Fani Willis can stay on Donald Trump Georgia election meddling case if lawyer quits

The prosecutor in Donald Trump’s election fraud case in Georgia can stay on the trial, if the lawyer she had an affair with quits, a judge has ruled.

Mr Trump and his co-defendants had tried to get Fani Willis disqualified, saying her relationship with Nathan Wade – whom she hired – had compromised the integrity of the case.

The judge disagreed – but said it did create an “appearance of impropriety”.

He said either Ms Willis or Mr Wade should leave the case to resolve that.

In his ruling, Judge McAfee said Ms Willis had committed a “tremendous lapse in judgement” by engaging in an affair with Mr Wade, and also called her testimony last month “unprofessional”.

Mr Trump and his 18 co-defendants claimed the relationship created a conflict of interest, saying Ms Willis benefited financially from the relationship.

But Ms Willis and Mr Wade denied this – saying there was no financial benefits, for example they split the cost of their holidays together.

Judge Scott McAfee ruled there was not sufficient evidence that there had been an actual conflict of interest.

But he found there had been an “appearance of impropriety” – and there was a “need to make proportional efforts to cure it” before the case can continue.

In his 23-page ruling on Friday, Mr McAfee presented Ms Willis with two options: to step down, along with her team, and have the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council take the case over, or have Mr Wade step down and allow “the public to move forward without his presence or remuneration distracting from and potentially compromising the merits of this case”.

“[A]n outsider could reasonably think that the district attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences,” Mr McAfee wrote. “As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.”

Mr McAfee added: “[A]n odor of mendacity remains”.

Donald Trump and 18 others are being prosecuted in Georgia for conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election results – which they deny.

Mr Trump’s lead lawyer on the Georgia case released a statement on Friday, saying: “While respecting the court’s decision, we believe that the court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade.

Earlier this year, Fulton County District Attorney Ms Willis – who brought the case – admitted she had a romantic relationship with Mr Wade, but said it had no bearing on the case.

Mr Trump and his co-defendants alleged that this relationship created a financial conflict of interest, saying the couple used the money paid to Mr Wade to fund luxury trips together.

Ms Willis fiercely denied those allegations from the witness stand during a days-long evidentiary hearing before Judge McAfee.

Visibly upset, she held up papers presented to her by the defence and shouted: “It’s a lie!”

Her fiery testimony drew scrutiny from legal experts and also from judge McAfee who, in his decision released on Friday, described her testimony as “unprofessional”.

The evidentiary hearing laid bare multiple intimate details about Ms Willis’s private life, including that she kept large sums of cash in her home, some of which she said she used to pay for trips she took with Mr Wade on trips overseas.

She said their romantic relationship began in early 2022, after she hired Mr Wade in 2021. They stopped dating in August 2023, she said, after a “tough conversation”, although they are now “very good friends”.

But testimony from Ms Willis’s former friend Robin Yearte disputed that timeline. Ms Yearte said she believed the two lawyers began dating in 2019, after she saw them hugging and kissing.

The details of her romance came forth after one of Mr Trump’s co-defendants, Michael Roman, filed a motion accusing Ms Willis of engaging in an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” with Mr Wade.

 

 

 

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