Fani Willis’ former longtime friend testified Thursday that the Fulton County district attorney and Nathan Wade began a personal relationship at the end of 2019—years before they worked together on the Trump election interference case.
Robin Yeartie, who has been friends with Willis since college and briefly worked at the district attorney’s office, testified that the DA told her she met Wade at a conference in October 2019.
“The romantic relationship began shortly after a 2019 conference?” Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for former Trump aide and co-defendant Mike Roman, asked.
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“Yes,” Yeartie answered.
She also said that she saw the couple “hugging, kissing, being affectionate” before November 2021, when Willis hired Wade as special prosecutor for the Trump racketeering case. Willis also briefly stayed at Yeartie's condo.
The last time she saw Wade and Willis was in 2022, she said, after leaving the DA's office due to a “situation” in which she was told she would be fired if she did not resign. She said that incident ended her friendship with Willis. At that time, she said the couple was still together.
The admission kicked off an anticipated two-day hearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to decide whether Willis should be disqualified from the racketeering case and if the indictment against Trump and several of his co-defendants should be dismissed.
It also directly contradicts what Wade and Willis have said about their relationship, which they say began in 2022.
Wade, wearing a gray suit with an American flag pin, took the stand after Yeartie and insisted that his relationship with Wade started in early 2022. He also denied ever being at the house Yeartie shared with Willis and said he never discussed his relationship in social settings.
“Our relationship wasn't secret, but we're just private people,” he said.
Wade later said his relationship with Willis ended in the summer of 2023, but that they remain friends. In a tense moment, Trump’s attorney, Steve Sadow, asked Wade whether he and Willis have had any “personal relationship at all” since they ended things.
“We’re very good friends, probably closer than ever because of these attacks,” Wade said. “But if you’re asking me about sexual intercourse, the answer is no.”
Willis also testified on Thursday, confirming the relationship timeline. She said that while their romantic relationship ended months ago, she feels like “we will be friends to the day we die.”
The hearing stems from Merchant's motion that argued Willis misused her office when she had an “improper” relationship with Wade, with whom she allegedly went on several luxurious trips funded by the special prosecutor’s taxpayer-bankrolled paycheck.
The Georgia case is considered the strongest against the former president—one that relies on taped calls, paperwork, and flipped witnesses that allegedly document Trump’s concerted effort to corrupt Georgia’s presidential election results in 2020.
Willis’ investigation began on her first day in office in 2021, shortly after The Washington Post revealed Trump had phoned the state’s top election official and pressured him to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn his surprise loss in the state. The lengthy inquiry culminated in August 2023 with a 41-count indictment against Trump and 18 others, but the prosecution was delayed as the defendants tried and failed to split the case and move it into different courts.
In motions ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Merchant accused Willis and Wade of lying about their relationship timeline, teased bombshell testimony, and dragged Wade’s ongoing divorce into the public eye.
The motion also provided travel itineraries for several vacations Wade and Willis took together, including an October 2022 Royal Caribbean Cruise, a trip to Aruba in November 2022, and a December 2022 New Year's cruise.
Wade testified on Thursday that he used his credit card to book their trips because Willis wanted to “limit her transactions” for safety reasons. He said Willis would insist “she is going to pay her own way” and would give him cash to pay him back or pay for other things to make the trip equitable.
“We are not keeping a ledger,” he added.
The tension ahead of Thursday’s hearing was evident at a prior hearing, where Merchant told the judge that Wade refused to accept service of her subpoena. She also argued that the DA’s office appeared to be hiding evidence that could shed light on any alleged improprieties surrounding their romantic relationship. While the DA and county had separately turned over some requested records, a few were conspicuously missing, including two of Wade’s invoices to the county.
“Anything that we have in our possession… we have provided. There are assumptions about some things that we have that are inaccurate… we’re not trying to hide anything,” Deputy County Counsel Shalanda Macon-Jaliwa Miller assured the judge.
“Invoice 22 has been paid. Invoice 25 has been paid. So, someone has them,” an exasperated Merchant responded.
Yeartie’s testimony came after Wade’s former law partner refused to answer questions about when Willis and Wade had started their relationship.
“I do not have personal knowledge. But I consulted with the [state legal] bar yesterday,” Terrence Bradley, a Georgia lawyer who briefly worked with Wade and later represented him in his divorce case, testified in Fulton County Court. “I was advised that I cannot reveal anything that I know or saw. I would ask the court to issue certification of immediate review to the Georgia Supreme Court.”
Bradley, who made it clear he was “not happy” to be testifying, continued to assert that any conversation he had with Wade would break his attorney-client privilege. The lawyer, however, also confirmed that Willis and Wade met at a municipal court conference in 2019.
Merchant had argued in a motion last Friday that Bradley was set to testify that Wade and Wills started their relationship before she became DA in January 2021. “Bradley also has personal knowledge that Wade and Willis regularly stayed together at her home until Willis’ father moved into her home sometime in 2020,” she wrote.
During Thursday’s hearing, Merchant argued that “Wade put a representation about when the relationship began in his affidavit.” “That's a waiver of privilege,” she said. “And there are fraud exceptions that could apply here as exceptions to the attorney-client privilege.”
Before Bradley’s testimony, an attorney from the DA’s office argued Merchant should be sanctioned for misrepresenting what the lawyer was set to say on the stand. “Patently false, egregious representation,” Adam Abbate said.
Merchant hit back, saying she had a “good faith basis” for her argument and that she plans to call other witnesses to testify that Willis and Wade began their relationship in October 2019, including a former friend and coworker of the DA.
