In testimony before the Republican-dominated Georgia legislature, defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for Michael Roman, a co-defendant of Donald Trump’s in the RICO case DA Fani Willis brought, laid out the details of the Fani Willis corruption scandal. Merchant’s testimony is key, as it was she who initially exposed Willis’ relationship with Wade in an early January filing.

As background, Merchant and others allege that DA Willis hired her lover, Nathan Wade, to act as a special prosecutor in the RICO case despite his lack of prosecutorial experience because she could financially profit from doing so, as she took part in “vacations across the world” with Wade that were paid for by Wade’s earnings in the RICO case.
During her testimony, Merchant explained numerous issues related to the Willis scandal. One such issue was Willis and Wade meeting with members of the Biden Administration before prosecuting Trump. Speaking about Wade’s team meeting with DOJ personnel and members of the January 6 committee, she said, “The state said that they had to meet off-campus, because they didn’t have a record of it. You have to have a record if you go into the White House…” She continued, “They said they had a really hard time getting that meeting, and they had to have someone who had some source or something to get them to agree to the meeting.” She also noted that Willis is logged as having visited Vice President Harris on February 28, 2023, just months before Trump’s August 2023 grand jury indictment.
Merchant, after exposing those meetings, was asked, “Do you have reason to suspect or can you confirm whether or not Ms. Willis or Mr. Wade were coordinating with the Biden White House in the course of this investigation and prosecution?” Responding, she said, that much of the material used by the prosecutorial team was the “same” as what “other places” have, in reference to some J6 similarities. Remaking on that, she said, “So, they had to have gotten it from somewhere.”
It wasn’t just potential coordination with the White House that Merchant exposed. She also exposed that witness Terrence Bradley, a former lawyer of Wade’s, received numerous messages demanding to know if he was the “leak” who let people know about the Willis-Wade relationship. Characterizing those messages, Merchant said, “They were trying to figure out if it was him, and they were trying to silence him.”

Merchant added that the messages seemed like tampering with a witness, as Mr. Bradley “took it as intimidation” when Wade reached out after the bombshell filing. That comment came when Merchant was asked, “Did he interpret that [message] as Ms. Willis trying to intimidate him from revealing this affair? Or Mr. Wade.”

Merchant also noted that Willis and Wade initially attempted to cover up their affair, saying, “They only brought it out once I alleged it and they called me a liar multiple times.” Continuing, she added, “the fact they were sleeping together, he was paying for trips for them to go on, and they were hiding it from the taxpayers.”
Further, Merchant argued that the billing practice used by Wade to record his time spent on the project that has netted him more than $650,000 were “very unusual.” According to her, Nathan Wade “always” used so-called “block billing,” which meant that he “never” itemized his time or otherwise specified what work was done in the time he was billing for.

Watch Merchant testify about Willis meeting with VP Harris here: