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“The Georgia prosecutor trying former President Donald Trump for seeking to overturn his 2020 election defeat acknowledged on Friday having a personal relationship with another lawyer on the criminal case…
“Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in a court filing said claims that threatened to upend her office’s historic prosecution had ‘no merit.’ Trump and two co-defendants are seeking to disqualify Willis and dismiss the charges, alleging Willis benefited financially from an ‘improper, clandestine personal relationship’ with Nathan Wade, a lawyer she hired to help lead the investigation…
“In a sworn statement, Wade said the personal relationship with Willis began in 2022, after he was hired as a special prosecutor on the 2020 election probe. Willis received no financial benefit from the relationship, his statement said. Citing unnamed sources and previously sealed court records, Trump co-defendant Michael Roman alleged in a court filing that Wade paid for vacations with Willis while he was being compensated by her office for work on the probe.” Reuters
The right is critical of Willis’s conduct and argues that she should be removed from the case.
“Willis’s claim that she did not benefit from appointing Wade, who is in the process of divorcing his wife, is dubious at best, and a downright lie at worst. Wade’s divorce documents have shown that he took Willis on a cruise last year. The most recent filings say that this was paid for with ‘personal funds,’ presumably funds earned through his taxpayer-funded salary…
“To quote the former president, when it comes to the people persecuting him in court, ‘They’re not sending their best.’”
Jeremiah Poff, Washington Examiner
“Let’s take a closer look at the claim that the relationship started in 2022 rather than before Willis hired Wade. Can that be proven false? Maybe not, but the circumstances around Wade’s hiring certainly suggests that it might be. For instance, Wade filed for divorce from Jocelyn Wade the day after Willis hired him. That could just be a coincidence, but there’s also the question of why Willis chose Wade at all. He had never prosecuted a felony, ever, and had specialized in personal-injury law.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“The judge overseeing Willis' prosecution has already ordered a mid-February hearing to see all the evidence of possible misconduct. Records from Wade's divorce and witness testimony are expected to be presented. Whether any of that moves the judge to find Willis unfit to continue is a big unknown. I would assume it's more likely another prosecutor will take her place if she's disqualified. With that said, the damage is already done…
“Unless she disappears, and it doesn't look like she will do that willingly, the public narrative will continue to center around her misconduct. Her sheer hubris and shamelessness may have scuttled her chances of getting a conviction. This is why you don't try to take down a former president if you don't have your house in order.”
Bonchie, RedState
“The near insanity of the case doesn’t need to be rehashed. The obvious political motivation behind the case–Willis literally ran for office promising to put Donald Trump in jail before there even was a hint of a case for which to prosecute him. Willis has even been removed from another case due to her political conflicts of interest…
“We keep hearing nostrums about ‘defending democracy’ from the Left, but in reality, they have been systematically burning down our Republic, both literally and figuratively. As many gripes I have about Trump and his supporters, they are indisputably correct in their assertion that the system has been rigged. Will the rigging continue in Georgia, even when it is obvious to everybody that Willis is a corrupt prosecutor?”
David Strom, Hot Air
The left is critical of Willis’s conduct but divided about whether it should impact the case.
The left is critical of Willis’s conduct but divided about whether it should impact the case.
“Even before the burgeoning Wade scandal, Willis had displayed shoddy prosecutorial judgment. In July 2022, the DA got herself disqualified from a piece of the case because of a flagrant political conflict of interest; she had subpoenaed Georgia Republican Burt Jones, who was then running for lieutenant governor, and then headlined a fundraiser for his Democratic electoral opponent. That same month, Willis used her subpoena of Republican senator Lindsey Graham to solicit online donations for her political campaign…
“And Willis made improper extrajudicial (i.e., outside of court) comments throughout her pre-indictment media-hype tour; at one point, she opined publicly that Trump had acted with criminal intent — the pivotal issue before the grand jury, which had not yet voted.”
Elie Honig, New York Magazine
“The people prosecuting Trump need to be not only above partisan politics, but above even the appearance of impropriety, self-dealing, and nepotism. If you’re going to hire your boyfriend in a case like this one, he’d better be a uniquely qualified pick—and you’d better be transparent with the court and the public about your relationship, and rigorous about following ethical rules. If you’re not able to be public about the relationship because your boyfriend is actually married? Don’t hire him!”
Jill Filipovic, Slate
Others argue, “Contrary to the Trump lawyer’s argument, there is no ‘conflict of interest’ presented by two prosecutors having a romantic relationship. That’s because they are on the same side of the case. If a prosecutor and a defense attorney were a romantic item, then the defendant might argue that their defense counsel was conflicted because the relationship might cause the defense attorney to fail to zealously represent the client by going easy on their friends-with-benefits opponent…
“Any theory that Wade spent money on Willis derived entirely from his salary as a special prosecutor would require proof that—but for his special prosecutor salary—Wade could not afford to spend any money on his supposed dates with Willis. That’s hardly a convincing proposition on its face, and one that would be particularly to prove at any evidentiary hearing.”
Shan Wu, Daily Beast
“Even if all the claims are true, they wouldn’t imperil the prosecution or justify dismissing the indictment, as one of Trump’s co-defendants is seeking. As a question of atmospherics, though, the situation is a disaster… It would be advisable for special prosecutor Nathan Wade to step aside, as a group of legal ethics experts has suggested, but the harm has already been done and could get worse… What in the world was Willis thinking?”
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
