Former Trump Attorney Nathan Wade Breaks Silence on Fulton Affair

Wade told the network that he and Willis privately acknowledged the thorny nature of their relationship given their work on the case. And he said the timing “could have been better”.

“It was not lost on both of us that things could trickle down to the case and start to affect it,” he said. But Wade added that “when you’re in the middle of it all, those feelings develop and you get to a point where the feelings are so strong that you start wanting to do things that really don’t concern the audience.” »

In January, attorneys representing nine of the defendants argued that the “inappropriate” relationship between Wade and Willis created a conflict of interest for the prosecutor and that she and her office should be removed from the case. Wade had charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for his work while with Willis, and the two men took several vacations together, with Wade paying most of the bills, at least initially. His associates were also paid nearly $200,000 to work on other matters with the DA’s office.

The prosecutor’s office and defense attorneys offer conflicting facts on some issues, including how the relationship began. and how Willis reimbursed Wade for the trip, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee scheduled an evidentiary hearing in February. Willis and Wade testified under oath, practicing with defense attorneys releasing deeply personal information about them.

Wade and Willis each testified that their romantic relationship began in the spring of 2022 and ended in the summer of 2023, shortly before the indictment in this case was returned by a grand jury. Defense attorneys claimed the romantic relationship began before Wade was hired in November 2021 and that Wade lied under oath in his divorce filing.

McAfee ultimately ruled that he could not discern the absolute truth about many facts, including when their relationship began, based on conflicting and unreliable testimony. But he wrote that “a smell of lies remains.” While McAfee ruled that the defense failed to prove that Willis had a true conflict of interest that merited his disqualification, he chastised the prosecutor for a “huge error in judgment” and ordered Willis to step aside of the affair or to demand Wade’s resignation. By the end of the day, Wade had tendered his resignation.

The defendants appealed McAfee’s decision. The Georgia Court of Appeals is expected to announce whether it will take up the case sometime next week.

Wade said he received threats for his work on the case. And he was particularly critical of McAfee’s decision to hold the evidentiary hearing, which he said “essentially made a mockery of the profession.”

“I was not at all pleased that the system that I have dedicated my life to and invested so much in could even allow a spectacle like this,” Wade said. “I thought this would be resolved quickly, without the need to create a whole circus. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The Fulton District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on Wade’s interview. Wade and his attorney did not respond to AJC’s requests for an interview.

Wade also suggested that McAfee, who is white, may have had a “lack of cultural understanding” regarding one of the other major points of contention at the hearing: Willis’ testimony that she had reimbursed Wade for numerous cash travel expenses. Willis and his father suggested in their testimony that many black people conduct financial transactions in cash because of a lingering distrust of the financial system, which stems from decades of discrimination.

“Culturally, we do things that other cultures don’t do. We might hold cash and other cultures might not,” Wade said.