How Ashley Merchant Uncovered Fanny Willis’ Secret Relationship

News from the USA

from Olivia’s Land

The love life of Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fannie Willis has been under intense scrutiny since January when it was revealed that she slept with attorney Nathan Wade.

The revelation that Willis had been romantically involved with the man she appointed as special prosecutor in the election-meddling case against Donald Trump was a bombshell no one expected to drop — and it sparked disbelief on both sides of the political aisle.

On Wednesday, the attorney who exposed them, Ashley Merchant, explained to a special Georgia Senate committee exactly how she did it — potentially revealing a conflict of interest that will see Willis thrown out of the case, fired or, potentially, more – bad.

Merchant first became aware of Willis and Wade’s relationship when she ran into Wade’s former attorney, Terrence Bradley, at a Cobb County court in September 2023, she testified.

“Terence basically went through the whole thing,” Merchant recalled, saying how Bradley — who also briefly served as Wade’s divorce attorney — first tipped her off about the Willis relationship.

Merchant testified how Wade was considered a surprise choice to lead the biggest case of Willis’ career by metro Atlanta’s tight-knit legal community when he was appointed in November 2021.

In their relationship hearings, both Willis and Wade argued that their relationship did not begin until the spring of 2022, after he was appointed and the case was pending.

However, Bradley was “very clear” that it actually started at a court conference in October 2019, according to Merchant — which she claims represents a conflict of interest and taints the case.

Open records requests from both the conference hosts and the county confirmed that Willis did indeed attend the conference while Wade was one of the speakers, she claimed.

From the beginning, the couple was very careful to keep their relationship a secret, according to Bradley, and after their first date, Wade and Willis met in hotels and a secret love nest.

At times, Bradley allowed Wade — who reached only a temporary settlement to settle his divorce in January — to use his credit card to cover the illicit encounters without leaving a trace, Merchant told the commission.

“[He said] “You need to find her boyfriend…that’s the guy whose apartment they’re going to meet at,” Merchant continued.

That “best” was eventually identified as Robin Yerty, a former employee of the DA’s office.

Bradley did not remember Yerty’s name, but Merchant was able to confirm her role in the saga by showing him a photo of her, she explained to the Senate committee.

After subpoenaing Wade’s cellphone geolocation data, Merchant’s investigator was able to narrow down his cellular “pings” to an area very close to Yeartie’s apartment in the months before he was assigned to the Trump case.

There were also more than 12,000 voice and text exchanges between Willis and Wade in 2021 — including more than 2,000 voice calls, according to documents submitted as evidence.

Bradley “detailed many different trips” that Wade and Willis allegedly took together during their relationship, Merchant told the committee.

In addition to jaunts to California, Texas and other places in the United States, the couple also went on at least two cruises and visited Belize and the Bahamas, she explained.

The dealer requested Wade’s credit card statements, which show the prosecutor bought tickets for himself and Willis through a travel agency between 2022 and 2023.

The purchase statements even included Fanny Willis’ name and seat number — making evidence that Wade paid for her to go on those trips “indisputable,” Merchant argued Wednesday.

She told the committee that Merchant checked all of her additional findings with Bradley.

“I didn’t want to say a single word that wasn’t vetted,” she said of her research before the proposal, which was ultimately filed Jan. 8.

In the motion, Merchant alleges that Willis’ affair with Wade was a conflict of interest in the election racketeering case — and that she engaged in misconduct when she went on the trips Wade paid for with money he earned as special prosecutor in the case .

On Wednesday, Merchant noted that she avoided naming Bradley as her original source until forced to do so by the state.

Bradley was “very upset” when, in the days after the motion was filed, a friend of Wade’s called him to ask if he was the source of Merchant’s claims, she told the commission.

The next day, Wade himself allegedly called Bradley’s “best friend” and told him to remind Bradley of his attorney-client privilege over Wade’s divorce case, Merchant alleged.

Bradley, she added, was apparently upset about how Wade treated his wife during their breakup, which allegedly happened after he met Willis.

Merchant admitted she was “flabbergasted” when Bradley later took the stand and denied ever discussing the affair with her, and denied even basic knowledge of their relationship.

He also said that texts in which he claimed they “absolutely” got together in 2019 were just “speculation.”

However, in dismissing Bradley’s testimony in court, Willis’ office dismissed him as an unreliable narrator who “had every reason to lie” after leaving Wade’s law firm under a cloud of suspicion over alleged sexual abuse.

Bond hearings for Willis and Wade ended March 1, and Judge Scott McAfee is expected to rule on the charges against them in the next two weeks.