Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must remove herself from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump or replace the special prosecutor with whom she had a romantic relationship before the case can move forward, according to the judge overseeing it on Friday.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee did not find that Willis’ relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade amounted to a conflict of interest that should force her off the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against the former president.
However, the judge said Willis can stay on the case only if Wade withdraws due to “an appearance of impropriety” that infected the prosecution team. The judge criticized Willis for a “tremendous” lapse of judgement and doubted the truthfulness of Willis and Wade’s testimony about the timing of their relationship.
“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’ credibility as the prosecutors seeking to hold the former president accountable have found themselves under fire.
For weeks, embarrassing headlines about romantic getaways, sex and stashes of cash have consumed the coverage, turning the prosecution of a former president accused of undermining the will of the people who voted him out of the White House into a soap opera.
A spokesperson for Willis did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment Friday.
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,” defense attorney Steve Sadow said.
Defense 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, the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee for 2024, has denied doing anything wrong and pleaded not guilty.
Willis and Wade stated at a hearing last month that they had been in a romantic relationship. However, they denied the claim that Willis unfairly gained from it, as claimed by Trump's lawyers and some co-defendants. Willis and Wade said they didn't start dating until after he became special prosecutor. But a former friend and employee of Willis' testified that she saw them hugging and kissing before he was hired.
Willis and Wade said their relationship ended in the summer of 2023. They both said that Willis either paid for things herself or used cash to reimburse Wade for travel expenses.
McAfee wrote that there wasn't enough evidence to prove that Willis had a personal interest in the prosecution. And he said he couldn't definitively prove whether Willis and Wade started dating before or after he was hired as special prosecutor.
However, the judge expressed doubt about the truthfulness of Willis and Wade's testimony about the timing of their relationship. He said there are reasonable questions about it, which reinforce the perception of impropriety and the need to take appropriate steps to address it.
Nevertheless, he said that dismissing the case was not the right solution to dispel the cloud of impropriety and potential untruthfulness found here.
McAfee found no evidence that the due process rights of Trump and the other defendants had been violated or that the issues involved prejudiced them in any way. He also said that disqualifying a constitutional officer, like a district attorney, is not necessary when there is a less severe option available.
The judge believes that under Georgia law, an actual conflict cannot be determined simply for making bad choices, even repeatedly. It's the trial court’s responsibility to focus on the relevant issues and applicable law that are properly presented.
An attorney for co-defendant Michael Roman was the first to request McAfee to dismiss the indictment and stop Willis and Wade and their offices from continuing to prosecute the case. The attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged that Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then unfairly benefited from the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations for the two of them.
Merchant stated that Roman’s team maintains that the judge should have completely disqualified Willis’ office, but the judge clearly agreed with the defense that there is a “risk to the future of this case” if Willis “doesn’t quickly work to cure her conflict.”
The ruling comes after the judge dismissed three of 13 counts against Trump in the indictment. The judge said prosecutors failed to provide enough detail about the nature of the allegations related to soliciting public officers to violate their oaths. However, the majority of the 41-count indictment remains, and the judge said prosecutors could seek a new indictment to try to reinstate the charges he dismissed.
One dismissed count resulted from a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” for him to win the election in the state.
Out of the 19 individuals initially accused in the legal document, four have admitted their guilt after making agreements with the prosecutors. This group consists of well-known supporters of Trump and lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro.
