Willis and Wade were in a romantic relationship they testified ended last summer.
McAfee ruled that either Wade must step aside, or Willis and her entire office must give up the case.
Willis’ ex-friend testified that Wade and Willis began dating shortly after they met in 2019, years before she hired him in November 2021 for the Trump case.
They both testified at a February 15 evidentiary hearing that the district attorney had always been fiercely independent and insisted on paying her own way.
AdvertisementIn the hearing, Adam Abbate, a prosecutor with Willis’ office, argued that the defense attorneys had to show an “actual” conflict of interest and failed to do so.
“This motion should be denied because the legal requirements that are required in order for the district attorney to be disqualified have not been satisfied,” the prosecutor said.
The mere appearance of a conflict was strong enough to require removing either Wade or Willis from the case, he wrote.
“An outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences,” he wrote.
The judge gave District Attorney Fani Willis an option to recuse herself and her office, or for her top prosecutor to withdraw from the case.
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Following the resignation of her top prosecutor, District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County will be able to continue managing the historic state election-interference case against former President Donald Trump, according to a decision made by a Georgia judge on Friday morning.
Hours later, the prosecutor, attorney Nathan Wade of Atlanta, announced his resignation.
He said in his resignation letter, “I am offering my resignation in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public, and move this case forward as quickly as possible, even though the court found that ‘the defendants failed to meet their burden of proving that the District Attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest.'”.
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Wade’s resignation was accepted by Willis, who praised him for his dignity and professionalism.
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“It is my eternal memory — and I will remind everyone — that you dared to investigate and prosecute the claims that the defendants in this case were involved in a plot to rig Georgia’s 2020 presidential election,” Willis replied.
According to Willis’s testimony, their romantic relationship ended last summer.
Judge Scott McAfee’s stunning decision in the Superior Court of Fulton County on Friday came after a three-day evidentiary hearing earlier this month. The hearing focused on allegations of misconduct against Willis and Wade, whom she had hired to head the investigation into the efforts of Trump and his allies to reverse Trump’s loss in Georgia in the 2020 presidential tournament.
McAfee declared that Wade had to resign or Willis and her staff had to give up the case.
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He wrote, “The District Attorney may choose to resign and hand the case over to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council for reassignment, along with the entirety of her office.”. If SADA Wade chooses to step down, the case’s merits won’t be jeopardized and the District Attorney, Defendants, and the public can proceed without his presence or compensation. “.
Having lost Wade, Willis’s office is anticipated to carry out the prosecution of the former president and his associates.
The period of Willis’s public prominence.
In a move to disqualify Willis, Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for Trump’s codefendant Mike Roman, contended that Willis had a conflict of interest in the case due to her improper benefiting from the romantic relationship with Wade.
Merchant contended that Wade had contributed thousands of dollars toward Willis’s trips to far-flung destinations as part of that benefit.
Promoting something.
McAfee heard testimony from witnesses during the tearful hearings, including Wade, her father, Willis, and Wade’s former divorce lawyer. She was trying to find out when their relationship started and if she gained anything financially.
Wade and Willis started dating soon after they met in 2019, according to testimony from Willis’ former friend. She hired Wade in November 2021 for the Trump case. In his testimony, Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former law partner and divorce lawyer, admitted that he had texted Merchant earlier, claiming that he thought Willis had “absolutely” started dating Wade before she had given him the prominent case.
When pressed, Bradley clarified that he was merely “speculating” regarding the start of Willis and Wade’s romance.
connected narratives.
McAfee stated in a letter on Friday that he “could not put any trust in Terrance Bradley’s testimony.”. “.
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McAfee stated, “His inconsistent answers, non-responsive demeanor, and general lack of responsiveness left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions.”. “Under Georgia law, prior contradictory statements may be regarded as substantial evidence; however, Bradley’s impeachment through text message did not provide the foundation for his assertion of having such extensive knowledge of Wade’s private matters. “.
Wade and Willis both stated in court that they stopped dating last summer and didn’t start dating until early 2022, when they were already coworkers.
Both of them testified during an evidentiary hearing on February 15 that the district attorney had always been fiercely independent and insisted on covering her own expenses. According to their testimonies, if Wade had put the whole cost of the trip on his credit card, Willis would have picked up other bills of equal value or reimbursed him in cash, of which she had no record.
Even though Willis’s relationship with Wade was problematic from a visual standpoint, most legal experts had previously agreed that it did not constitute a conflict of interest in the election-interference case.
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In the end, McAfee agreed in his order on Friday. He claimed that Willis had not received any actual personal gain from the prosecution and that Wade had not paid her bribes, as some defense attorneys had claimed.
Overall, McAfee concluded, “The District Attorney has not demonstrated any behavior consistent with the theory that she orchestrated a money-laundering scheme to enrich herself (or curry favor with Wade) by prolonging this prosecution or indulging in needless litigation.”.
There’s still a whiff of indiscretion.
Defense lawyers for Roman, Trump, and other codefendants in the Georgia election-interference case claimed during closing arguments in the evidentiary hearing that their evidence showed that Willis had a prior relationship with Wade and that her hiring of him had been advantageous to her.
“The public’s trust in the system will be destroyed and its integrity compromised if this court permits such behavior to continue and permits district attorneys throughout the state to participate in such actions,” stated John Merchant, the husband of Merchant and the attorney who is also defending Roman, during the closing arguments.
Promoting something.
During the hearing, Willis’s prosecutor Adam Abbate contended that the defense lawyers were required to demonstrate a “real” conflict of interest, which they had not done.
Abbate remarked, “It’s a desperate attempt to remove a prosecutor from a case for absolutely no reason, your honor, other than harassment and embarrassment.”.
The prosecutor argued, “This motion should be denied because the requirements set forth by law must be satisfied in order for the district attorney to be disqualified.”.
“There is no legal or factual issue that the defendants have raised to meet the legal requirements for disqualification,” he declared.
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Willis displayed a “tremendous lapse in judgment” and acted in an “unprofessional manner” while testifying during his hearings, according to McAfee.
Even though he couldn’t find a genuine conflict of interest, he claimed that “an odor of mendacity remains.”. “.
He wrote that there appeared to be enough of a conflict for Wade or Willis to be removed from the case.
He stated, “It is reasonable for an outsider to believe that the District Attorney is not using her own, uninfluenced professional judgment in its entirety.”. “This unwarranted impression will endure as long as Wade is involved in the case. ****.
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Wade’s resignation was announced in an update to this story.
Correction: The judge’s decision was not accurately described in an earlier version of this story. The judge offered DA Fani Willis the choice to recuse her office and herself, or to have her lead prosecutor step down from the case.
