Defense Attorney Likens Fani Willis and Nathan Wade to ‘Love-Struck Teenagers’ in Final Arguments of Disqualification Hearing

Defense attorney Richard Rice likened Fulton County DA Fani Willis and Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade to “love-struck teenagers” who called and texted each other thousands of times in an 11-month period.

Rice is the attorney for Trump co-defendant Robert Cheeley in the Georgia election interference case, and wants Willis disqualified due to a conflict of interest. At issue was whether Willis hired Wade before or after their relationship began. The defense claimed the relationship started in 2019, while Willis argued it didn’t start until 2022.

“Whether or not they had sex before January of 2022, I do not know,” Rice said during final arguments Friday. He continued:

They admitted some time in early 2022, and I found it curious that they both, Wade and Willis, just went straight to the sex. So maybe that’s when they started having sex. I do not know. But the relationship predated that. And their combined and overly suggestive focus on that is a red herring to this court and to the defense, that that’s where they want you to focus on. They want you to ignore all the evidence that the relationship predated that.

The relationship started in 2019. The relationship continued through 2020. The relationship continued through 2021. Looking at the cell phone communications just in the first 11 months of 2021, over 2,000 calls, almost 9,800 texts — I don’t even think love-struck teenagers communicate that much.

Rice argued that going to dinner or other dates couldn’t explain all of the calls and texts the two exchanged in the middle of the night.

“I’m pretty sure that there weren’t any restaurants that he drove 30 to 45 minutes to go eat at in the middle of the night right after he talked to Ms. Willis. Teenagers have a name for those kinds of calls and those kind of escapades — I won’t go into it. But the documentary evidence, the objective evidence undercuts everything that both Wade and Willis said,” Rice argued.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will decide whether Willis and Wade’s relationship was “improper” and led Willis to benefit financially.

Watch the clip above via CNN.