Fani Willis says she was “attacked and oversexualized”

Willis has been at the center of a media storm since earlier this year when her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the outside lawyer she hired to handle the election fraud case against Donald Trump, became the focus of an attempt to force her out of office. A judge said Willis could stay on the Trump case but Wade must resign.

That decision is currently under review by the Georgia State Court of Appeals. On Wednesday, Willis’ office filed a motion to dismiss the appeal.

Wade attended Willis’ speech Thursday alone in a pew at the back of the church. The night before, CNN had aired an interview with Wade in which he denied any responsibility for delaying the extortion trial and said defense attorneys had exploited his relationship with Willis to create a distraction.

Photo credit: Ben Gray

Photo credit: Ben Gray

While Wade acknowledged that the relationship suffered from “bad timing,” he said he had no regrets and still considered Willis a close friend.

In her speech Thursday, Willis also spoke about elected officials who she said have failed to uphold the principles of justice. She condemned U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, though not by name, and called the lawmaker a “clown” who serves a community plagued by poverty and crime but does nothing to address it.

“He has been sitting there for 17 years and has not passed a single law,” she said.

Jordan, chairman of the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, has spent months trying to discredit Willis’ investigation into the prosecution of Trump and 14 other co-defendants.

Willis made no mention of the Trump case, the appeal or Wade in her speech on Thursday.

In attendance was one of her most loyal supporters, Bishop Reginald Jackson, whom Willis considered a mentor and true friend. Jackson, a prominent leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, introduced Willis on Thursday and mentioned the creation of the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission in Georgia.

The commission, which began its work in April, does nothing but prosecute black prosecutors, he said. In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jackson also said he was “insulted” by the way defense attorneys treated Willis’s personal life.