A top prosecutor on Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis’ criminal election case against Donald Trump said Friday they developed a “personal relationship” after he joined her team — but both he and Willis denied that caused a conflict of interest.
The prosecutor, Nathan Wade, in a sworn affidavit also denied allegations that he or Willis have financially benefited from the romantic relationship, as was alleged by one of Trump’s co-defendants.
Willis in the same Fulton County court filing rejected accusations that the relationship warrants dismissing the indictment or disqualifying her from the case. And she slammed the attacks on Wade as “factually inaccurate, unsupported, and malicious.”
While Willis and Wade “have been professional associates and friends since 2019,” the D.A. said, they had “no personal relationship” in November 2021, when Wade became special prosecutor in the case charging the former president with trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Defendants in the case offer no evidence that the prosecutors’ subsequent personal relationship, which began in 2022, impacted “the exercise of any prosecutorial discretion,” Willis wrote.
It remains to be seen if a judge finds that Willis’ relationship with Wade is a conflict that will require one or both of them to step aside from the prosecutions.
But the D.A. even before Friday was facing criticism that her suspected relationship with him risked undermining public confidence in her and her case against the former president and his alleged co-conspirators.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 13 criminal charges in the case in Fulton County Superior Court.
Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, in mid-January sought to dismiss his charges on the grounds that Willis and Wade were “engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship” during the case.
The Jan. 8 filing accused them of “profiting personally from this prosecution at Fulton County’s expense,” claiming Wade has been paid almost $1 million in legal fees since his appointment as special prosecutor despite being unqualified for the job.
The filing also cited Wade’s divorce proceedings, which were under seal at the time, saying they showed him and Willis traveling together to “vacation destinations” and buying cruise tickets.
Roman’s attorney cited unnamed sources who said Wade and Willis began their relationship before the election case began.
Wade’s affidavit, dated Thursday, pushed back on those allegations.
“There was no personal relationship between District Attorney Willis and me prior to or at the time of my appointment as special prosecutor in 2021,” Wade wrote.
“I have no financial interest in the outcome of the 2020 election interference case or in the conviction of any defendant,” he wrote. “No funds paid to me in compensation for my role as Special Prosecutor have been shared with or provided to District Attorney Willis.”
Willis “received no funds or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor,” he wrote.
Wade also denied ever living with Willis or sharing household expenses with her.
“The District Attorney and I are both financially independent professionals; expenses for personal travel were roughly divided equally between us,” he wrote.
“At times I have made and purchased travel for District Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and purchased travel for she and I from her personal funds.”
Trump, in a Truth Social post Friday afternoon, said Willis’ admission of a “sexual relationship” with Wade means that the case is “totally discredited.”
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