It’s either a booty-call bombshell or a dud, depending on which side of the Fani Willis evidentiary hearing Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee takes.
Cellphone records uncovered by the defense team for former President Donald Trump and 14 co-defendants indicate that Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney, and special prosecutor Nathan Wade may have been romantically linked earlier than either has testified.
The defense team alleges that Wade visited Willis at least 35 times late at night before leaving early in the morning, when Willis was living in a Hapeville, Georgia, condominium between April 2021 and November 2021. Whether McAfee will allow the records to be used during the evidentiary hearing remains to be seen.
The records, subpoenaed from AT&T, could be damaging because Wade and Willis have insisted they were not romantically involved before February 2022. The link between the salacious details and Trump allegedly conspiring to interfere with Georgia’s vote in the 2020 presidential election is thin at best, but the defense is trying to drum up enough appearance of impropriety to disqualify Willis from prosecuting Trump and his 14 co-defendants.
Painting Willis as having lied could lead the judge to question anything else she has testified. The defense has asserted that Willis’ prosecution of Trump is nothing more than a money grab, and if they can show that her romance with Wade took place before she hired him at a handsome wage to help prosecute Trump, they can bolster their argument that her motives are financial rather than judicial.
Willis says records ‘do not prove anything relevant’
Willis says the defense’s latest revelation is hardly a smoking gun. Firing back in her filed response to the defense, Willis’ team says it’s much ado about nothing, that the records “do not prove anything relevant” and should not be considered evidence. What’s more, Willis’ team asserts, the fact that the defense got the records in the first place — apparently without a search warrant — raises serious questions about whether they were legally obtained.
“The records do nothing more than demonstrate that Special Prosecutor Wade’s telephone was located somewhere within a densely populated multiple-mile radius where various residences, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and other businesses are located,” the prosecutors wrote. “The records do not prove, in any way, the content of the communications between Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis; they do not prove that Special Prosecutor Wade was ever at any particular location or address; they do not prove that Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis were ever in the same place during any of the times listed.”
The cellphone records were collected by Charles Mittelstadt, a private investigator who has done a lot of work for defense attorneys. He regularly appears on CourtTV, Investigation Discovery, and other cable shows.
In the affidavit the defense is offering the judge, Mittelstadt said he monitored “over 2,000 voice calls and just under 12,000 interactions” between Willis and Wade during an 11-month period in 2021. He added that there was “a prevalence of calls made in the evening hours.”
The defense attorneys directed Mittelstadt to concentrate on two specific dates — Sept. 11-12, 2021, and Nov. 29-30, 2021.
“Specifically, on September 11, 2021, Mr. Wade’s phone left the Doraville area and arrived within the geofence… at 10:45 P.M.,” according to the affidavit. “The phone remained there until Sept.r 12 at 3:28 a.m., at which time the phone traveled directly to towers located in East Cobb consistent with his routine pinging at his residence in that area. The phone arrived in East Cobb at approximately 4:05 a.m., and records demonstrate he sent a text to Ms. Willis at 4:20 a.m.”
What was omitted from the defense’s allegation is the raw data Mittelstadt used for his analysis. Without that, the defense will face a challenge getting the potential evidence independently verified. The affidavit only notes Mittelstadt collected data from two cell phone towers – one 2,000 feet away from the condo and the other 3,000 feet.
Defense attorneys Steve Sadow and Jennifer Little said Mittelstadt “is available to testify at the court’s convenience” to fill in the gaps.
