Fani Willis Claims She Repaid Nathan Wade for Luxurious Vacations in Undocumented Cash Transactions

Tom Pappert

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade both testified Thursday in the first day of proceedings to determine if she should be removed from the prosecution due to their previously undisclosed romantic relationship.

Both Willis and Wade claimed the district attorney did not financially benefit from her appointment of Wade as special prosecutor because the luxurious vacations and trips he paid for with his business credit card were later reimbursed by Willis in unrecorded cash transactions. Wade has been paid more than $650,000 by Fulton County taxpayers.

Following a hearing that began at 9:30 a.m. and continued the entire day, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered the proceedings to continue on Friday.

The first new allegation raised during the hearing came from Robin Yearti, who formerly worked for Willis and once subleased her condo to Willis.

Yearti testified the relationship between Willis and Wade emerged in 2019, which is contrary to the claims by Willis and Wade, who claimed their romantic tryst started in early 2022. Willis hired Wade in November 2021.

Before Wade was called to testify, his divorce attorney, Terrence Bradley, testified that he could not answer when the relationship between Willis and Wade began due to his attorney-client privilege with the special prosecutor.

The position prompted McAfee to remark, “He’s taking the position that he’s not willing to share any information that Mr. Wade ever told him. That’s a broader definition of attorney client privilege than I’d ever heard.”

During his testimony, Wade testified that Willis would reimburse him for their romantic encounters with cash payments.

Upon further questioning, Wade claimed he did not know the definite source of Willis’ cash payments, did not deposit the money into his bank account, and did not declare the money on his income taxes.

Regarding one specific trip to Napa he shared with Willis, the special prosecutor explained, “She paid for the excursions, so the expenses kind of balanced out.”

“She’s a very independent, proud woman so she’s going to insist that she carries her won weight, it actually was a point of contention,” Wade claimed.

He explained, “She gave me some cash,” and asserted that “you’re not keeping a ledger” in a romantic relationship. Asked about receipts for Willis’ reimbursements, Wade confirmed, “I don’t have any.”

When asked where the physical money originated, Wade explained, “She didn’t go to the ATM, she would carry the cash.”

Regarding where the money went, Wade later questioned, “What’s wrong with receiving the cash” and then “spending it?”

Asked why his relationship with Willis was not public, Wade explained, “We’re private people, our relationship wasn’t a secret, it was just private.” Contradicting Yearti’s testimony, he explained “I wouldn’t discuss my relationship with Ms. Yearti or anyone else.”

Wade also received questions about documents filed in his divorce in which he claimed he did not engage in sexual or romantic encounters with another woman prior to May 30, 2023.

The special prosecutor claimed his relationship with Willis did not count, as Wade claimed the marriage was irreparably broken when his former wife had an affair in 2015, but his divorce filing was not until May 30, 2023

Wade also claimed to address an invoice to Willis’ office that suggested he be billed for 24 hours of work within one day.

“If you look at this invoice, where it says 24 hours in one day, it actually doesn’t say one day. If you look at the top of the invoice, it says date complete. The date reflected in that invoice reflects the date the work was completed,” Wade claimed. “I would bill only after that particular task has been completed.”

Still, when asked to read the invoice for the record, Wade struggled to differentiate the difference.

“On November the 5th, I completed the task of preparing the tasks for pretrial. That’s the date I completed it,” the special prosecutor said.

When asked to explain what tasks he billed 24 hours for, he explained, “I can’t,” and restated for the record, “I completed the task on November 5, 2021. 24 hours was billed at $250.”

Wade later faced questioning from Steve Sadow, the lawyer who represents Trump in Georgia, about when his romantic relationship with Willis dissolved.

“Summer 2023,” Wade said, appearing to offer a guess. “I’m a man; we don’t do the date thing. Summer ’23, I would say June, maybe.”

Asked whether he had a personal relationship with Willis after this, he explained they are “[p]robably closer than ever because of these attacks, but if you’re asking me about specific intercourse, the answer is no.”

Wade also acknowledged the timing of his contract with Willis’ office, which came within 24 hours of his divorce case.

“It was purely coincidental, that contract,” said Wade, claiming their agreement to divorce dated back to 2015.

After Wade finished testifying, the prosecutors dropped their opposition to the subpoena for Willis to testify, and the district attorney claimed she was “pacing” in her office waiting for her turn.

During a contentious exchange with lawyer Ashleigh Merchant, who represents Michael Roman and originally surfaced the accusations against Willis and Wade, the district attorney suggested Merchant’s interests “are contrary to democracy.”

Willis acknowledged living at the condo that was previously owned by Yearti, explaining she subleased the property and paid almost exclusively through CashApp. She would later claim she paid for the home through CashApp, a popular mobile form of paying that leaves a record, but paid Wade with cash because Wade did not use CashApp.

“There were sometimes that I would give her cash, but mostly I paid her via CashApp, that would be the most convenient thing,” Willis explained, adding that the “vast majority was CashApp.”

She then eventually acknowledged that Wade would “initially pay” for their romantic or group excursions but claimed it was because he is a “world traveler” who has both a travel agent and an agent who handles his cruise purchases.

“He called his cruise agent and he booked that through them because he has a cruise agent, he also has a regular agent,” Willis admitted.

To explain why she did not have records of these payments, Willis suggested that is not how she deals with friends and romantic partners.

“If you tell me it’s a G, then you gonna get a thousand dollars,” Willis explained.

Asked if he knew how Wade paid for their vacations, Willis said, “I have no idea how he paid for it, if it’s a credit card, if it’s a debit card, but certainly he called his cruise agent.”

When asked about the source of the cash she used to pay Wade, the district attorney claimed to have a significant amount of physical money in her home and cited values imparted by her elderly father.

“I always have cash at the house, that has been, I don’t know, all my life,” Willis explained. “I keep cash in my house, and I don’t keep cash in my purse as good as I used to, but when you go on a date that cash is in your pocket.”

She estimated that the amount of money in her home has ranged between $500 and $15,000 over her adult life, and thus, she could not necessarily provide the source for every dollar.

“I’ve had cash for years in my house, so for me to tell you the source,” Willis added, “it’s been my whole life.”

The district attorney then raised eyebrows when she explained, “When I took some of the money out of my first campaign, I kept some of the cash from that.”

She insisted that she only paid Wade in cash a small number of times and repeatedly referenced a $2,500 cash payment she made during their shared trip to Belize, which she repeatedly stated was primarily paid using her finances.

Willis also denied allegations that her security team was used to transport Wade, but later conceded that she may have used her security team to transport both herself and Wade to and from lunches or other meals.

Under this line of questioning, Willis turned on the defense attorney and declared claims levied against Willis to be false, shouting, “It’s a lie, it’s a lie!”

McAfee called a five-minute recess, then urged the attorneys not to speak over each other.

After another contentious moment, McAfee warned Willis, “This is going to be the first time I’m going to have to caution you to listen to the questions as asked, and if this happens again and again, I’m going to have no choice but to strike your testimony.”

Willis, under questioning from Sadow, later claimed that she could not have been engaged in a romantic relationship with Wade in 2020 because he “had a form of cancer.”

“I’m not going to emasculate a black man,” Willis said loudly into the microphone.

Still, she confirmed the pair “absolutely” frequently spoke on the phone and likely met for lunch multiple times during 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

A filing, originally made by Roman and later adopted by other defendants, seeks to have the charges against Roman dismissed and Willis barred from prosecuting any case against former President Donald Trump as a result of her alleged improprieties with Wade.

McAfee recently confirmed Willis could face disqualification as a result of her relationship with Wade.

Watch the full court hearing:

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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].

 

 

 

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