Fani Willis admits to relationship with prosecutor. What does that mean for the Trump case?
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ATLANTA − Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Friday acknowledged her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade but said she is not stepping down from the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump and 14 others because she has done nothing wrong.
"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," Willis said in a court filing. Willis did not say if the relationship was ongoing.
She asked Superior Court Scott McAfee to "summarily" deny a motion by former Trump campaign official Michael Roman to have her, Wade, and the entire district attorney's office removed from the case, and to cancel a Feb. 15 hearing on the controversey, at which Willis and Wade may be called to testify.
Wade also denied any conflict of interest.
More: Why Nathan Wade, under fire for alleged affair with Fani Willis, is facing new scrutiny
"In 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship," Wade said in court documents filed on Friday. "I have no financial interest in the outcome of the 2020 election interference case or in the conviction of any defendant."
Both said the affair began after Willis hired Wade for the high-profile job of overseeing the sprawling racketeering investigation and prosecution of the former president and 2024 Repubican frontrunner.
Trump election charges − and allegations of impropriety
Willis has charged Trump and a host of other attorneys, campaign officials, and election workers over their alleged efforts to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory in the state.
On Jan. 8, a lawyer for former Trump campaign official Michael Roman asked the court to disqualify Willis, Wade and the entire district attorney's office over the alleged relationship. Roman also accused Wade of using some of the more than $650,000 he's been paid to take Willis on trips to California, Florida and Caribbean cruises. Trump and another co-defendant joined the motion late last month.
Steve Sadow, an attorney for Trump, said the latest news has no bearing on his legal strategy.
"Nothing has changed," Sadow said. "Our requested remedy remains clear: dismiss the case and disqualify the DA, together with her team and office, from any related matters.”
Trump and Republicans in Georgia and in Congress have seized on the allegations of impropriety to target Willis and her prosecution of the election case. On Friday House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subpoenaed Willis, demanding documents related to how her office spends federal funds.
Related: Rudy Giuliani ordered to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers he defamed
Smoke and fire
In a reply to Willis filed Friday night, Roman insisted the Feb. 15 hearing must proceed.
"They are hoping this Court simply sees all growing smoke cloud and says, 'No fire, nothing else to see here,'" he wrote.
"It is not that simple," Roman said. "Peoples’ freedom and lives are at stake." Roman said he could prove that Willis and Wade had "cohabitated."
'Supposition and innuendo'
In her Atlanta filing on Friday, Willis said Roman had failed to show any conflict of interest that should drive her from the case.
“While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek,” Willis said in the 167-page document. “Unequivocally, the evidence and facts demonstrate that District Attorney Willis has no financial conflict of interest that constitutes a legal basis for disqualification.”
Willis criticized Roman for using "supposition and inuendo" in attacking her private relationship with Wade.
More: Georgia DA Fani Willis breaks silence over Donald Trump case prosecutor
Willis: Defense lawyers also have 'personal relationships'
While it is "distasteful that such allegations require a response," Willis wrote, she acknowledged that she and Wade had a personal friendship and professional relationship that turned into a romantic affair. But she said that turning point came after she hired him for the job of special prosecutor in November 2021.
As such, Willis wrote, Roman, Trump and the other defendant had failed to show how the prosecution "was impacted by any personal relationship. Without those additional factors, the existence of a relationship between members of a prosecution team, in and of itself, is simply not a status that entitles a criminal defendant any remedy."
Willis then tried turning the tables on her accusers, suggesting there were romantic partnerships among the election case's defense lawyers.
“It is worth noting,” Willis added, “that there are at least two personal relationships among the collection of defense attorneys representing the Defendants that, under the standard urged by the Roman’s motion, would almost certainly require disqualification.”
More: Donald Trump joins effort to bounce Georgia DA Fani Willis from election interference case
Jury still out on Willis and Wade
Critics, and defendants in the case, are likely to seize on Willis's carefully worded legal language, with some noting that Wade's appointment was announced on Nov. 1, 2021, and that he filed for divorce from his wife of more than 26 years, Joycelyn Wade, the very next day.
Some legal experts, including former Obama White House ethics czar Norm Eisen, have said that nothing Willis and Wade have done appeared to be a violation of Georgia election law or legal ethics.
Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University School of Law, said Friday that while he’s been critical of Willis and Wade for garnering so many bad headlines, the extensive court filing made solid legal arguments as to why both should stay.
“This should end the matter,” Goodman said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
More: How Donald Trump's campaign schedule is headed full speed for a crash with his court dates
Willis 'needs to step away'
Others, such as Clark Cunningham, a professor of law and ethics at Georgia State University College of Law, told USA TODAY prior to Friday's filing that if the allegations were true, Willis should consider stepping aside from the case so as not to jeopardize the entire prosecution.
On Friday, Cunningham said he was even more certain that Willis needs to step away.
"Having reviewed the district attorney's filing, including the affidavit of Nathan Wade, I am only reconfirmed in my opinion that Fani Willis should as soon as possible take a leave of absence from her position and appoint a career prosecutor as district attorney in her absence," Cunningham said. "These filings strongly suggest that the disqualification issue will not be resolved as early as the Feb. 15 hearing and could drag on for much longer − even if the DA prevails."
"Such a delay," he said, "would be bad for the case and bad for the public."
Cunningham also said Willis "should not be making any decisions about Wade" and whether he should stay, and about other key issues regarding the case, given her conflict of interest.
More: 'We are just going to stay in power': new revelations from Trump's Georgia case
‘Both financially independent professionals'
Although Friday’s filing marked the first time Willis has spoken in detail about their personal relationship, she has been a vocal and ardent defender of Wade's – and of her decision to pick him for the job.
"The Black man I chose has been a judge more than 10 years, run a private practice more than 20, represented businesses in civil litigation − I ain’t done y’all,” Willis said in an emotional speech at an Atlanta church last month, six days after the allegations first surfaced. “Served as a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special assistant attorney general.”
Wade also acknowledged the affair in an affidavit that was included in Willis’ court filing. He said the “personal relationship” began sometime in 2022, at least several months after he’d been hired. He was chosen for the job, he said, based on his extensive qualifications.
Wade did confirm Roman’s accusations that he and Willis took trips together, writing that Willis received “no funds or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor.”
“The District Attorney and I are both financially independent professionals; expenses for personal travel were roughly divided equally between us,” Wade said.
Prosecuting a former president: a 'unique professional challenge'
Wade said he initially became involved in the case in Spring 2021 to help Willis and others look for a “competent, trustworthy attorney to manage and lead” the Trump investigation. He himself wasn’t interested, he added, because it paid far less than he usually makes and due to “concerns related to violent rhetoric” and potential safety issues.
In October 2021, “upon further consideration of the unique professional challenge this case presented,” Wade said, he accepted the offer to lead the case.
No Trump trial date set
The case still has no trial date. Judge McAfee, in Fulton County Superior Court, had given Willis until Friday, Feb. 2 to respond to the accusations.
McAfee also has scheduled a Feb. 15 hearing for both sides to present evidence related to the Willis-Wade relationship.
Roman’s defense lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has subpoenaed Willis and Wade as potential witnesses to testify publicly at that hearing in an effort to determine if they have benefitted financially from their personal and professional relationship.
It was not immediately known Friday whether Willis’s formal response would affect their appearance.
Merchant was unavailable for comment after Willis’s Friday filing. But, she told USA TODAY in an earlier interview, “We look forward to litigating our case in court on the 15th. We expect and hope she will not attempt to avoid testifying as to these important issues."
Wade paid $550 an hour in controversial jail probe
In his affidavit, Wade also confirmed that he was paid $550 an hour for an earlier government job, a clear reference to his leadership of a controversial investigation of suspicious deaths at the Cobb County jail just outside Atlanta in 2020.
USA TODAY reported Thursday that Wade’s investigation, for which he produced no public report or investigative details, has drawn the attention of some lawyers and critics who said it reflected badly on him – and on Willis for hiring him shortly after its conclusion.
“The fact that he apparently had no written records of his investigation and produced no written report − it seems to me if I were in a position of retaining a lawyer for something of such importance as this current case that it would certainly give me pause,” Cunningham said Thursday.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fani Willis admits affair with prosecutor. Will it affect Trump case?
