Why the Case Against Fani Willis Feels Familiar to Black Women

Tangala L. Hollis-Palmer felt asense of pride when she learned that Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., and one of the nation’s few elected Black female prosecutors, would lead the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump.

But that pride would be tempered by dismay as news emerged of Ms. Willis’s personal relationship with a fellow prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade, an outside lawyer she hired to help run the case. Ms. Hollis-Palmer, a Black, 40-year-old attorney from Mississippi, is mostly upset at critics trying, she said, to discredit Ms. Willis. At first, she was skeptical of the allegations. But when Ms. Willis herself conceded the relationship, Ms. Hollis reserved some disappointment for the prosecutor who should have used a “little more discretion and a little better judgment,” she said.

Mr. Trump and several co-defendants are calling Ms. Willis’s hiring of Mr. Wade a conflict of interest and want Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade disqualified, potentially upending a critical case against the former president and doing grievous damage to Ms. Willis’s reputation.

“We just have to be so careful when we are in these positions to not give people the ammunition to come after us,” Ms. Hollis-Palmer said.

On Thursday, a Georgia judge is scheduled to hear evidence on the relationship between the two prosecutors.

A defense lawyer for one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants argues that Ms. Willis’s hiring of Mr. Wade is a “form of self-dealing” that provides Ms. Willis with incentive to keep the case going.