Nearly a week after the bombshell legal filing accusing the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of carrying out a clandestine relationship with a special prosecutor she hired to work on the Georgia state case against former President Donald Trump, the embattled DA is speaking out.
During a speech at a church in Atlanta over the weekend, Willis did not deny the affair but rather blamed “race” for the allegations against her and attorney Nathan Wade.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report, to discuss Willis’ claims and why race has become her calling card.
The Allegations
Willis turned up Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta on Sunday to address the large congregation gathered. It marked the first time she has spoken publicly since Michael Roman – one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference trial – filed a motion to remove her and Wade from the case due to an “improper” romantic relationship.
Wade is a private attorney who Willis brought in as a special prosecutor. He’s reportedly been paid some $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022 that would have been authorized by Willis.
The filing went on to say that the district attorney “has benefitted substantially and directly, and continues to benefit, from this litigation because Wade is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to prosecute this case on her behalf.” In turn, “Wade is taking Willis on, and paying for vacations across the world with money he is being paid by the Fulton County taxpayers and authorized solely by Willis,” the documents added.
Further complicating matters, Wade apparently met with the Biden White House prior to Trump’s indictment, leading to questions about who knew what and when.
The Speech
Without referring to Wade or the allegations directly, Willis used the pulpit to deliver a 35-minute speech and read from a letter that she said she penned to God during a difficult week.
Willis said she appointed three special prosecutors and paid them all “the same hourly rate,” but “they only attack one.” The other attorneys she referred to are John Floyd and Anna Green Cross, who are both white. Wade is black.
That led the DA to invoke race. “First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now,’” Willis said. “But no, God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one? Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years?”
Calling Wade “a great friend,” “a great lawyer,” and a legal “superstar,” Willis claimed his credentials were not questioned “when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate.” That led her to ask: “Why is the white male Republican’s judgment good enough, but the black female Democrat’s not?”
Megyn had a theory. “Just got a point of clarification: Did that white male Republican have sex with Nathan Wade… and then take him to Napa and Jamaica,” she wondered. “Just asking for a friend.”
The Race Card
As Megyn explained, Willis and Wade’s race has nothing to do with the outcry. “I got news for Fani Willis: If she decides to sleep with the white prosecutor she brought in and then go to Napa and Florida and Jamaica on his dime that she authorized, we will be coming for her and it won’t be about anybody’s skin color in that instance either,” she said. “This is like the last desperate card of somebody who’s under fire… and knows she’s in trouble.”
Rubin said it is not unlike the situation at Harvard University with former President Claudine Gay. “She gets caught in the crazy ‘can we call for genocide of Jews’ scandal… then they get these over 50 instances of plagiarism, and then she basically says it’s because I’m a black woman,” he noted. “If you find 50 instances of plagiarism through a white, Christian, rich president of another school, we should go after him too. It’s because of behavior, not skin color.”
If the allegations prove to be true, Megyn said Willis has “crossed an ethical line” that would be hard to come back from. “What they’re alleging is she’s been flying all over the world on his dime, which she authorized, and it’s the taxpayers money that she’s using to improve her life… while she’s screwing this guy and thus creating an incentive for her to keep this case going longer than it necessarily should,” she explained.
Ultimately, that is not the role of the district attorney. “Her interest as a DA is to pursue justice, not to get a conviction or make sure the case goes to trial,” Megyn concluded. “If you’re making moolah or getting trips to Napa off of the fact that it’s ongoing, you’ve compromised yourself. Most prosecutors would never come near this kind of scandal.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Rubin by tuning in to episode 702 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.