Some prosecutors respond to allegations of misconduct in court. Fani Willis responded in church.

That is just one of the many deeply strange elements of a burgeoning scandal concerning the Fulton County district attorney, who rose to national prominence last year after filing state criminal charges in Georgia against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results. Willis is now fending off salacious allegations of impropriety by a Trump ally that threaten to derail the proceedings temporarily — and perhaps, in a worst-case scenario, even permanently.

In a recent appearance before Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta, Willis barely addressed the substance of the allegations — more on those shortly — but chose instead to frame them largely as a racially motivated attack. The judge overseeing the case recently directed Willis to respond to the allegations in a court filing by Feb. 2, with a hearing scheduled on the matter for Feb. 15. Meanwhile, many of Willis’ once-very-vocal legal and political supporters appear to be going easy on her — largely staying quiet, keeping their heads down as the silence grows increasingly awkward and perhaps hoping (wrongly) that this will all somehow go away.

The technical legal phrase for the situation is “a mess,” and Willis’ handling of it is making it much worse.

At a bare minimum, she owes her constituents and the American public a much more direct and fulsome explanation of the facts than she has provided in the weeks since the allegations emerged. In today’s choose-your-news world, here’s the reality: It’s far too soon for Trump supporters to claim victory, but if you are someone who is eager to see the former president face accountability in a Georgia courtroom for his alleged election subversion, you have good reason to be worried.

The allegations are far from clear-cut, but here are the basic outlines: Earlier this month, a lawyer for Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants in the case, filed a motion claiming that Willis and lead prosecutor Nathan Wade have been having a romantic relationship. Willis hired Wade, a private sector lawyer who appears to have limited experience working on complex criminal matters, and he has reportedly been paid more than $600,000 for his work on the prosecution.

The motion asserts that Wade and Willis have been taking vacations using the fees that Wade has been paid and argues that Willis and Wade have been........

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