Of Punishment & Profit

The Legacy of Willis and Wade

Mar 08, 2024

New details emerged in the Fani Willis drama on Wednesday morning, as Ashleigh Merchant testified before the Georgia Senate Committee on Special Investigations. We got a lot of new information, including details on how Ms. Merchant became aware of the prosecutions’ improper relationships.

Summarizing Merchant (from Newsweek):

"Nathan was still married and Mr. Bradley was upset because of what happened in the divorce. He was upset because [Nathan and Joycelyn were still married… The Wades were still married, and [Wade] essentially just left her after meeting Ms. Willis and dropping the kids off at college… [Bradley] did not like the way [Wade] had treated his wife… He didn't like what was happening in the divorce proceedings. I remember specifically him saying, 'I handle my business,' things like that, like, 'I don't leave my wife without alimony' because… Ms. Wade had been a stay-at-home mom for—they'd been married for almost 30 years, and it was literally right after they dropped their youngest off at college that [Wade] said, 'Move out.'"

In addition to details about how the Defense became aware of the relationship, we got further clarification on how Merchant and her colleagues see the facts of the case. It’s damning.

Prosecution for Personal Gain

Wade and Willis’ relationship predates the RICO case, likely back to 2019, and there is a significant financial benefit, according to the Defense teams’ assertion of the facts. According to Merchant’s testimony, which was largely based on open records information and her own investigation, Fani Willis was deceptive in how she obtained the funding to hire Nathan Wade.

Prior to September 2021, Willis funded her office’s special prosecutors through the “State Seizure Fund,” and it ran out. On September 15, 2021, Willis requested $780,000 to hire 55 new employees. Notably, four days earlier, cell data shows Wade spent the night at Willis’ condo.

The business rationale provided to the county for this new funding:

WAS to clear up the backlog of cases from the Covid shutdowns
WAS NOT to hire special prosecutors or other contractors
DID NOT mention the Election Interference RICO case

The funding was awarded, along with 2022 additional funding not to exceed $5M. Once the funding was awarded, Willis claimed discretionary authority over the funding; that is, according to Merchant, she claimed her office can use the funding however they want.

Once Willis obtained the funding, she hired Wade. Wade signed his contract with the DA’s office to be the special prosecutor on November 1, 2021, with a monthly fee cap of $15,000/mo. This is exactly two weeks after Willis’ funding request.

Objectively, it appears that Willis secured funding to hire 55 employees and then, two weeks later, hired her boyfriend.

The next day, according to the official record, Wade filed for divorce from his wife.

The Special Grand Jury was requested in January 2022, selected jurors in May 2022, and began its work in June 2022. Wade was paid during this time, with the $15k/mo fee cap – which continued until October 2022.

There was then a 15-day gap when Wade did not have a contract with Fani Willis’ office. We don’t know exactly when that gap is, but Merchant testified that during that gap, Wade and Willis went on one of their trips. On October 28, 2022, the lovers took a Bahamas cruise with Wade's mother, after which Wade's mother returned home, and Willis and Wade went to Aruba on November 1, 2022. Notably, this is the one year anniversary of Wade’s appointment as Special Prosecutor.

Were they celebrating?

After they got home from their trip, on November 15, 2022, Wade renewed his contract with a new $35,000 monthly fee cap — a $20,000/mo increase.

To be fair, the trial was coming up; but according to Merchant, Wade wasn’t doing much legal work. The pleadings were done by the other attorneys, Anna Cross and John Floyd, though Merchant testified that Wade did issue some bills for drafting and “team meetings.” Notably, the other prosecutors on the case, Anna Cross and John Floyd, did not bill for the same team meetings.

Anna Cross, a former DA with extensive relevant experience, was paid $250/hr and billed under $100,000 total for the case. John Floyd, described as the RICO expert, was paid $150/hr and billed “less than Anna Cross” in total for the case. Nathan Wade, the DA’s lover who never prosecuted a felony prior to his appointment, was paid $250/hr and billed over $700,000 in total for the case.

One of these things is not like the others.

According to Merchant, Cross and Floyd no longer have contracts with Willis’ office. She testified that there is expected work product for both Cross and Floyd’s billings – but a severe lack of work product for Wade’s.

Despite this, according to the testimony, Wade's billings were never questioned, his hours were never cut, and he exceeded monthly billings more than once – with undetailed, block billing practices that were improper yet paid without question. Remember, Fani Willis was the sole reviewer and approver of her boyfriend’s billings.

As you digest all of that, don’t forget that Willis was deceptive in how she obtained the funding to hire Wade from the very beginning. As it was discussed during the hearing, Willis would not have been allowed to hire Wade as an employee because of their personal relationship, so Willis undertook “a process that circumvented county rules to hire him anyway.”

Obstruction, Witness Tampering, Money Laundering

Obstruction

Ms. Merchant testified that the DA's office is now obstructing her open records requests. For example, they refuse to produce Wade’s badge access logs for the DA’s Office and, instead, claim Wade never had a badge. Wade was in and out of that highly secure office, for over a year, and once billed 24 hours in a day. There is no way that he didn’t have a badge.

She also testified that the county stopped publishing Wade’s payable checks once Ms. Merchant filed her motion, potentially in violation of the state sunshine laws. This open records obstruction is part of another lawsuit brought by Ms. Merchant. Obviously, Willis and Wade’s repeated perjury is also a form of obstruction.

Witness Tampering

In terms of witness tampering, Ms. Merchant alleges that Mr. Bradley was being intimidated. She said it was scary to go up against DA, even for her, and that Bradley was going against friends and facing attacks from very powerful people. But it’s not just a “feeling” of witness tampering. There are witnesses.

The sequence appears to be that DA Willis called Bradley in September 2023 – in front of Cobb County prosecutor Cindi Lee Yeager – and told him, “They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us.” In Yeager’s sworn declaration, she claims she came forward after she watched Bradley perjure himself.

Next, Gabe Banks called Mr. Bradley. Bradley and Banks were friends, and Banks' wife reportedly works for Willis. Merchant testified that it’s possible that Gabe Banks has a contract with the DA Office’s as well, but she wasn’t sure.

After the call, Bradley called Merchant, and she said he thought that Banks was trying to silence him. He was afraid, and he called this “first shot over the bow.” Merchant testified that she was worried about Bradley, leaving a family gathering to talk to him.

The second “shot across the bow” was when Wade called one of Bradley's friends – a lawyer, though Ms. Merchant could not recall his name – and told the friend to tell Bradley to "remember his privilege."

The Committee Chairman said, "Sounds like tampering with witnesses." Merchant confirmed that Bradley took it as intimidation.

Money Laundering (or Just Tax Evasion?)

Then there is the matter of hiding money.

Apparently Wade had multiple lawyer trust accounts, and at least one of them was a secret. Merchant believes this secret account may have been what broke up Wade and Bradley’s legal partnership, and that he definitely used this secret account to hide money from his wife.

Remember that Wade filed for divorce the day after he signed on as Special Prosecutor. Then he allegedly hid all the new income from his wife in a secret trust account.

Why Wade’s money from the county would go into a trust account at all is an open question, since it was direct income and not client money. These accounts are for client retainers and awards, they are highly-regulated, and misusing them is a big deal.

Wade may be in even bigger trouble than previously thought.

Prosecutorial Misconduct

Personal conflicts. Financial benefits. Gifts and trips and other things of value. That should be enough to toss the case, as any thing of value over $100 dollars has to be disclosed; it repeatedly wasn’t, and they lied about it. And by “they,” I mean the DA with jurisdiction and the lead prosecutor in the case.

But when it comes to misconduct, there is so much more.

Consider the January 14, 2024 “church speech,” which Merchant described as Willis publicly condemning the accused before the trial. Even the old bags at The View criticized Willis for this speech, and questioned why she didn’t make an official statement denying the allegations.

At the church speech, which has also been described as a 35-minute sermon, Fani publicly claimed:

“They only attacked one… First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now.’ But no God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one? Why are they so surprised that a diverse team that I assembled, your child, can accomplish extraordinary things?”

This is both inappropriate and unethical, and may be illegal.

And then, of course, there is the book.

Willis gave the authors of Find Me the Votes (2024) unfettered access to the prosecution, and even gave on the record quotes about the case. From the book’s description:

“In Find Me the Votes, two years of immersive reporting by Isikoff and Klaidman has produced the most authoritative and dramatic account yet of a defeated president’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and how a local Georgia prosecutor—a daughter of the civil rights movement—decided to indict him and his allies for his desperate attempt to hold on to power.
From the beginning, Fani Willis saw Donald Trump’s crimes as a voting rights case, and an attempt by the former president to deprive the citizens of Georgia of the franchise, a right for which her forebears had bled. Isikoff and Klaidman take us deep inside both the nerve center of Trump’s effort to steal the election and the DA’s team of prosecutors as they build their case against the president.”

Forget innocent until proven guilty. Fani Willis – again, the District Attorney – participated in a book about the guilt of the accused, and the book was published in the middle of the proceedings and before trial.

According to Merchant, Willis has been disqualified from prosecuting cases for similar behavior – public statements about the accused – before.

What Happens Next?

The Senate investigation is ongoing, and the committee said they may recall Ms. Merchant to testify at a future date. In the broader case, Judge McAfee is considering all the evidence and arguments to determine the facts – the truth of the matter asserted by Michael Roman and the rest of the defendants.

In a court, the judge is the fact finder. But in the court of public opinion, the public gets to decide for themselves what is true. This is a much more critical fact finder for Willis and Wade.

Consider:

According to multiple witnesses, Wade and Willis had a personal, intimate relationship since 2019.
They texted each other 12,000 times before Wade was appointed as Special Counsel.
Willis secured the funding – $750,000 – to hire Wade under the auspices of hiring 55 new employees to clear a backlog of cases, piled up during Covid.
Two weeks after securing the funding, Willis hired Wade.
Willis never had county approval to hire Wade, and Wade was unqualified to prosecute this case.
Willis paid Wade at least SEVEN TIMES more than the other prosecutors on the case, and Wade hid this income in a secret trust account.
After a year of collecting fees (for little provable work), Wade received a fee cap increase of $20,000 — right after a cruise vacation with Ms. Willis.
In September 2023, the defense found out about the improper relationship, and Ms. Merchant prepared her Motion to Disqualify.
Willis and Wade repeatedly made false representations to the court in response to Ms. Merchant’s motion.
Willis and Wade perjured themselves under oath, in an effort to cover it all up.

There are myriad ethical problems with this story. There are multiple disbar-able offenses alleged. And some of these allegations are outright illegal.

The court of public opinion should be demanding accountability.

The court of the Georgia Senate should be recommending criminal charges.

The court of Judge Scott McAfee should toss this case, sanction the offending parties, and refer Willis and Wade to the Georgia Bar.

What actually will happen remains to be seen, but we will bring it to you as it happens here on Badlands Media.

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