by Steven Richards and Natalia Mittelstadt
The Biden White House had previously worked with the National Archives and FBI to provide “special access” to Trump’s presidential documents.
The special prosecutor in the Fulton County, Georgia case against former President Donald Trump sent an invoice to the district attorney which included charges for meetings with the Biden White House officials, according to court documents, raising questions about the White House's involvement with criminal cases against Trump.
This revelation comes after Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis came under scrutiny because of the court filings which allege that the two have been engaged in an affair while the DA’s office paid Wade over $650,000 in legal fees since January 2022.
The new information regarding the White House Counsel meeting with Wade also follows previous reports by Just the News that the Biden White House worked to facilitate “special access” for the FBI to 15 boxes of Trump presidential documents that he had returned to the National Archives.
The new court filing, which is part of a Georgia case against Michael Roman, a Trump codefendant, shows that the special prosecutor met on at least one occasion with Biden’s White House Counsel. Wade indicated that this meeting was part of his travel to Athens, Ga., on May 23, 2022, according to an invoice that he submitted to the DA’s office.
“Travel to Athens; Conf with White House Counsel,” the invoice reads. Wade charged the DA’s office $2,000 in attorney’s fees for the work.
The invoices provided in the suit show at least one more meeting with Biden White House staff, on November 18, 2022, that appears to have taken place in Washington, D.C., though there is no record of a visit by Wade in the White House visitor logs.
“Interview with DC/White House,” the invoice reads. Wade charged another $2,000 in fees for this meeting.
The November meeting with undisclosed White House staff was held just three days after Trump, the widely anticipated election opponent of Biden, announced that he was running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
You can read the court filing, which contains the invoices, below:
Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, filed the motion calling for the court to dismiss the criminal charges against her client, arguing that Willis “never had legal authority to appoint the special prosecutor, who assisted in obtaining both grand jury indictments.”
The motion also called for Willis and Wade to be disqualified from office and removed from the prosecution, respectively, because of an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” between the two during the case, according to the filing.
Merchant did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News about the court filings.
Merchant is interested in sealed court records that are a part of the special prosecutor Wade’s divorce, which may shed light on his alleged relationship with Willis. Merchant told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she reviewed these filings and is asking a judge to unseal the case, arguing that they were improperly sealed.
Wade started his special prosecutor contract with Willis the day before he filed for divorce in Cobb County, Ga., in November 2021, but the filing was improperly sealed, the court document also states.
Willis hired Wade to prosecute Trump, and he has been paid nearly $654,000 in legal fees from January 2022 through December 2023, according to the court filing.
Willis’ office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Willis spokeswoman Pallavi Bailey said that the district attorney's office would respond to the allegations "through appropriate court filings," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Roman, the former president, and 17 other co-conspirators were charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, among other Georgia state counts, for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in favor of Trump.
Three former Trump attorneys, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, as well as Republican poll watcher Scott Hall, have all pleaded guilty in the case, while all other defendants pleaded not guilty.
The Fulton County case is one of four ongoing criminal cases brought against Trump.
Meetings between White House staff and the Georgia prosecution team shepherding the Fulton County DA’s case would not mark the first time the Biden White House has been involved in an investigation against Trump.
In the summer of 2022, the Biden White House also facilitated the criminal probe by the Justice Department into his predecessor by waiving executive privilege claims and directly requesting the National Archives to provide the FBI access to documents delivered by Trump to the agency.
The memos, reviewed by Just the News, showed that President Biden’s then-Deputy White House Counsel, Jonathan Su, worked closely with the DOJ, FBI, and National Archives after former President Trump returned 15 boxes – which contained classified materials – to the Archives and helped facilitate FBI’s access.
The DOJ’s probe into Trump over his alleged retention of classified documents turned into a special counsel investigation and charges for the former President for allegedly mishandling the documents.
"On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel's Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes," National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote to Trump’s lawyers.
After Wall explained Biden’s role in facilitating access to the documents, she also wrote that he had decided to “defer” to her determination about whether Trump enjoyed executive privilege over the documents. Wall ultimately decided “not to honor” Trump’s claims of privilege and provided the FBI access to the documents.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Steven Richards and Natalia Mittelstadt
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/wh-officials-met-ga-special-prosecutor-latest-evidence-biden-intervention
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