Willis — the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia — previously said the allegations brought against her of having an "improper" romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade were made because she is Black. (Getty Images)
Attorneys for the state in the proceedings in Fulton County Superior Court last month testified that geolocation data is unreliable as evidence. But Merchant noted Wednesday that the state is "currently using the same data in another courtroom to prosecute someone, but in their defense in ours was that it's not reliable."
A state judge is currently weighing evidence against Willis’ alleged impropriety and whether she and her team should be disqualified from the case.
In the meantime, state lawmakers formed a special committee with subpoena power to investigate the Fulton County District Attorney.
In Wednesday’s committee hearing, Merchant also testified that Willis awarded a $780,000 increase in the DA's budget on Sept. 15 2021 through the end of that year, with the next year not to exceed $5 million. Merchant said that the DA claimed this money was to hire extra people to help with the backlog of homicide cases the office was seeing at that time.
The budget increase was just a few months before Wade was hired in Nov. 2021 and roughly eight months before the special grand jury in this case was impaneled in May 2022.
FANI WILLIS, NATHAN WADE REFERRED TO GEORGIA STATE BAR FOR MISCONDUCT BY WATCHDOG GROUP
Ashleigh Merchant, attorney for Michael Roman, listens next to her husband John Merchant, who also represents Roman, during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump. (Alyssa Pointer-Pool/Getty Images)
Republican Sen. Bill Cowsert probed Merchant’s knowledge of phone calls made to Bradley after news of the affair broke, trying to determine if he was the source of the information. One from Gabe Banks, an attorney connected to Wade, and another call from Bradley’s best-friend who Wade allegedly asked to call Bradley and "remind" him of his attorney client privilege having once been Wade’s divorce lawyer.
According to Merchant, Bradley was one of the few people who knew of the affair.
Merchant said Bradley took the calls as "intimidation."
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Merchant also testified that in February 2023 Willis met with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House, along with the Mayor of Atlanta Andre Dickens.
A White House official said Wednesday that at the February reception held at their residence, the vice president did not get the opportunity to speak directly with the majority of guests, including Willis.
Fox News Digital reached out to District Attorney Willis and Nathan Wade for comment but did not get a response prior to publication.
Fox News' Claudia Kelly-Bazan contributed to this report.
Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
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