The accusation from the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, that the estranged wife of the special prosecutor in her employ with whom she is accused of having an affair is “interfering” in her prosecution of President Trump — and conspiring with one of his co-defendants — promises further chaos for a case that appears to be going off the rails. 

Ms. Willis’s accusation comes in an emergency motion for a protective order in the superior court of Cobb County that attempts to quash a subpoena for her testimony in Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade’s divorce proceedings from his wife of 26 years, Joycelyn. Ms. Willis accuses Mrs. Wade of working in concert with one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants, Michael Roman.

It was Mr. Roman, alone among the 19 defendants, who in a court filing leveled the accusation that the district attorney was amorously involved with the special prosecutor whom she picked to try this case — even though he had never tried a felony before. Mr. Roman, who worked for Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2020, wants Ms. Willis disqualified and the charges against him dismissed.

Now comes Ms. Willis to argue that on January 8, three things happened “contemporaneously” — Mrs. Wade issued her subpoena, Mr. Roman petitioned for the divorce proceeding to be unsealed, and Mr. Roman filed for Ms. Willis to be disqualified. Ms. Willis alleges that all of this suggests coordination between Mrs. Wade and Mr. Roman to undermine Ms. Willis as she prepares for one of the most anticipated trials in American history. 

In seeking to rebuff the subpoena, Ms. Willis writes that she “cannot provide unique personal knowledge of any matter that is relevant” to Mr. Wade’s divorce, because he and Mrs. Wade both agree that their marriage was “irretrievably broken,” which she calls a “legal conclusion” that signifies that “there is no hope for reconciliation.” She claims that this break happened before she ever met Mr. Wade. 

Ms. Willis does not deny — or admit — that she and Mr. Wade conducted an affair. Instead, she reasons that “because the parties agree that the marriage is irretrievably broken and the concept of fault is not at issue, there is no information” that she could provide that “might prove relevant to granting or denying the divorce.” She calls her role in the split “irrelevant.” 

Not irrelevant, in Ms. Willis’s telling, is Mrs. Wade’s own behavior, which, the prosecutor alleges, included “an adulterous relationship” with a “longtime friend” of Mr. Wade that “precluded any chance of reconciliation.” Now, the district attorney claims, Mrs. Wade is motivated by a desire to “harass and damage” Ms. Willis’s professional reputation and is acting in order to “annoy, embarrass, and oppress” her. 

The district attorney goes further, though, accusing Mrs. Wade of having “conspired” with Mr. Roman by coordinating that the subpoena and the request that the divorce docket be unsealed landed on the docket simultaneously. The implication is that the contents of the docket could be embarrassing to Ms. Willis, as could the testimony that she will be required to deliver should the subpoena stand.  

Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing Ms. Willis’s sprawling racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 other defendants for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, ordered the district attorney to file a written response to the allegations by February 2, with a hearing scheduled for February 15. 

The New York Times reports that Ms. Willis, in an email message to the 45th president’s attorney, Steven Sadow, and other members of Mr. Trump’s defense team, declared that “some people will never be able to respect African Americans.” She added, “Now you know, I cannot be bullied.” 

Mr. Sadow took to LinkedIn to write to Ms. Willis, declaring that he “must respectfully inquire why have you chosen to play the race card instead of being transparent with the public about your ‘relationship’ with your ‘great friend?’”

All of this raises another question — whether Ms. Willis and Mr. and Mrs. Wade might be obligated under the Brady rule to share the contents of the divorce file — at least if a credible argument can be made that the file contains potentially exculpatory information. A range of news organizations have filed for the docket to be unsealed on the grounds that it contains information in the public interest.