Judge Rules Fani Willis Must Step Aside or Fire Nathan Wade

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must step aside from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump or remove the special prosecutor with whom she had a romantic relationship before the case can proceed, the judge overseeing it ruled Friday.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said concluded Willis' relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade gives an "appearance of impropriety" that infected the prosecution team.

"As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed," the judge wrote.

"Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist."

Willis and Wade testified at a hearing last month they had engaged in a romantic relationship, but they rejected the idea Willis improperly benefited from it, as lawyers for Trump and some of his co-defendants alleged.

McAfee wrote there was insufficient evidence Willis had a personal stake in the prosecution, but he said his finding "is by no means an indication that the Court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the District Attorney's testimony during the evidentiary hearing."

"Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices – even repeatedly – and it is the trial court's duty to confine itself to the relevant issues and applicable law properly brought before it," McAfee wrote.

An attorney for co-defendant Michael Roman asked McAfee to dismiss the indictment and prevent Willis and Wade and their offices from continuing to prosecute the case. The attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then improperly benefited from the prosecution of the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations for the two of them.

Willis had insisted the relationship created no financial or personal conflict of interest that justified removing her office from the case. She and Wade both testified their relationship began in the spring of 2022 and ended in the summer of 2023. They both said Willis either paid for things herself or used cash to reimburse Wade for travel expenses.

The sprawling indictment charges Trump and more than a dozen other defendants with violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The case uses a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a "criminal enterprise" to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, Republicans' presumptive presidential nominee for 2024, has denied doing anything wrong and pleaded not guilty.

Earlier this week, the judge dismissed some of the charges against Trump.

The six challenged counts charged the defendants with soliciting public officers to violate their oaths. One count stemmed from a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump urged Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" for him to win the election in the state.

Another of the dismissed counts accused Trump of soliciting then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston to violate his oath of office by calling a special session of the legislature to unlawfully appoint presidential electors.

McAfee said the counts did not allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of the violations.