Georgia DA Fani Willis Paid for Nathan Wade’s Airfare to Miami, Filing Shows

Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged having a personal relationship with Trump case special prosecutor Nathan Wade but provided a receipt with her court filing February 2 that shows she paid for Wade’s airfare for a trip they took to Miami.

Willis used the receipt, and an affidavit from Wade, to argue that the personal relationship began after she hired Wade to prosecute Trump and his associates. She says she has no financial conflict of interest because she and Wade split expenses for personal travel and did not otherwise commingle their finances.

“Expenses for personal travel were roughly divided equally between us,” Wade wrote in an affidavit attached to Willis’s motion. Willis and Wade do not explain who paid for other costs associated with the trip or describe what they were doing.

“At times I have made and purchased travel for District Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and purchased travel for she and I from her personal funds,” Wade wrote in the court documents, which Willis filed in court on February 2.

The filing contains a credit card receipt showing Willis purchased airfare for herself and Willis on November 30 From Atlanta to Miami. Wade’s former wife previously attached other receipts to a court filing that appear to show Wade paying for trip costs for himself and Willis. That evidence has been used by former President Donald Trump and another defendant in the case, Michael Roman, to argue that Willis improperly benefited financially from the hundreds of thousands of dollars her office paid Wade after appointing him as the special prosecutor in the case.

Fani Willis airfare receipt.

According to the Associated Press, Wade has been paid more than $650,000 by Willis’s office for his work on the Trump case.

In a counter-filing after Willis’s document, defendant Roman asked for a hearing to cross-examine Wade on a number of questions, including whether the couple lived together in an AirBnB and at Willis’s home. He attached a receipt showing the couple staying in a room with a king-sized bed in Aruba. That document says Roman wants to question Wade about whether the relationship actually began in 2019.

Willis filed the response in court on February 2. There will be a February 15 hearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on motions by defendant Michael Roman and Trump, who are seeking to have Willis and her office disqualified from the prosecution and the case dismissed. Roman argues that Wade paid for travel for Willis and himself to the California wine country and on Caribbean cruises. These are the receipts that Joycelyn Wade filed in her divorce case previously:

Joycelyn Wade's court filing includes this receipt she says is for Nathan Wade's credit card.

Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow told the AP that Willis wants the judge “to turn a blind eye to her alleged personal and financial misconduct” and “she fails to provide full transparency and necessary financial details.” Roman’s lawyer wants the ability to cross-examine Wade and Willis because she believes their relationship may have started earlier than Wade and Willis admit and that they may have periodically lived together, AP reported.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Fani Willis & Nathan Wade Acknowledged They Have Been Friends Since 2019 But Say the Personal Relationship Did Not Begin Until After Willis Appointed Wade as Special Prosecutor in 2021

USA Today reported that Wade filed for divorce from his wife of 26 years, Joycelyn Wade, the next day after Willis named him the special prosecutor in the Trump case. According to CBS News, Wade and his estranged wife have now settled their divorce case.

The filing says that District Attorney Willis and Special Prosecutor Wade “have been professional associates and friends since 2019.” Still, it asserts that “there was no personal relationship between them in November 2021 at the time of Special Prosecutor Wade’s appointment.”

Willis argues that there has been no showing that “any personal relationship” impacted prosecutorial decisions in the Trump case.

“While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek,” she wrote.

Willis argued that she does not have a financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies her disqualification from the Trump prosecutions or that of her office. She called the attacks “factually inaccurate, unsupported and malicious.”

“Conflict arises when a prosecutor has a personal interest or stake in a defendant’s conviction—a charge that no defendant offers any support for beyond fantastical theories and rank speculation,” the motion says.

The motion alleges that there are also personal relationships among members of the defense teams.

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Fani Willis Defended Nathan Wade’s Pay Rate & Wrote That She & Nathan Wade Do Not ‘Share Joint Financial Accounts’

As to accusations that she paid Wade more than other special prosecutors on the case, Willis wrote, “His contract is identical in all relevant respects to that of undersigned special prosecutor, including the government hourly rate offered but allowing for a much higher monthly ceiling of hours given his role, and substantially similar to that of Special Prosecutor Floyd. Ex. H (Wade Contracts), Ex. M (Cross Contract), Ex. N (Floyd).”

The motion continues, “The difference in the hourly rate contracted with Special Prosecutor Floyd is attributable to the willingness of Floyd’s law firm, Bondurant Mixson & LLP, to support Floyd’s work with the District Attorney’s Office and other government entities based on its longstanding commitment to public service.”

Willis’s filing says, “Special Prosecutor Wade made much more money than the other special prosecutors only because Wade did much more work.”

Willis argued that she and Wade do not share joint financial accounts, do not share a household, have not merged daily expenses, and divided financial responsibility or personal travel “roughly even between the two.”

“Both are professionals with substantial income; neither is financially reliant on the other,” she wrote.

She opposed efforts by Roman’s lawyer to subpoena Wade’s past divorce attorney and personal bank records. She accused Roman’s lawyer of trying to “embarrass and harass the District Attorney personally.”

Willis’s filing attached an affidavit by Nathan Wade. In it, he said that Willis first approached him in spring 2021 about finding an attorney to handle a possible prosecution of Trump but could only offer $250 an hour.

He said other lawyers were hesitant to take the case because of safety concerns so Willis “and other lawyers” asked him to serve as special prosecutor in September 2021. He initially hesitated but agreed to do so in October 2021.

“While professional associates and friends since 2019, there was no personal relationship between District Attorney Willis and me prior to or at the time of my appointment as special prosecutor in 2021,” he wrote.

“In 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship.”

Wade said he has “no financial interest in the outcome of the 2020 election interference case or in the conviction of any defendant” and “No funds paid to me in compensation for my role as Special Prosecutor have been shared with or provided to District Attorney Willis.”

According to Wade, “The District Attorney received no funds or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor.”

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