Nathan Wade resigns as special prosecutor in Trump Georgia election case | The Excerpt

On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Nathan Wade has resigned as special prosecutor in Donald Trump's Georgia election fraud case. USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer reports. Former Vice President Mike Pence will not endorse Donald Trump for president. Plus, Trump's New York hush money criminal case will be delayed. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe breaks down a high court decision on public officials and social media. Millions have been blocked from porn sites amid free speech and child safety debates across the country. La Niña is coming, and could influence the hurricane season.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.  This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, March 16th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, a look at what happens next in Trump's Georgia election fraud case after Nathan Wade's resignation, plus a major figure says he won't endorse Donald Trump for president, and the Supreme Court rules on public officials in the internet.

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Nathan Wade, the Georgia special prosecutor hired by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to lead the election fraud case against Donald Trump, resigned yesterday. The move came the same day a judge ruled that she must fire him or see her office lose control of the case. Willis had a romantic relationship with Wade that threw the case into turmoil. Neither Willis nor Wade had immediate comment except for Wade's letter of resignation and a letter in response by Willis. I caught up with USA Today domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer for the latest. Josh, thanks for hopping on.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So Josh, what did the Georgia judge ultimately decide yesterday surrounding whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can stay on the Trump case in the state?

Josh Meyer:

We assume that there were going to be two options, that he would disqualify Willis and the entire prosecution team or he would not do that and allow the case to go forward. And instead, the judge picked a middle ground of sorts. He said that there was serious prosecutorial misconduct by Willis and Wade and that he would disqualify the District Attorney Fani Willis and her entire office from the Trump election case unless she essentially fired Nathan Wade, who was the special prosecutor that she hired for the case and that she also had an affair with. I think some legal experts said that he managed to make nobody happy, but I also think that he in some ways threaded the needle and issued a response that addresses the underlying issues and allows the case to go forward.

Taylor Wilson:

Nathan Wade later yesterday did step down as special prosecutor. Does this mean Fani Willis will be staying on definitively? And what complications could remain for her?

Josh Meyer:

That's a good question, Taylor. We don't know. This is a scathing decision by Judge Scott McAfee basically really ripping her for bad judgment. He suggests, as I wrote in a separate story, that she might've been lying on the stand and that she didn't account for the money that Nathan Wade spent on vacations that he took her on. So it really looks bad for her. You can expect that Trump will be using this on the campaign trail. So she's technically allowed to stay on right now as the district attorney. She's clearly going to need to find people to take over for Wade as the actual blind prosecutors on the case, but it may get to the point where it's politically untenable and that she does step down. She doesn't seem like the kind of person that wants to do that, but we're just in a wait-and-see mode.

Taylor Wilson:

Have we heard from either Fani Willis herself or the Trump team after the decision?

Josh Meyer:

Willis herself has not responded directly. When Nathan Wade resigned, he did send a letter to her and then she sent a letter back thanking him for all of his service. But she has yet to respond despite many requests by me and other journalists to the DA's office. But Trump's lawyer, Steven Sadow, said that the judge had not given enough credence to evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. He said, as did other lawyers including Ashley Merchant who first brought the motion to disqualify, that the ruling did not go far enough. And so it remains to be seen whether they're going to appeal the case too. What Sadow said was, "While respecting the court's decision, we believe that the court 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."

Taylor Wilson:

Josh Meyer covers domestic security for USA Today. Thank you, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure as always, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

Former Vice President Mike Pence said yesterday that he would not endorse former President Donald Trump for another term in the White House. He told Fox News's Martha MacCallum, quote, "It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," unquote. Pence was previously attacked by Trump after he rejected the then president's pressure to block the certification of Joe Biden's election in January of 2021.

Pence's comments highlight Trump's problems with some Republican voters. Many supporters of former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley have said they will not support Trump in the fall. And Haley herself has also refused to endorse the former president. While Trump still figures to win the vast majority of GOP voters, even a small number of defections could make a big difference in several swing states. Pence made his own run for president this year, but flamed out in the primary contest.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan, which was set to start later this month, now won't begin before mid-April. The New York judge's ruled postponement came after Trump's legal team requested more time to review more than 100,000 pages of new evidence from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Trump's trial is on 34 felony counts and centers on whether he illegally falsified records to cover up reimbursing his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Daniels has claimed she had a sexual encounter with Trump before his presidency, something he denies.

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The Supreme Court has defined when public officials may block critics on personal social media accounts. I spoke with USA Today's Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe to learn more. Maureen, thanks for making the time.

Maureen Groppe:

Happy to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So Maureen, what did the court decide here about what public officials may do on their personal social media accounts?

Maureen Groppe:

Well, the justices acknowledged that there are free speech rights on both sides of this issue. There are the right to the public officials and the rights of their constituents, and they also recognize that the line between personal and official communication on social media is often blurred. So they provided criteria that lower courts can use when deciding if an official improperly blocked someone from seeing or commenting on a social media post. That test they set up is whether the official had the power to speak on the government's behalf and intended to do so through their personal social media account. Now, in some cases that could be clear, but it could still leave some tough calls for courts to make if somebody is challenging that they were blocked by a government official.

Taylor Wilson:

Maureen, was it a surprise that the high court ruled unanimously on this?

Maureen Groppe:

Not necessarily. This case didn't have the same partisan edge as the two other social media cases that they're deciding this term. And in fact, during their oral arguments on this issue, justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum express a need to give some guidance to the millions of government employees across the country about what's allowed, what they can do, and what they need to be careful of on their social media accounts.

Taylor Wilson:

What does this decision mean broadly for freedom of speech going forward?

Maureen Groppe:

Well, I think it's fair to say that there's still going to be a lot of wrangling in the courts about freedom of speech issues and the internet. But one potential consequence is public officials will try to make clear distinctions between their personal accounts and their public accounts.

Taylor Wilson:

And coming up, what other social media decisions are still to come from the high court in the coming months?

Maureen Groppe:

There are two more big ones. One is about the constitutionality of laws passed by Florida and Texas to limit the ability of Facebook, YouTube, X, and other platforms to moderate content. That decision could come anytime. The other case looks at whether the Biden administration improperly leaned on social media companies to suppress what it viewed as misinformation about COVID the 2020 election and other issues, and that case is being argued before the court on Monday.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA Today. Thanks as always, Maureen.

Maureen Groppe:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

More than half a dozen states have passed age verification laws aimed at halting minors from accessing Pornhub and other adult websites. Texas is one of seven states to pass some form of the controversial legislation, which essentially blocks millions of adult video enthusiasts from entering Pornhub sites unless they can prove they're at least 18 years old. Attorneys and advocates for porn sites argue that the laws are not just prohibiting minors but adults too. And Pornhub says it had no choice but to disable access to its website in Texas in order to reduce the risk of fines and penalties. The massive porn website has also blocked site access for people in other states with age verification laws including Arkansas, Utah, and Virginia.

The laws are shining a light on the debate over the balance between keeping children safe online and speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. Child safety advocates and state legislators where laws have passed argue that protections are needed to ensure kids are safe online. And a poll from RMG Research shows a majority of Americans support a federal law requiring adult websites that contain sexual content to have some kind of age verification requirements. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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La Niña is still on track to form this year. That's according to government forecasters this week, who gave the climate pattern a 62% chance of developing this summer. The emergence of La Niña could help boost the severity of the Atlantic hurricane season among other effects. La Niña is a natural climate pattern marked by cooler than average sea water in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. It's one of the main drivers of weather in the US, especially during the late fall, winter, and early spring, and it's the opposite to the more well-known El Niño, which occurs when Pacific water is warmer than average.

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And Happy St. Patrick's Day. The holiday is officially tomorrow with parades set all weekend long. Stay with USA Today for live coverage and streams of parades around the country. And be sure to stay tuned to the excerpt tomorrow when my co-host Dana Taylor talks with former Irish President Mary Robinson about how the world needs women in leadership to address the climate crisis. You could find the episode right here on this feed.

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nathan Wade resigns as special prosecutor in Trump's Georgia case