Fulton County DA Fani Willis confirms relationship with Trump prosecutor

ATLANTA – Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Friday acknowledged she was in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, one of the top prosecutors on the election interference case, but said there was no conflict that justified removing her or her office from prosecuting Donald Trump and 14 others.

The admission was included as part of Willis’ highly anticipated written response to allegations of impropriety that have rocked the Trump case for the last month.

In the 176-page document, Willis said the accusations made against her and Wade were designed mainly to garner media attention – and didn’t carry much legal weight.

“(T)he motions attempt to cobble together entirely unremarkable circumstances of Special Prosecutor Wade’s appointment with completely irrelevant allegations about his personal family life into a manufactured conflict of interest on the part of the District Attorney,” the filing said. “The effort must fail.”

Willis’ response was requested by Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who has scheduled a hearing on Feb. 15 to address bombshell allegations by defendant Michael Roman. Roman has alleged that Willis, through her relationship with Wade, has a financial interest in the case that should result in her and her office’s disqualification from the case – and for the felony charges against him to be dropped.

Roman has highlighted tickets Wade purchased for Willis to Napa Valley and the Caribbean using money earned for his work on the Trump case. The former president and codefendant Bob Cheeley have recently authored similar filings seeking to have their charges dropped.

Willis and Wade had been friends since 2019, according to the DA’s office, but were not in a romantic relationship before or when he was hired to lead the Trump case in November 2021.

“In 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship,” Wade said in an affidavit attached to the DA’s response.

Willis hasn’t improperly benefited from Wade’s appointment and compensation, her office insisted.

“To be absolutely clear, the personal relationship between Special Prosecutor Wade and District Attorney Willis has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit to District Attorney Willis,” the filing said. “Defendants have produced no evidence to suggest that there is any circumstance that would constitute a financial incentive on the District Attorney’s part to pursue a conviction in this case through the appointment of Special Prosecutor Wade.”

The response said Willis and Wade do not share finances or financial accounts; are not now and have never been in any shared household; and are not financially reliant on each other.

Without specifically addressing the trips to Napa Valley and the Caribbean, the response said Willis’ and Wade’s “financial responsibility for personal travel is divided roughly evenly between the two, with neither being primarily responsible for expenses of the other, and all expenses paid for with individual personal funds.”

For decades, the filing said, Georgia’s courts have held, in both civil and criminal contexts, that personal relationships among lawyers – even on opposing sides of litigation – do not constitute impermissible conficts of interest, the motion said.

The response notes that two sets of lawyers in the case have personal relationships: Amanda Clark Palmer, who represents Ray Smith, and Scott Grubman, who represented Kenneth Chesebro; and Frank and Laura Hogue, who represented Jena Ellis.

The state said it did not alert the court to these relationships as potential conflicts because they constitute no legal conflict and “until Roman’s motion was filed, the private lives of the attorney participants in this trial was not a topic of discussion.”

The state also condemned Roman attorney Ashleigh Merchant’s disparagement of Wade’s legal career, calling it “baseless” and made in “bad faith.”

It said Wade has had a distinguished legal career and is “an exceptionally talented litigator with significant trial experience.”

The response added, “He is a diligent and relentless advocate known for his candor with theCourt, and a leader more than capable of managing the complexity of this case.”And the filing included photos of Merchant wearing a T-shirt while campaigning for his failed campaign for a judgeship in 2016.

There is nothing wrong with Wade being paid hourly fees as a special prosecutor the response said. According to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Wade is billing the state at a rate of $250 an hour and, through Nov. 30, had billed for more than $700,000, far more than the other two special prosecutors, Anna Cross and John Floyd.

“Comparisons to the invoiced work of other special prosecutors tasked with dramatically less time-consuming work and much more circumscribed roles are staggeringly off-mark,” the response said. “Special Prosecutor Wade made much more money than the other special prosecutors only because Wade did much more work.”