ATLANTA — The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against former president Donald Trump and his allies ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) may continue with the prosecution but only if Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor she appointed and had a romantic relationship with, exited the case. Wade resigned hours later, citing his commitment to “democracy” and making sure the case moves forward “as quickly as possible.”
In a 23-page ruling issued Friday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote that the defendants “failed to meet their burden” in proving that Willis’s relationship with Wade — along with allegations that she was financially enriched through trips the two took together — was enough of a “conflict of interest” to merit her removal from the case. But the judge also found a “significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team” and said either Willis and her office must fully leave the case or Wade must withdraw.
“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,” McAfee 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.”
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Willis accepted Wade’s resignation in a letter, praising his “professionalism and dignity.” A spokesman for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment, including on whether Willis has named another prosecutor to lead the case.
McAfee’s order is a significant legal victory for Willis, who maintains control of the historic criminal case against the former president and his allies that she began investigating more than three years ago. But the diversion has come at a personal and professional cost, as embarrassing details of Willis’s personal life and romantic relationships came under scrutiny inside the same courtroom where she had hoped to put Trump and his co-defendants on trial in August.
“You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” Willis declared during a fiery Feb. 15 appearance on the witness stand where she was questioned about the allegations. “I’m not on trial. No matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
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Even allies of Willis’s fear her actions have irreparably damaged the case against Trump and undermined public confidence in the prosecution. The claims against Willis are unlikely to go away — especially in the public realm where she has already faced political attacks from Trump and his supporters, racist criticism and threats. Defendants are likely to resurface the allegations, not only in their expected appeals but also as the case inches toward a trial.
While the accusations didn’t end Willis’s prosecution of Trump, they brought the case to a near standstill for more than two months. The criminal case is one of four Trump faces as he again runs for president. On Friday, a judge in New York delayed the start of Trump’s trial related to a hush money payment to an adult-film actress from March 25 to at least mid-April.
In his Friday ruling, McAfee made clear that he disapproved of the prosecutors’ actions — including Willis’s testimony on Feb. 15.
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“This 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,” he wrote.
McAfee said he remains uncertain that Willis and Wade truthfully testified. He said their claims about the timing of their relationship and who paid for their travel together were “not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable,” and he painstakingly laid out his reasoning that the defendants had failed to prove any of it with a preponderance of the evidence. But he pointedly concluded that “an odor of mendacity remains.”
He described Willis’s Jan. 14 speech before a historic Black church in Atlanta, where she accused her critics of playing “the race card” by questioning her right to appoint Wade, as “legally improper” — and he invited defendants to seek a gag order to block public comments from prosecutors on the case.
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“Every newly minted prosecutor should be instilled with the notion that she seeks justice over convictions and that she may strike hard blows but never foul ones,” he said.
Motions are still pending to move the proceedings out of Fulton County — citing Willis’s public comments about the case — but McAfee signaled in his decision that he is so far disinclined to agree. “The case is too far removed from jury selection to establish a permanent taint of the jury pool,” he wrote.
McAfee took particular aim at Wade, describing his testimony as “patently unpersuasive” and indicating “a willingness on his part to wrongly conceal his relationship with the District Attorney.”
On Friday afternoon, Wade sent a letter of resignation to Willis, pointing to McAfee’s ruling. He described his time leading the prosecution and “seeking justice for the people of Georgia and the United States … the honor of a lifetime.”
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“I am offering my resignation in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public and to move this case forward as quickly as possible,” Wade wrote.
Willis accepted the resignation and responded in a letter that praised Wade for enduring threats and “unjustified attacks in the media and in court on your reputation as a lawyer.”
“You were the one who had the courage to accept this role, even though you did not seek it,” Willis wrote.
Steve Sadow, one of Trump’s lawyers on the case, said in a statement that McAfee did not “afford appropriate significance” to Willis’s misconduct. “We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place,” he said.
Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Mike Roman, the Trump co-defendant who first lodged claims of misconduct by Wade and Willis, said in a statement that she believed McAfee “should have disqualified Willis’s office entirely” but also called the opinion “a vindication that everything put forth by the defense was true, accurate and relevant to the issues surrounding our client’s right to a fair trial.”
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“The judge clearly agreed with the defense that the actions of Willis are a result of her poor judgment and that there is a risk to the future of this case if she doesn’t quickly work to cure her conflict,” Merchant said.
Defense attorneys held a joint conference call Friday morning to discuss plans for an appeal — though it was not immediately clear when that legal effort would be filed.
Share this articleShareBill Cromwell, a lawyer for former Trump elector and co-defendant Cathy Latham, said he thought McAfee’s ruling was fair and thoughtful. “He’s like King Solomon,” Cromwell said. “He tried to weigh the best argument of both sides, and that’s what he did.”
McAfee’s ruling does not end the controversy.
On Wednesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed legislation creating a state panel to investigate and potentially punish “rogue” local prosecutors. While Kemp spoke of it as an attempt to combat violent crime, Republican lawmakers previously indicated that they plan to investigate Willis. A separate Georgia Senate committee has launched its own hearings into the allegations against Willis.
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McAfee’s decision comes more than two months after Roman, who worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign, claimed in a court filing that Willis and Wade had been involved in an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” that has financially benefited them both. Merchant, Roman’s lawyer, claimed that Willis may have broken the law by hiring Wade and then allowing him to pay for “vacations across the world” with her that were unrelated to their work on the case. Roman’s filing, which offered no proof to substantiate the claims, called for the prosecutors to be disqualified and for the charges against him to be dismissed.
Willis and Wade later acknowledged a romantic relationship in court filings but denied that it had tainted the proceedings. Testifying under oath during an evidentiary hearing, both insisted that the relationship began months after Wade’s November 2021 hiring and ended before indictments were issued this past August. Both claimed that they had not deliberately concealed the relationship but had not openly discussed it, either.
“Our relationship wasn’t a secret. It was just private,” Wade testified.
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Wade strongly denied that Willis had financially benefited from his role in the case. In sworn testimony, both admitted that they had taken several trips together but said that they had equally split travel costs. Wade testified that Willis often repaid him in cash for tickets and other expenses he charged to his credit card — though he said he did not deposit the cash and had no record of those reimbursements.
But Merchant accused Willis and Wade of lying. She called two witnesses to the stand to rebut their claims — including Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a former friend and co-worker of Willis’s, who testified that she had “no doubt” that Willis and Wade began dating in late 2019 shortly after they met at a conference. In his ruling, McAfee wrote that Bryant-Yeartie’s testimony “ultimately lacked context and detail.”
Merchant also called Terrence Bradley, a former law partner of Wade’s, who she claimed would testify that Wade and Willis began their relationship years earlier. Text messages presented in court suggested that Bradley had been a key source as Merchant investigated rumors of a dalliance between Willis and Wade.
But on the stand, Bradley repeatedly declined to answer questions about what he knew about the prosecutors’ romance. Bradley, who previously represented Wade in his ongoing divorce, cited concerns that he might violate attorney-client privilege and could be disbarred. He testified he “had no personal knowledge” of when the relationship began — a claim he maintained even after McAfee ruled Bradley could answer some questions despite his privilege concerns.
In his ruling, McAfee declared Bradley a useless witness. “The Court finds itself unable to place any stock in the testimony of [Terrence] Bradley,” the judge wrote. “His inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions.”
During closing arguments, Sadow and other defense attorneys told McAfee that he didn’t need evidence that the prosecutors’ relationship had been an “actual conflict,” arguing that “the appearance” of a conflict would be enough to disqualify Willis and her office because she had undermined public trust in the case.
“It puts an irreparable stain on the case,” Harry MacDougald, an attorney for former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, told the judge.
McAfee agreed in his decision. “Were the case allowed to proceed unchanged, the prima facie concerns raised by the Defendants would persist,” he wrote. “As the District Attorney testified, her relationship with Wade has only ‘cemented’ after these motions and ‘is stronger than ever.’”
Sadow had argued that Willis’s church speech on Jan. 14 was enough to disqualify Willis, because he said the implication was that she was attacking Trump and other defendants.
“Can you think of anything more that would heighten public condemnation of the defendant than alleging that defense counsel and the defendants were making their motion based on race and religion?” Sadow told McAfee. “That’s just bad as it gets in Fulton County.”
McAfee did not agree. Though he was critical of the speech, McAfee said case law requires a higher standard to disqualify a prosecutor for public comments.
McAfee’s ruling comes two days after he dismissed six counts in the sweeping indictment — including three against Trump — agreeing with defense attorneys that the charges did not provide “sufficient detail.” The counts were related to allegations that Trump and other defendants illegally sought to pressure elected officials in Georgia to violate their oaths and work to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in the state.
But McAfee gave prosecutors six months to resurrect the charges by presenting the allegations to a new grand jury or through appeal. A Willis spokesman declined to comment on what the district attorney might do.
The judge’s decision is almost certain to fuel political attacks in a year in which he, Willis and Trump are all on the ballot. McAfee, who was appointed to the bench in 2022 by Kemp, last week drew two challengers as he seeks a full judicial term.
On Friday, some of Trump’s Republican allies, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), posted social media messages critical of McAfee and his ruling, pointing out that Willis was previously his boss.
“Judge McAfee should have recused himself in the first place because of his obvious bias,” Greene wrote on X.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, wrote on X: “Reminder: Judge McAfee used to work for Fani Willis and donated to her campaign. This case reeks of corruption.”
McAfee seemed to anticipate the attacks, saying in a local radio interview last week that he had prepared a rough draft of his decision “before I ever heard a rumor that someone wanted to run for this position.”
“So the result is not going to change because of politics,” McAfee told “The Shelley Wynter Show.” “I am calling it as best I can and the law as I understand it.”
“No job is worth my integrity,” he added.
In his ruling Friday, McAfee repeatedly nodded to the need to uphold public “confidence” in the legal system.
“Whether this case ends in convictions, acquittals, or something in between, the result should be one that instills confidence in the process,” McAfee wrote. “A reasonable observer unburdened by partisan blinders should believe the law was impartially applied, that those accused of crimes had a fair opportunity to present their defenses, and that any verdict was based on our criminal justice system’s best efforts at ascertaining the truth.”
Gardner reported from Washington.
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