Anti-Trump DA’s no-show at debate leaves challenger facing off against empty podium

Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ political opponent debated with an empty podium after Willis skipped the county’s first Democratic Party debate, local reports show. 

Willis is the Georgia district attorney who brought forth the election inference case against former President Trump, charging him and 18 co-defendants with racketeering over allegations they tried to overthrow the 2020 election. Willis became embroiled in controversy when she was accused of having an “improper” relationship with the special counsel she hired, Nathan Wade. 

A judge ordered Willis last month to either remove herself from the case or fire Wade, with Wade ultimately resigning. 

The Fulton County Democratic Party held its first primary debate on Sunday, but Willis was a no-show, leaving her political opponent to take the stage alone, where he criticized his fellow Democrat for hiring a romantic partner for the high-level case. 

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Fulton County DA candidate Christian Wise Smith on an empty debate stage. (Fox 5)

“That issue is important to us in Fulton County and a lot of people across the country,” Smith said on the stage, Fox 5 reported. 

​​”When you pay one attorney nearly $1 million to handle one case, that leaves the rest of us vulnerable. That hurts everyone in Fulton County,” he said.

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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testifies during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on Feb. 15, 2024 in Atlanta. (Alyssa Pointer/Getty Images)

Smith did not take issue with Willis prosecuting Trump or the case itself, instead saying Willis has “to do things differently.”

Willis did not attend the debate event, which was sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club, to co-host the second annual “Self Care Fair” with an Atlanta city councilwoman in honor of Crime Victims’ Rights Week. Willis is also focusing on the continued prosecution of Trump, Fox 5 also cited as to why she was not present for the debate. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to Willis’ media team for additional comment on the matter but did not immediately receive a response. 

Willis and Smith will face off in the Democratic primary on May 28. Despite the controversy surrounding the Trump case, local polling shows Willis with strong leads over Smith, Fox 5 reported.  

Special prosecutor Nathan Wade sits in court during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on March 1, 2024 in Atlanta. (Alex Slitz-Pool/Getty Images)

The Democratic champion of the primary will compete against a Republican challenger on Nov. 5. 

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Willis and Wade both admitted to the affair amid testimony on the matter, but said they only made their relationship official in 2022, after charges were brought against defendants in the Trump case. Witnesses in the case, however, alleged the pair began their relationship before 2022. 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought forth the election inference case against former President Trump. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee said last month that there was a “significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team,” but did not find an “actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.” McAfee ruled that either Willis step aside from the case or Wade be fired. Wade resigned last month. 

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Scott McAfee, Fulton County superior court judge, at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. (Photographer: Alyssa Pointer/Reuters/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Willis has brushed off criticisms of her affair with Wade, touting herself late last month as the only district attorney with the “courage” to prosecute Trump. 

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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on March 1, 2024, in Atlanta. (Alex Slitz-Pool/Getty Images)

“There’s one district attorney in the state – and really around the country – that has had the courage to do this, and she continues to do it,” Willis told FOX 5 Atlanta last month. “The case landed in Fulton County, not by anything that I did, but by the actions of others, and when a case lands in my jurisdiction, I’m going to prosecute it, and that’s the end of that.” 

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Trump, meanwhile, has slammed the case as a “witch hunt” that is led by a “totally compromised” district attorney.