DA keeps Ga. Trump case as prosecutor steps down
ATLANTA — An Atlanta judge ruled Friday that Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, could continue leading the election interference prosecution of former President Donald Trump and his allies in Georgia, but only if her former romantic partner, Nathan Wade, withdrew from the case.
The highly anticipated ruling by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court cut a middle path between removing Willis for a conflict of interest, which defense lawyers had sought, and her full vindication. The judge sharply criticized Willis for dating Wade, whom she hired as a special prosecutor on the case, calling it a “tremendous lapse in judgment.”
Hours after the ruling, Willis said Wade had offered his resignation, and she had accepted it.
McAfee had rejected a defense claim that the relationship had raised an actual conflict of interest by giving Willis a financial stake in the case. But he found it had raised “a significant appearance of impropriety” that needed to be addressed.
Disqualifying Willis and her office from the case was not necessary, the judge said, when “a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available.” But he concluded that “the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the state selects one of two options.” Either Willis could have stepped aside with her office, including with Wade, or he had to leave.
Willis and her office did not respond directly to the ruling. But in announcing Wade’s resignation in a letter, Willis complimented his professionalism, “as you have endured threats against you and your family, as well as unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation as a lawyer.”
With delays mounting, the case is now unlikely to come to trial before the 2024 presidential election and Trump’s rematch with President Joe Biden.
At the same time, the decision was a setback for Trump and his 14 co-defendants as it left in place the district attorney who has been pursuing the case for more than three years. But Willis has also emerged from weeks of embarrassing hearings with a bruised reputation that could color the views of a future jury, making convictions more difficult.
Caren Myers Morrison, an associate professor of law at Georgia State University, called the ruling “an extremely lucky break for the DA’s Office,” as it allowed the case “to get the show back on the road as soon as next week.”
But, she added, the ruling was damaging to Willis because “it explicitly calls into question her judgment, her professionalism and her integrity.”
The courtroom drama surrounding the prosecutors’ relationship had in recent weeks eclipsed the underlying facts of the election case itself, which had been moving briskly toward a trial. And it turned the tables on the prosecutors, who were forced to take the witness stand and defend themselves.
In his ruling, McAfee said Willis, who had a fiery turn on the stand last month, behaved in an “unprofessional manner” — a rebuke that was all the more notable given that the 34-year-old rookie judge once worked under Willis in the DA’s Office.
The ruling was remarkable for its clarity and plain language. In explaining the essence of the problem that Willis had created by taking trips with a romantic partner who was working for her, McAfee wrote that “an outsider could reasonably think that the district attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influence.”