Ex-employee claims relationship began earlier than acknowledged for Fulton County DA Willis
District Attorney Fani Willis Thursday accused defense lawyers of lying about her romantic relationship with a subordinate in an attempt to use her personal life to derail Fulton County’s election subversion case.
In combative and impromptu testimony in Fulton County Superior Court that seemed to surprise even members of her own team, Willis said she and special prosecutor Nathan Wade became romantically involved months after she hired him to oversee the prosecution. She said she paid her own way — often in cash — when they traveled together and did nothing improper as the relationship continued and she prepared for one of the most important criminal prosecutions in the country.
In a series of contentious exchanges, Willis and various defense attorneys sometimes talked over each other, prompting Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to intervene to restore decorum. Willis accused the defense attorneys of delving into her personal life to change the focus from the alleged crimes committed by clients.
“You’re confused. You think I’m on trial,” Willis told Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney who exposed the Willis-Wade relationship. “These (defendants) are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
‘No doubt’
Willis’ testimony capped a dramatic day-longhearing on Merchant’s motion to have Willisand the entire Fulton DA’s office disqualified from prosecuting the case. On behalf of her client, defendant Michael Roman, Merchant said Wade and Willis had benefitted financially from the prosecution.
Wade has made more than $728,000 for his work on the case since Willis hired him in November 2021. In court filings, Merchant said Willis also benefitted from hiring Wade because he paid for several vacations to Belize, Aruba and Napa Valley, among other places.
Thursday’s hearing provided the first chance for the parties to testify under oath in open court. Early in the day, a former friend of Willis, Robin Bryant Yeartie, testified that Willis told her she and Wade were romantically involved before the DA hired him to oversee the election interference case in November 2021.
Her timeline contradicted one Wade laid out in affidavit earlier this month where he said his relationship with Willis only became personal in 2022.
Yeartie testified she saw Willis and Wade hug, kiss and be affectionate as early as the end of 2019. She also said there’s “no doubt” that the relationship continued until Yeartie last spoke with Willis in March 2022, when Yeartie resigned from the DA’s office after contending with complaints about her performance.
The conflicting accounts led McAfee to allow Merchant to call Wade to the witness stand. The special prosecutor reiterated that he and Willis did not become romantically involved until around March 2022 – about five months after Willis hired him.
Wade testified that he met Willis at a judicial conference in October 2019 and they developed a professional relationship as she sought his advice on judicial and election matters as she learned the ropes of being a municipal judge and later campaigned for district attorney.
Merchant confronted Wade with bank records that showed he had paid for plane tickets, hotels and other expenses for various trips. But Wade testified that Willis reimbursed him for thousands of dollars in expenses with cash for some of the trips – including the trip to Belize, which he said was a birthday present from Willis.
Wade also testified that Willis paid for meals and other expenses on trips in lieu of reimbursing him for other expenses. He said they split the cost of their travel roughly evenly.
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Fiery Fani Willis under pressure in court, loses it with lawyer: ‘don’t be cute with me!’
Soros-backed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis gets grilled in court hearing
District Attorney Fani Willis was under pressure in court Thursday over her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade, prompting explosive outbursts of “dont be cute with me” and “it’s a lie!” — the latter of which brought proceedings to a halt.
The Embattled Fulton County, Georgia, DA and her ex-lover were scrutinized over the timeline and nature of their relationship in the high stakes hearing which will decide if she is fit to continue in her prosecution of election fraud charges against Donald Trump and others.
Willis had a number of run-ins during blistering questioning by lawyer Ashleigh Merchant — who represents Trump co-defendant Mike Roman — about whether Wade had ever slept over at an apartment that Willis subleased from a friend.
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” Willis screamed into the microphone, prompting Judge Scott McAfee to immediately call a five-minute break.
District Attorney Fani Willis yelled in court “It is a lie” when she was grilled about certain details of her relationship with Nathan Wade.AP
After the break and after Willis and Merchant continued to interrupt and talk over each other McAfee warned Willis: “You have to listen to the question as asked and if this happens again and again I’m going to have no choice but to strike the testimony.”
During another heated exchange when Merchant questioned about how she split bills with Wade, Willis shot back: “That was cute, but I didn’t give him money in a contract … don’t be cute with me and think you’re not gonna get an answer.”
Willis has testified her relationship with Wade, who she hired as special prosecutor on the case, started in 2022 and ended in 2023.
Roman has argued in court papers their relationship started earlier and is unethical and has asked for Willis to be removed from prosecuting his case.
After weighing the evidence heard Thursday and Friday judge Scott McAfee will make a decision.
Willis — wearing a red dress — first unexpectedly appeared in the Fulton County courtroom, in Atlanta around 2 p.m. after Wade had finished testifying.
She interjected — as a lawyer from her office was fighting to keep the top prosecutor off the stand — to say she wanted to testify.
Willis then said she had been eagerly waiting to be able to give her side of the story.
“I’ve been in my office pacing,” Willis said, adding that when she heard Wade was done she came running to the courtroom to say her piece.
Willis wasted no time in attacking Merchant for allegedly lying in court papers and at a hearing about the nature of the relationship.
“You lied on Monday and yet here we are,” Willis said to Merchant. Given, “how dishonest you were with the court on Monday, I’m actually surprised the hearing continued. But since it did, here I am.”
Willis told Merchant she was “extremely offended” by the implication that Willis slept with Wade after her first time meeting him at a conference in October 2019.
Earlier in proceedings, witness Robin Yeartie — a former employee in the DA’s office, who claimed to be a long-time friend of Willis’ said she had “no doubt” that Willis and Wade were already romantically involved in 2019.
She testified that she had seen Willis and Wade “kissing” and “hugging” and saw them generally being affectionate toward each other.
Anna Cross — a prosecutor in Willis’ office — questioned Yeartie about the fact she would have been fired if she didn’t resign, implying Yeartie had an axe to grind against Willis.
Although Willis maintained she was “not a hostile witness,” she continued to trade barbs with the defense lawyers who pelted her with questions for the next three hours.
At one point, when Merchant asked about flight records for Wade and Willis’ trips together, Willis snapped back: “You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives.”
“You’re confused, you think I’m on trial,” a fiery Willis said. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
Trump, 77, faces trial alongside the 14 remaining defendants in the case for allegedly meddling in the 2020 presidential election. A handful of defendants have already taken plea deals while most of the rest have joined Roman’s motion to have Willis thrown off the case and the charges against them dropped.
Wade and Willis both testified Thursday they didn’t become romantically involved until March 2022 — and long after Wade was appointed to the Trump probe.
But Merchant and Roman seek to prove the pair have lied in court about when their tryst began — claiming it started before Wade’s appointment and influenced Willis’ decision to put him in the prestigious position off special prosecutor, and that she then reaped financial benefit when Wade treated her to and paid for vacations.
Wade explained away bank statements showing him paying for tickets for himself and Willis — including to the Bahamas, Aruba, and Napa Valley California — by saying they roughly split the cost of their trips and Willis had paid him back in cash, and that she received no financial benefit from the relationship.
“I never purchased a gift for Ms. Willis,” Wade said.
And when lawyer Craig Gillian — who reps another defendant David Shafer — pressed Wade about where the cash repayments went and the lack of paper trail, Wade said it “probably would have gone to one of my children.”
Willis claims she used cash from a stash she kept at home and said she always squirreled away money where she lived ranging from a few hundred dollars to as much as $15,000.
“That cash — you do not know where it came from?” Merchant asked Willis.
“It came from my sweat and tears,” Willis shot back.
When Merchant tried to ask if it was from her work as a private attorney or as district attorney, Willis snapped, “What are you talking about?”
Moments later she accused Merchant of “mischaracterizing my testimony greatly. I am not going to allow you to mischaracterize my testimony.”
Willis said it was important for her to pay her way in their relationship in order to maintain equality and she never wanted a man to “foot my bills.”
In fact, she claimed a catalyst for their break-up was they would have “brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal.”
Willis insisted the pair’s split “had absolutely nothing to do with” the Trump indictment getting handed up by a grand jury on August 14.
Willis’ testimony continues Friday morning at 9 a.m.
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| Media
Bloodbath at Paramount claims 800 jobs including CBS News journalists embroiled in controversy
Several CBS News reporters were caught up in layoffs at Paramount Global that claimed 800 jobs, including one who is embroiled in a high-stakes First Amendment fight — and another who has reportedly weathered HR probes over his workplace behavior, The Post has learned.
Catherine Herridge — an award-winning senior correspondent whose First Amendment case is being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among the hundreds of employees at CBS parent Paramount who got pink slips on Tuesday, sources told The Post.
The carnage provoked outrage from the rank-and-file at CBS, with some focusing their ire on Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish, who pulled down $32 million in total compensation last year despite the company’s ever-shrinking financial profile.
“Everybody in the newsroom is pissed that Bob Bakish is making over $30 million and he’s making these cuts,” one insider fumed.
Elsewhere, some suspected the layoffs were more than just cost-cutting.
Sources said Herridge had clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews — a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post.
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Doomed CNN Forced to ‘Dramatically’ Slash Anchor Salaries
Doomed CNN, a far-left propaganda outlet that spreads conspiracy theories and violence, is looking to cut “more than $50 million” in anchor salaries.
Let’s start with the current salaries. You are not going to believe how much these…. are reportedly paid per year:
- Anderson Cooper: $20 million
- Wolf Blitzer: $15 million
- Jake Tapper: $8.5 million
- Chris Wallace: $8 million
- John Berman, Kate Bolduan, Sara Sidner: $1 to $2 million
Normal people watch these CNN losers operate and ask themselves, How can they lie so shamelessly? How do they live with themselves, spreading all this hate, division, violence, and racism? Well, now you know. These soulless propagandists are bought and paid for.
Personally, I think CNN failed to understand one key thing when negotiating these salaries: Leftists like Jake Tapper are probably willing to serial lie and meddle in elections for free. You give that guy cab fare and eating money, and he’ll happily lie all the livelong day.
THIS IS CNN:
- Russia Collusion Hoax
- Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax
- Jussie Smollett Hoax
- Covington KKKids Hoax
- Very Fine People Hoax
- Seven-Hour Gap Hoax
- Russian Bounties Hoax
- Trump Trashes Troops Hoax
- Policemen Killed at Mostly Peaceful January 6 Protest Hoax
- Rittenhouse Hoax
- Eating While Black Hoax
- Border Agents Whipping Illegals Hoax
- NASCAR Noose Hoax
- The Georgia Jim Crow 2.0 Hoax
- Trump Assaulted Secret Service Agents and Grabbed Steering Wheel of Beast Hoax
- MAGA Assaulted Paul Pelosi Hoax
- COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Racist Hoax
- Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Russian Disinformation Hoax
- Joe Biden Will Never Ban Gas Stoves Hoax
- COVID Deaths are Over-Counted Is a Conspiracy Theory Hoax
- Mass Graves of Native Children in Canada Hoax
- The Trump Killed All the Fish Hoax
- Hamas Hospital Hoax
- John Fetterman Is Healthy Hoax
- If Reelected, Trump Will Execute People Hoax
- The Alfa Bank Hoax
The only thing sustaining this garbage outlet is the rigged cable/satellite TV con. With fewer than a half-million viewers, CNN cannot survive on merit (i.e., advertising revenue based on ratings). CNN survives only because about 60 million chumps still pay $150 a month for cable/satellite TV. Every month, even though fewer than one percent of those 60 million watch CNN, all 60 million subsidize CNN through their cable bill.
The good news is that streaming is killing cable TV. That 60 million number used to be twice as high. Every year, more and more smart and patriotic Americans cut the cable cord, which is why CNN is doomed.
It’s also why CNN is now forced to slash budgets and salaries.
“If you work at CNN, your compensation is going to go down dramatically over the next…five years; there’s just no other way around it,” one media and tech analyst told the Wrap.
And it appears as though CNN’s latest boss, the disgraced Mark Thompson, is ready to do that. He has no choice. With the left-wing affirmative action of cable/satellite TV coming to an end, CNN is about to be shoved into the bright light of the merit-based streaming culture where it has zero chance of surviving. Nobody watches, trusts, or likes CNN.
Back in 2022, when CNN dipped its toe into the merit-based streaming world with CNN+, only 150,000 people signed up. Fewer than 10,000 people tuned in. CNN+ was put out of its misery within weeks.
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