Fulton County, GA., District Attorney Fani Willis testified she paid cash during trips with top prosecutor. PHOTO COURTESY OF KLXY.XOM

Atlanta, GA. – Fani Willis, Georgia’s Fulton County district attorney heading up the prosecution of former president Donald J. Trump and 14 of his associates in their failed attempts to steal elector votes away from then candidate Joseph R. Biden after the 2020 presidential election, was in the proverbial hot seat for two hours last week defending her personal and professional relationship with Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade.

When news began to leak in the press regarding the romantic goings on of Willis and Wade, the consensus as opposed to the facts were that Willis hired Wade as a result of “pillow talk,” and according to Ashleigh Merchant, attorney for Michael Roman, one of the 19 defendants who allegedly plotted to steal votes from Georgia voters in 2020, Willis enjoyed the financial perks that came from the relationship.

Wade received “more than $650,000 from working on the case,” Merchant argued during the hearing, and Willis “benefitted from his work” by going on romantic trips and vacations together. Before the disqualification hearing began, the accusations surrounding the intimate relationship, in the court of public opinion, was a salacious money grab to steal taxpayer funds for selfish interests.

However, when the Willis took the witness stand last week, America, and not just the state of Georgia, watched a riveting and explosive testimony that by the end of it, left everyone breathless.

There is no doubt that whoever revealed the private details of Willis’ love affair with her special prosecutor did so with the explicit hope of derailing the case against Trump and his codefendants. To many legal scholars and political pundits, the attempted steal of Georgia 2020 election votes is the most consequential, and if convicted, Trump could indeed face jail time. This is why it was imperative to stop District Attorney Willis.

The first attempts to disqualify Willis and muddy her reputation happened as allegations of a sexual relationship between her and a Hip Hop artist her office prosecuted surfaced in the press. Willis vehemently denied that the relationship occurred, but the narrative was cast. A Black woman in a powerful position with a stellar prosecutorial record reduced to a sexual object of derision. The disqualification hearing was more of the same.

Willis was subjected to questions about the relationship with Wade, and so were other key witnesses, including her father, retired lawyer Floyd Willis. Ashleigh Merchant, a white woman, and her associates, questioned Willis about her “personal relationship” with Wade for more than two hours. They focused on the actual beginning of the relationship and the finances exchanged between the two.

Merchant’s questioning of Willis harkened to a period when enslaved Black women could not make decisions regarding their bodies of their sexuality or have the freedom to choose whom they wanted for an intimate partner or mate without scrutinization or subjection. As Willis so aptly said during her testimony after a contentious round of questioning by Merchant, “I am not the one on trial here. Your client is.”

From the evidence received thus far, there is no proof that substantiates the claim that Willis engaged in any illegal fiduciary spending at the expense of Georgia taxpayers. What has happened is the overtly sexual objectification of Black women in white spaces. It is hardly unusual for “personal relationships” to develop between colleagues in their places of employment. To insinuate that a Black woman would somehow use her position of authority, and her body, to acquire financial gain is tantamount to calling her a prostitute.

The relationship timeline when Willis and Wade started dating has been called into question, but that does not translate to the district attorney plotting to hire her now exboyfriend for the sole purpose of stealing taxpayer money. The trips, vacations, and romantic excursions may have been placed upon Wade’s government credit card, but Willis’ deliberate efforts to reimburse him, in cash, does not suggest theft or anything sinister. What it does suggest is that Willis is a Black woman who refuses to be in a situation where she is beholden or tied to a relationship because of finances.

Another perplexing occurrence at the hearing was the confusion surrounding Willis’ repaying Wade in cash. When Floyd Willis was on the witness stand, attorneys for Michael Roman tried to invalidate his daughter’s testimony regarding keeping cash on her person and around the house for emergency purposes. The senior Willis testified that he taught his daughter this practice and basically that it is “a Black thing.” That statement baffled the co-Trump defendants’ attorneys as they tried to shoot holes in Floyd Willis’ testimony.

Also, Stan Brody, host at Acumen Wines in NAPA Valley, Calif., told a reporter that Fani Willis paid $400 plus tip in cash to satisfy the bill when she and Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade toured the winery, thus confirming Willis’ testimony.

It is plain to see that the disqualification hearing is nothing more than an attempt to stall or forgo the prosecution of former president Donald Trump. Attempting to throw salacious inuendo and dirt on the names and reputations of his opponents is a peculiar specialty of Trump. But it has a boomerang effect. In his efforts to make a Black woman appear as nothing more than a wanton woman out for sex, power, and money, what Trump has done has taken his own degradation to the lowest of perversive levels. His machinations will not work in the long run regardless of how the judge rules in Willis’ disqualification hearing.