Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has accepted the resignation of lead prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom she was having an affair, calling him “brave” for taking on a high-profile case against former President Donald Trump and 14 codefendants.
“I will always remember—and will remind everyone—that you were brave enough to step forward and take on the investigation and prosecution of the allegations that the defendants in this case engaged in a conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election,” Ms. Willis wrote.
Mr. Wade resigned “effective immediately” on Friday, hours after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Ms. Willis does not need to step down from prosecuting the case if the special prosecutor at the center of allegations over his affair with the district attorney is removed.
“I compliment you for the professionalism and dignity you have shown over the last 865 days, as you have endured threats against you and your family, as well as unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation as a lawyer,” Ms. Willis wrote.
“You were the one who had the courage to accept the role, even though you did not seek it,” Ms. Willis wrote. “You are an outstanding advocate.”
Mr. Wade said he was resigning “in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public, and to move this case forward as quickly as possible.”
The embattled district attorney and special prosecutor she hired were the subjects of investigations since allegations were made by the defendants they are prosecuting of having an improper relationship through which Ms. Willis benefited financially.
Judge McAfee ruled that the defendants had not met the standard for disqualifying Ms. Willis from prosecuting the case, finding that they failed to prove “an actual conflict of interest.”
However, he noted in his order that the relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade was a “significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team.”
This threatens public “confidence in the legal system itself,” the judge found.
However, while an appearance of impropriety was not enough to disqualify Ms. Willis, the judge found that it was enough that either she or Mr. Wade had to step off the case.
Judge McAfee also highlighted several unresolved issues in his order.
“Other forums or sources of authority such as the General Assembly, the Georgia State Ethics Commission, the State Bar of Georgia, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, or the voters of Fulton County may offer feedback on any unanswered questions that linger,” the judge wrote.
In his order, the judge criticized Ms. Willis, who is black, for making a racially charged speech at an Atlanta church on Jan. 14. Ms. Willis made the speech shortly after the allegations against her and Mr. Wade surfaced.
During the speech, Ms. Willis invoked the “race card” without citing evidence of racial animus and criticized a Fulton County Commissioner “and so many others” for criticizing her decision to hire Mr. Wade.
The lack of clarity about whether Ms. Willis was aiming her comments at any of the defendants in the case shows “the danger of public comment by a prosecuting attorney.”
Judge McAfee found that the comments were “legally improper.“ He wrote that ”providing this type of public comment creates dangerous waters for the District Attorney to wade further into.”
The judge indicated that issuing a gag order against Ms. Willis may be on the cards.
“The time may well have arrived for an order preventing the State from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity, but that is not the motion presently before the Court,” he wrote.
