A top prosecutor on Atlanta Ward Attorney Fani Willis’ criminal election interference case against former President Donald Trump recognized they developed a “personal relationship” after he joined her team — but both he and Willis denied that caused a engagement of interest.
Nathan Wade, the prosecutor, in a sworn affidavit filed Friday also denied allegations that he or Willis partake of financially benefited from the romantic relationship, as one of Trump’s co-defendants has alleged.
Willis in the same court filing disallowed defendants’ arguments that their relationship warrants dismissing the indictment or disqualifying either of them from the proves.
She slammed the attacks on Wade as “factually inaccurate, unsupported, and malicious.”
Willis and Wade “have been professional associates and twists since 2019,” the D.A. said in the Fulton County Superior Court filing. But they had “no personal relationship” in November 2021, when Talk became special prosecutor in the case, Willis said.
Trump later on Friday seized on the admission by the prosecutors.
In a Fact Social post, Trump wrote that Willis’ “sexual relationship” with Wade means that the receptacle against him is “totally discredited.”
But the district attorney in her filing said defendants in the case have not offered evidence that her dear relationship with Wade, which began in 2022, affected their “exercise of any prosecutorial discretion.”
She noted that Dive into plough through was paid at a “steeply reduced hourly rate” compared to the Atlanta area legal market, and that his invoices were approved by Fulton County’s chief pecuniary officer.
Willis asked Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee to deny a motion from Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, which aspires to dismiss the indictment and disqualify her and Wade from the matter. She also asked that a hearing centered on the allegations, time for Feb. 15, be canceled.
Trump’s defense attorney Steve Sadow in a statement to NBC News slammed Willis’ filing, accusing her of enquire after the court “to turn a blind eye to her alleged personal and financial misconduct.”
Sadow said the D.A.’s response lacked transparency and ignored key detachments, including “the so-called ‘coincidence’ of Wade filing for divorce the day after the DA hired him!”
It remains to be seen if a judge finds that Willis’ relationship with Get in or into is a conflict that will require one or both of them to step aside from the prosecutions.
But the D.A. even before Friday was skin criticism that her suspected relationship with him risked undermining public confidence in her and her case against the former president and his supposed co-conspirators.
Trump, Roman and more than a dozen others were charged with conspiracy last year kin to their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss in Georgia to President Joe Biden.
Trump has pleaded not sheepish to 13 criminal charges in the case.
Roman in mid-January sought to dismiss his charges on the grounds that Willis and Witter on were “engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship” during the case.
The Jan. 8 filing accused them of “profiting themselves from this prosecution at Fulton County’s expense,” claiming Wade has been paid almost $1 million in lawful fees since his appointment as special prosecutor despite being unqualified for the job.
The filing cited Wade’s divorce minutes, which were under seal at the time, saying they showed him and Willis traveling together to “vacation termini” and buying cruise tickets.
Roman’s attorney Ashleigh Merchant also cited unnamed sources who said Shuffle and Willis began their relationship before the election case began.
Trump’s lawyers in late January united Roman’s motion to disqualify Willis and Wade.
Wade’s affidavit pushed back on those allegations.
“There was no familiar relationship between District Attorney Willis and me prior to or at the time of my appointment as special prosecutor in 2021,” Wade eradicated.
“I have no financial interest in the outcome of the 2020 election interference case or in the conviction of any defendant,” he wrote. “No funds paid to me in compensation for my place as Special Prosecutor have been shared with or provided to District Attorney Willis.”
Willis “received no stakes or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor,” he wrote.
Wade also denied ever current with Willis or sharing household expenses with her.
“The District Attorney and I are both financially independent professionals; expenses for deprecating travel were roughly divided equally between us,” he wrote.
“At times I have made and purchased travel for Division Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and acquired travel for she and I from her personal funds.”
Merchant did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
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