PROSECUTOR QUITS AFTER SCATHING RULING
DA Fani Willis’s ex-lover resigns per judge’s order
ATLANTA • A special prosecutor who had a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis formally withdrew Friday from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump after a judge ruled one of them had to go.
Nathan Wade’s resignation allows Willis to remain on the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
But the long-term damage to the public perception of the prosecution remains unclear, particularly in light of Trump’s relentless barrage of attacks on the pair who pledged to hold Trump accountable but found their own actions under a public microscope.
Wade offered his resignation in a letter to Willis, saying he was doing so “in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public and to move this case forward as quickly as possible.”
Willis complimented Wade’s “professionalism and dignity” in a letter accepting his resignation, saying he has “endured threats against you and your family, as well as unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation as a lawyer.”
The resignation came hours after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott Mcafee said Wade had to be removed or Willis must step aside from the case.
Mcafee did not find that Willis’s relationship with Wade amounted to a conflict of interest, but said the allegations created an “appearance of impropriety” that infected the prosecution team.
“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed,” the judge wrote.
“Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.”
Even though the judge gave Willis the option to stay on the case, the allegations threaten to damage her reputation and taint the public’s perception of the prosecution. Trump and his allies have seized on the allegations to impugn Willis’s credibility as the prosecutors seeking to hold the former president accountable have found themselves under fire.
An attorney for Trump said the former president’s team respects the court’s decision but believes the judge “did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade.”
“We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place,” defence attorney Steve Sadow said.
Defence attorneys could try to appeal the ruling, but they would need the judge’s permission to do so.
Willis hired Wade to lead the team to investigate and ultimately prosecute Trump and 18 others on charges that they illegally tried to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020. The case uses a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.
Trump has denied doing anything wrong and pleaded not guilty.
Willis and Wade testified at a hearing last month that they had engaged in a romantic relationship, but they rejected the idea that Willis improperly benefited from it, as lawyers for Trump and some of his co-defendants alleged. Willis and Wade insisted they didn’t begin dating until after he became special prosecutor, though another a former employee of Willis’s testified that she saw the pair hugging and kissing before he was hired.
Willis and Wade said the relationship ended in the summer of 2023.