Atlanta D.A. Defends Qualifications of Outside Lawyer She Hired for Trump Case

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., pushed back on Sunday against the criticism and questions about her judgment that have followed a court filing accusing her of being romantically involved with the outside lawyer she hired to lead the racketeering case against former President Donald J. Trump.

Ms. Willis emerged from almost a week of silence to address the congregation at Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest Black churches in Atlanta, which had invited her to be the keynote speaker for a service dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not address the allegation that she was in a relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired in 2021, who has earned more than $650,000 in the job to date.

Instead, she said that Mr. Wade had “impeccable credentials” for the role and suggested that the accusations were just the latest thing to make her job hard to bear.

Ms. Willis, 52, said she was “as flawed as they come,” but that she was also subjected to an added level of scrutiny and even to personal danger as a Black woman in such a high-profile role, taking on arguably the most powerful figure in the Republican Party.

“Wait a minute, God,” Ms. Willis said, recounting a prayer this week in which she reminded God that the job of district attorney, to which she was elected as a Democrat in 2020, came with more anguish and hardship than she had anticipated. “You did not tell me as a woman of color, it would not matter what I did — my motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked.”

Mr. Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in August on racketeering and other state charges for what Ms. Willis’s office described as a multipronged effort to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Four of the defendants have pleaded guilty and pledged to cooperate with prosecutors.