The confession of the district attorney of Georgia’s Fulton County, Fani Willis, that she has a “personal relationship” with the man she hired to prosecute President Trump, Nathan Wade, could soon give way to an even more fateful inquiry: When did the affair begin?

That question is set to take center stage at an evidentiary hearing at Fulton County on February 15, but Ms. Willis wants that occasion scratched from the calendar, a request she has filed in court. She maintains that since she has acknowledged the affair, on the record, and denied that it predates Mr. Wade’s appointment, further fact-finding is superfluous. Her defendants disagree.     

Much could hang on when that amorous alliance first kindled. If Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were intimate before she appointed him special prosecutor — that is the contention of Mr. Trump and his co-defendants — then their role in the sprawling racketeering case, which alleges a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the results of the 2020 election, could be threatened.

Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade are both on record as asserting that the affair began after he was appointed special prosecutor. Mr. Wade, in an affidavit attached to the district attorney, writes that “in 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship.” He was appointed the year prior.

The defendant who first moved for Ms. Willis’s disqualification, Michael Roman, contends that the affair predates the charging. In a filing, his lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, calls Ms. Willis’s proffered timeline “false” and suggests that the relationship stretches as far back as 2019. If Ms. Merchant can prove her allegation, Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade will have to worry about not only a conflict of interest, but also possible perjury. 

If the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County, rebuffs Ms. Willis’s efforts to cancel the hearing, Mr. Roman will have his day in court. In an evidentiary hearing, he would be able to call and cross-examine witnesses, and introduce documentation of the affair, like receipts and financial statements. Georgia law mandates that the “rules of evidence shall apply except that hearsay shall be admissible.” That final allowance could prove decisive if Mr. Roman leans on rumors and secondhand accounts. 

Any suggestion, though, that Ms. Willis’s decision to bring the case was affected by her relationship with Mr. Wade would cut to the quick of prosecutorial discretion, or whether the case was brought for ulterior — and, possibly, self-interested — motives. Receipts from Mr. Wade’s divorce case indicate that he accumulated more than $7,200 in travel expenses for trips he took with Ms. Willis.

While a relationship that bloomed after Mr. Wade’s appointment could be unseemly, one that predated it could bolster Mr. Roman’s case that Ms. Willis was motivated by financial gain. The Supreme Court has held that prosecution “by someone with conflicting loyalties calls into question the objectivity of those charged with bringing a defendant to judgment.” Georgia courts have dismissed cases on the basis of financial conflict of interest.     

By making the relationship part of the legal record, Ms. Willis is aiming to avoid an evidentiary hearing where more details of the dalliance could come to light. Such a hearing is sought by the defendants — Messrs. Trump and Roman, as well as David Shafer — who have all signaled that they want her disqualified and the charges handed up against them dismissed.

Fulton County’s ethics code mandates that “officers and employees should aspire to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest by avoiding conduct or circumstances that would provide a reasonable basis” for presuming that the officer’s impartiality is compromised. Mr. Roman alleges that the prosecutorial pair “violated laws regulating the use of public monies, suffer from irreparable conflicts of interest, and have violated their oaths of office under the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.”  

In Ms. Willis’s telling, she and Mr. Wade “have been professional associates and friends since 2019,” and “there was no personal relationship between them in November 2021 at the time of Special Prosecutor Wade’s appointment.” She denies that the “exercise of any prosecutorial discretion (i.e., any charging decision or plea recommendation) in this case was impacted by any personal relationship.”

Ms. Willis contends that the “existence of a relationship between members of a prosecution team, in and of itself, is simply not a status that entitles a criminal defendant any remedy.” She also observes that “there are at least two personal relationships among the collection of defense attorneys representing” the defendants in the case. The attorneys for one defendant who pleaded guilty, Jenna Ellis, are a married couple.

Ms. Merchant tells a different story about Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade, one where their prosecution is being driven by joint financial interest. She alleges that they “got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.” She claims the “right to cross-examine and test their assertions at an evidentiary hearing” and even invokes the Constiution’s Confrontation Clause, which provides that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”

Ms. Merchant’s position is that relying solely on Mr. Wade’s word — in the form of that affidavit — would violate that promised protection, especially because “Peoples’ freedom and lives are at stake.” She discloses that she plans to ask Mr. Wade on the stand this question: “Isn’t it true that you began more than just a friendship” with the district attorney as far back as 2019, years before he was named to this case?

While Ms. Merchant acknowledges that “it is not entirely clear” when the relationship began, she writes that “upon information and belief, and based on discussions with individuals with knowledge, Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were romantically involved prior to Ms. Willis awarding a contract for legal services with Mr. Wade.” He has since earned more than $700,00 from that contract.

 Ms. Merchant alleges other untruths, as well. For one — Ms. Willis’s claim that she never cohabitated with Mr. Wade. The defense attorney offers documents that, she reckons, show that the special prosecutor “shared a king size bed with her in Aruba.”