Trump investigator offers cellphone data casting doubt on Fani Willis relationship timeline

by Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee - 02/23/24 11:14 AM ET

Special prosecutor Nathan Wade visited Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) at her condo at least 35 times prior to when they claim their relationship began, according to an analysis of cellphone data compiled by an investigator working with former President Trump’s legal team.

The new document, filed Friday, raises questions about the veracity of Willis and Wade’s testimony regarding the timeline of their relationship.

Trump and his co-defendants are attempting get their historic election racketeering indictment tossed by disqualifying the district attorney’s office over the duo’s romantic ties, claiming it created a conflict of interest. Willis’s office has acknowledged the relationship but insists there is no conflict.

Following a dramatic hearing last week at which Willis, Wade and others testified about the romance, the judge will hear arguments next Friday at 1 p.m., Trump’s lead Georgia attorney, Steve Sadow, told The Hill. Afterward, the judge is expected to issue a ruling on whether to disqualify prosecutors.

As part of his decision, the judge is weighing contesting claims as to when the romance began.

Defense attorneys purport that the prosecutors began seeing each other romantically prior to Wade’s Nov. 1, 2021, hiring as special counsel in the Trump case. Willis and Wade have both maintained that their relationship became romantic in early 2022 and ended in summer 2023.

ATLANTA, GA – FEBRUARY 15: Fulton County Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade attends a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on February 15, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Judge Scott McAfee is hearing testimony as to whether DA Fani Willis and Wade should be disqualified from the case for allegedly lying about a personal relationship. (Photo by Alyssa Pointer-Pool/Getty Images)

Wade testified last week that he had been to the Hapeville, Ga., condo where Willis was living but no more than 10 times before he was hired. He said he “never” spent the night there, which Willis affirmed in her testimony.

“So, if phone records were to reflect that you were making phone calls from the same location as the condo before Nov. 1 of 2021, and it was on multiple occasions, the phone records would be wrong?” Trump attorney Steve Sadow asked Wade last week.

“If phone records reflected that, yes, sir. They’d be wrong,” Wade said.

On Friday, Trump’s team filed with the court the report from its investigator, who said he used a tool called CellHawk to analyze Wade’s cellphone data for the first 11 months of 2021. Most of that window is before Wade’s contract to work for the district attorney’s office began, and it is entirely before when prosecutors claim their romance began.

“This conservative analysis using the above referenced modality revealed a minimum of 35 occasions when Mr. Wade’s phone connected for an extended period to either one of those towers in closest proximity to the Dogwood address based upon associated data use, voice calls or text messages. The data reveals he is stationary and not in transit,” wrote Charles Mittelstadt, the investigator.

The Hill has reached out to Willis’s office for comment.

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Mittelstadt, who said he has been specializing in criminal cases for 25 years, wrote that he reviewed Wade’s call, text and location data received through a records request made to AT&T.

The analysis claims Willis and Wade had just under 12,000 interactions via phone, including more than 2,000 phone calls during the 11-month period.

Mittelstadt highlighted two nights in particular. In September 2021, he said the data shows Wade arrived around Willis’s condo one night at 10:45 p.m. and remained there until almost 3:30 a.m. About a half-hour later, Wade arrived at his home and sent a text to Willis minutes afterwards, the investigator claimed.

Weeks after Wade began working for Willis, the investigator said, the district attorney called Wade at about 11:30 p.m. According to the analysis, as the call continued, Wade left his home and arrived in the area of Willis’s residence. He allegedly remained there until 4:55 a.m.

When pressed last week on his time spent in the area, Wade testified that he could have been at nearby locations and not Willis’s condo, such as the airport, restaurants or Porsche Experience Center, a driver development track.

Both Willis and Wade testified under oath that their relationship began in 2022. If Judge Scott McAfee determines, based on the cellphone data or other evidence, that they lied, it could constitute perjury and endanger their roles in the historic prosecution.

Sadow, Trump’s lawyer, told the court that Mittlestadt is “available to testify at the Court’s convenience.”

McAfee previously said that Willis and Wade’s alleged actions “could result” in their disqualification if evidence shows an “actual conflict of interest or the appearance of one.”

This story was updated at 3 p.m.

Tags Donald Trump Fani Willis Fani Willis Fulton County Georgia Nathan Wade Nathan Wade