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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney who first revealed that Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was in a relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, is teasing new evidence against Willis.
Merchant, who is representing Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, suggested on Wednesday that the Georgia state Senate's ethics investigation of Willis—which was launched in the wake of her own motion to disqualify the DA—could turn up additional evidence against Willis.
"There's a lot of information that wasn't necessarily relevant to my motion that I wasn't able to bring into court but that other agencies are also investigating," Merchant told Fox and Friends, referencing the bombshell court filing she submitted on January 8.
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Newsweek reached out by email to Willis' office for comment.
Merchant's motion to disqualify launched the weekslong evidentiary hearings into Willis that played out in court last month. After several other co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case, including Donald Trump, joined Merchant in her efforts to remove Willis and her Fulton County office from the prosecution, the relationship between Willis and Wade became a major scandal hovering over the criminal case.
Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the racketeering case against Trump and his 18 co-defendants, decided last Friday that Willis would be allowed to remain on the case so long as Wade withdrew from her team. Wade stepped down several hours later.
The defendants in the case have hinted that they could appeal McAfee's order to the Georgia Court of Appeals, but legal experts have warned that doing so could be particularly challenging.
Attorney and Georgia State University College of Law professor Anthony Michael Kreis previously told Newsweek, "It'll be very hard for the defendants to demonstrate that the factors that favor review are present here because Judge McAfee's ruling exhaustively explained why the defendants were not prejudiced by Wade and Willis' relationship and, applying long-standing precedent, determined there is no actual conflict of interest and provided a curative remedy to remove the appearance of wrongdoing."
On Wednesday, Merchant said state lawmakers were also looking into various courses of action that they could take against Willis if they find that prosecutorial misconduct occurred.
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"They're actually looking at a couple of different things," Merchant said of the Senate committee. "They're looking at changing laws, if there's any laws that are in place that they need to amend or change.
"They can also remove her from office," she continued. "Our governor just signed a law that now has oversight over district attorneys, and so they actually can remove her from office. That's a law that's going into effect this summer. So I think we'll be seeing a lot of investigations coming."
This is a developing story and will be updated when more information becomes available.
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