to her apartment in 2021, saying only, “I don’t think often.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that she told the reporter that Wade “certainly has come and picked me up, gone and grabbed some food to eat,” but that she didn’t recall him spending much time in the condo.
Following threats at her home, she relocated to the condo, where she claims no one has ever spent the night with her — save one of her kids once.
As reported by the Journal-Constitution, Wade informed Sadow that he did not pay Willis more than ten visits to his condo prior to his appointment as special prosecutor. Among his possible other activities while in the region were visits to local eateries, the headquarters of Delta Air Lines, and the Porsche Experience Center, he said.
Willis and Wade started dating soon after meeting at a conference in 2019, according to testimony given by Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a former acquaintance of Willis’. In the year 2021, Willis’ apartment was rented out by Bryant-Yeartie.
Terrence Bradley, who was once Wade’s law partner and defense counsel, was also the target of questions from the defense team, who claimed that Bradley knew that Willis and Wade had lied about the start of their relationship. However, Bradley asserted attorney-client confidentiality and spoke nothing throughout the hearing that might have helped the defense. In order to ascertain if the data he possesses is secure, Judge McAfee has set up a confidential appointment with Bradley.
Thursday, Wade’s attorney pleaded with McAfee to refrain from “conducting the examination under any circumstance” in a lengthy twelve-page request.
According to the brief, Special Prosecutor Wade felt compelled to oppose because it would be an extreme measure for the Court to ignore “the most sacred of all legally recognized privileges,” the protection of which is crucial to the fair and efficient functioning of our justice system.
Some other legal experts argue that the truth about when Wade and Willis actually began a romantic relationship is important enough to the Trump case that normal privacy privileges can’t apply here.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
