Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor hired by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump, has resigned from his position, effective immediately, after a judge ruled either he or Willis had to step away from the case.
Late last year, one of the defendants, Michael Roman, filed a motion to have Willis removed from the case after it was revealed that she and Wade had been in a romantic relationship. Eight other co-defendants, including the former president, joined in the motion.
Willis has already accepted Wade’s resignation and extended her gratitude on behalf of the citizens of Fulton County.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis’ relationship with Wade did not constitute a conflict of interest under Georgia law. But McAfee said that either Willis or Wade must step aside from the case.
“The established record now highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team,” McAfee wrote in his 23-page ruling.
The charges stem from the alleged actions taken by Trump and his allies to interfere with Georgia’s 2020 election results, where President Joe Biden won by a margin of 11,779 votes. These actions include the January 2021 phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger demanding he “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the election results.
On Wednesday, the co-defendants won a minor victory when McAfee threw out six of the charges for lack of detail.
“Without this information, the Defendant could not prepare a defense intelligently as the crime could be committed ‘in a number of possible ways’” McAfee wrote in the nine-page ruling. This still leaves the majority of the original 41-count indictment intact, including the racketeering charge that the entire case rests upon.
Attorneys for one of the defendants in the case have argued since January that the relationship between Willis and Wade represented an improper conflict of interest because it was not publicly disclosed before Willis hired Wade. The defense also alleged that Willis benefited from the salary her office paid Wade in the form of vacations the two took together.
Those accusations resulted in acrimonious exchanges between Willis, her father, Wade, and defense attorneys last month. In McAfee’s ruling, he referred to some of Willis’ testimony as “unprofessional.”
This story has been updated.
