A Georgia district attorney accused of hiring her lover to prosecute former President Trump has broken her silence on the controversy and said she and the prosecutor were targeted because they are Black.
“They only attacked one,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Sunday at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta. “The first thing they say is, ‘Oh, now she’s going to play the race card.’
“But no God, aren’t they the ones playing the race card when they only question one?”
The comments were the first time Willis addressed the allegations publicly, but she neither confirmed nor denied accusations leveled at her and special counsel Nathan Wade, who helped secure an indictment against the former Republican president in an election interference case.
He called Wade “a great friend and a great lawyer,” as well as a “superstar,” but did not mention him by name even once during his more than 30-minute speech, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis addressed the allegations for the first time during a speech Sunday. AP Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade allegedly had a relationship with Willis when he was appointed to the case via REUTERS.
The couple was accused by Trump’s co-defendant, Michael Roman, of having a “clandestine” and “inappropriate” affair when appointments were made for the 2020 election interference case.
Roman, a former Trump 2020 campaign official, argued in a court filing last week that the integrity of the case had been compromised by their alleged affair and called for all charges against him to be dropped.
“The district attorney decided to name his romantic partner, who at all times relevant to this prosecution has been a married man,” the filing reads.
Roman contended in the filing that Wade used some of the $654,000 in legal fees he had won in the case to take Willis on vacation to “Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean.”
Michael Roman, third from right in the bottom row, is a former Trump campaign staffer accused of election interference via REUTERS.
Willis noted during her speech that the two other prosecutors assigned to the case, Anna Green Cross and John Floyd, are white, and noted that only allegations have emerged against the two prominent black members of the prosecution: she and Wade.
“Aren’t they playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing for almost 30 years?” she asked.
Roman was unmoved by Willis’ accusations that the charges were racial in nature.
Willis did not mention Wade by name during his speech. Via REUTERS
“The biggest difference between Ms. Cross, Mr. Floyd and Mr. Wade is that Ms. Willis does not have a relationship with Ms. Cross and Mr. Floyd,” he said in a statement to the Constitution-Journal on Sunday.
Willis plans to file an official response to the allegations, his spokesman said.
Once that filing is made, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said he would schedule a hearing to address the matter.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn