Lawyers are set to argue over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed from the election interference case against former President Donald Trump on Thursday.
The hearing, scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. ET, will be streamed live on Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee's YouTube channel. It will also be streamed by news outlets, including PBS here.
The hearing in Atlanta is expected to focus on details of Willis' personal relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired.
McAfee said during a hearing on Monday that Willis could be disqualified "if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one."
He said the issues he wants to explore at the hearing are "whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or nonromantic in nature, when it formed and whether it continues."
Legal experts previously told Newsweek that even if the allegations are true, they do not provide a basis for disqualifying Willis and Wade from prosecuting the case but risk tainting the prosecution.
Speculation began to swirl about the future of the case after allegations of an inappropriate romantic relationship between Willis and Wade surfaced last month in a motion filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman. He is one of the 18 people who were charged alongside Trump over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.
Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer, alleged that Willis and Wade had been involved in a romantic relationship since before Wade was hired to help prosecute the case.
The motion alleges Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited personally when he paid for vacations for the two of them, creating a conflict of interest.
Roman, who has since been joined by Trump and other co-defendants, is asking McAfee to toss out the indictment and to prevent Willis, Wade and their offices from continuing to be involved in the case.
Willis and Wade filed a response earlier this month, acknowledging a "personal relationship." They said it has not resulted in any direct or indirect financial benefit to the district attorney.
Trump, the frontrunner in the race of the Republican presidential nomination, has used the revelation of the relationship in a bid to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the case.
He will not attend the hearing in Fulton County, his attorney has said. He will instead be attending a separate hearing in New York where a judge is expected to confirm whether the former president's hush-money case will go to trial in March, as scheduled.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, ... Read more
