Fani Willis’ Vow to Not ‘Date’ Staff Surfaced by MSNBC: ‘Would Not Be in Court’ if She Lived by That, Lawrence O’Donnell Says | Video

Lawrence O’Donnell has been cheerleading for Fani Willis for months, but the MSNBC host and legal analyst called out the Atlanta district attorney for putting herself in a pickle – and her case against Donald Trump in jeopardy – by going against her own campaign vow.

“None of us have ever seen a hearing like today’s in Georgia, held to determine if the district attorney’s romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired somehow prejudiced the proceedings,” said O’Donnell, a steady supporter of Willis’ four-year effort to prosecute Donald Trump and associates for alleged interference in the 2020 election.

O’Donnell marveled that Willis strode into court Thursday to testify – just as her personal lawyer was arguing against her being subpoenaed to testify about Nathan Wade, whom she hired to press the case despite their previous personal liaisons.

But he also brought receipts from a Willis interview she did during her campaign. “Voters will recall candidate Fani Willis when she was running for district attorney in 2020 saying this,” O’Donnell said before rolling the clip:

“Supervisors under my leadership that are not encouraging and building up my staff will not be supervisors long in my administration,” Willis tells the interviewer. “And um, I certainly will not be choosing people to date that work under me, let me just say that.”

The latter comment was an apparent reference to her predecessor and former boss Paul Howard Jr., who was ultimately found not guilty of creating a hostile workplace and sexually harassing a paralegal with whom he had been carrying on an intimate relationship. It wasn’t the only time Willis referenced her old boss’ mistakes, or promised not to repeat them.

“If [Willis] had chosen to actually live by that personal rule of not dating anyone who was working under her, she would not have been in court today,” O’Donnell said Thursday. “There was no proof in court today that she actually violated any of the actual rules of her job, or the law.”

O’Donnell did note, however, that the testimony essentially represented “the first day of her re-election campaign.”

Watch the entire clip in the video above.

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