Fulton County DA Fani Willis (left inset) (AP Photo/John Bazemore); Nathan Wade (right) speaks with a consultant during a CNN interview on June 12, 2024, when asked about the timeline of his relationship with Willis (CNN/screengrab)
Former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who resigned from the 2020 election-focused Georgia RICO case against Donald Trump and the former president’s allies, bizarrely decided to sit for an interview on CNN while knowing he would almost certainly be asked about issues currently on appeal, namely the timeline of his romantic relationship with Fulton County DA Fani Willis (D). This led to an awkward clam-up moment mid-interview.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins began by asking Wade what the current status of his relationship is with Willis, and he answered that the two are “great friends” who continue to talk “regularly” about things that are not decidedly not romantic — such as, how the DA is dealing with threats against her, democracy, and “the case will live on kind of thing.”
Watch the moment Nathan Wade’s team interrupted him mid-interview with @kaitlancollins, as the former Fulton County prosecutor was talking about his romantic relationship with D.A. Fani Willis. pic.twitter.com/BP5KTB5aUM
— TheSourceCNN (@TheSourceCNN) June 13, 2024
Moments later, Collins asked a question that had a Wade consultant signaling the interviewee to stop talking in detail.
“Just to clarify, when did the romantic relationship between the two of you start?” Collins queried.
“We get into — there’s been this effort to say that, okay, these exact dates are, are, are at issue, and these exact dates are — I’m getting signaled here,” Wade said, removing his microphone and retreating into a corner with his consultant to discuss the way he should actually respond to the question.
“Everything, okay?” Collins asked, when Wade returned.
“Yeah,” Wade said.
Collins asked again when the relationship with the DA began and ended.
Wade, rather than critiquing microscopic attention on “exact dates,” offered a more general response calling the whole issue an irrelevant “distraction.”
“I believe that the public has through the testimony and other interviews, the public has a clear snapshot that this is clearly just a distraction,” Wade said. “It is not a relevant issue in this case and I think that we should be focusing on more of the facts and the indictment in the case.”
This raises an obvious question: Why sit for the CNN interview in the first place?
In any event, Collins, noting that there is a “pending matter” on the issue before the Court of Appeals, asked Wade if his relationship with Willis “jeopardize[d]” the sprawling Trump probe and prosecution.
“And therein lies the issue why we wouldn’t touch upon the work of the Court of Appeals or some higher court,” Wade said. “I think we should allow them to take a step back and allow them to take the evidence that they have and do their work, make a decision.”
Collins followed up, referring to Wade’s testimony in court.
Nathan Wade appears during a Fulton County court hearing on Feb. 15, 2024. (Law&Crime Network)
“You were asked on the stand about when it started and when it ended. It just wasn’t completely clear because, before it said before the indictment, which is August 15th in Atlanta, and then later the answer was at the end of that year,” she said. “So I think that was the clarity that people were seeking of when it started and when it ended.”
Wade declined to get into specifics, again saying the issue is on appeal.
“Sure. And, there again, there’s a question before the court. And that is the crux of the question,” he said. “I don’t choose to say or do anything that would jeopardize the case or the court’s ruling. I prefer to allow them to make their decision based upon what they have and accept it.”
When Collins asked Wade if the relationship with Willis was a “mistake,” he answered “absolutely not” twice and again called the “whole conversation” a “distraction.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis steps away from the stand after testifying during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. The hearing is to determine whether Willis should be removed from the case because of a relationship with Nathan Wade, special prosecutor she hired in the election interference case against former President Donald Trump. (Alyssa Pointer/Pool Photo via AP)
“It’s a tool to stop the train, to slow down the inevitable, which is the trial of the defendants named in the election interference case,” Wade said, predicting that the case would still go to trial even though it seems delays will continue into 2025, when Trump could be president again.
Nathan Wade says he believes Trump can be put on trial in Georgia, even if he wins a second term and is in the White House. “I don’t believe it looks good to the rest of the world. But certainly I don’t think that there’s anything that would prevent that from happening.” pic.twitter.com/1KjBbZ2Wqt
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 12, 2024
Wade is right the revelation of his relationship with the DA has had the effect of handing Trump, Mike Roman, David Shafer, Robert Cheeley, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, Harrison Floyd, and Cathy Latham wins by grinding proceedings to a halt, regardless of whether ongoing defense efforts to disqualify Willis from the case will ultimately have merit in the eyes of appellate judges.
In March, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, having heard Wade and Willis’ testimony, issued an ultimatum that either the special prosecutor or the DA had to step aside, writing that while he did not find “an actual conflict of interest in this case through [Willis’] personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor,” there was nonetheless a “significant appearance of impropriety” that needed to be remedied. Wade quickly exited the case thereafter.
But as the CNN interview and Wade’s responses show, the issue hasn’t gone away.
On the same day as the interview, an attorney in the Fulton County DA’s Office argued that the Trump appellate bid to remove Willis from the RICO case should never have been granted, since McAfee did not find a financially-related “conflict of interest” between her and former lead prosecutor Wade.
“As a basis for these motions, Appellants asserted that the District Attorney had a conflict of interest in the prosecution due to her personal relationship with the Special Assistant District Attorney appointed to oversee the case on her behalf. The problem with Appellants’ theory, as detailed by the trial court in its order, is that it was not supported by the actual evidence they provided,” the motion to dismiss said. “As both this Court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly held, Georgia appellate courts will not disturb a trial court’s factual findings on disputed issues outside of certain, very rare, circ*mstances. When a trial court makes determinations concerning matters of credibility or evidentiary weight, reviewing courts will not disturb those determinations unless they are flatly incorrect.”
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