(Georgia Recorder) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged Friday that she had a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor overseeing the felony election interference case against Donald Trump. However, she rejected calls for her to be disqualified from the case.
In a Fulton County Superior Court filing on Friday, Willis confirmed that she has had a personal relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade as alleged in a court filing by defendants in the case, but rejected allegations that their relationship was a conflict of interest and misuse of taxpayer funds for personal gain.
Willis said that she and Wade strictly had a professional relationship and were friends prior to Wade’s appointment to the case in November 2021.
Willis said the relationship became romantic in 2022. He accused defense lawyers of trying to manufacture a conflict of interest based on irrelevant allegations.
“Finding a financial conflict of interest on the prosecutor’s part is exceedingly rare but has been found to arise when a special prosecutor is compensated by a contingency fee that is paid upon conviction,” Willis said in Friday’s response.
Wade has been paid more than $650,000 since being appointed by Willis as a lead prosecutor in the historic case against Trump and the former Republican president’s co-defendants.
In early January, an attorney for Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official and one of Trump’s Fulton co-defendants, accused Willis and Wade of being romantically involved while financially profiting off their relationship. In a divorce filing, Wade’s estranged wife released credit card statements under Wade’s name showing roundtrip airline tickets purchased for himself and Willis to San Francisco and Miami in 2022 and 2023.
Trump and his 14 remaining co-defendants are seeking to remove Willis from the sweeping election interference case in which prosecutors allege that Trump was one of the ringleaders of a multi-state conspiracy to overturn election results..
Judge Scott McAfee has scheduled a Feb. 15 court hearing on the defense motions seeking to remove Willis from the case.
Willis argued that the defense lawyers have failed to demonstrate how her discretion while pursuing the case has been unjustified.
The investigation was prompted by Trump and his co-defendants’ plotting to illegally overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, Willis wrote.
In August, a Fulton grand jury indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants under Georgia’s RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act).
“And spurious allegations of publicity-seeking aside, it must be made clear that District Attorney Willis did not go looking for this case,” Willis said.
