Attorneys for Donald Trump have filed an opening brief in the Georgia Court of Appeals seeking to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the former president’s election subversion case in Georgia.
In a statement, Trump’s lead defense counsel Steve Sadow argued that Willis’ improper relationship with former Fulton County prosecutor Nathan Wade is grounds to have the district attorney disqualified from the case. The former president and 18 other co-defendants were leveled with racketeering charges accusing them of attempting to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden in the state of Georgia.
A lower court judge presiding over Trump’s case ruled in March that Willis could remain on the racketeering case after some defendants challenged the district attorney’s position over her romantic relationship with Wade, whom Willis hired to lead the investigation of Trump. Wade, however, was required to resign, and the judge who issued the ruling, Scott McAfee, was highly critical of Willis’ judgment in his ruling.
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Trump’s attorneys argue in their opening brief that Willis “engaged in a deliberate, calculated plan and pattern of misconduct” by having a relationship with Wade. The defendants in the case had argued that the prosecutors’ relationship posed a financial conflict of interest in the racketeering investigation. McAfee ruled in March that the defendants did not provide proof that a conflict of interest had occurred.
Sadow said in his statement that his team’s brief “persuasively argues that the trial court should have dismissed the case and disqualified [District Attorney] Willis for her forensic misconduct and the appearance of impropriety between her and former Special Assistant [District Attorney] Wade, who was her lover and taxpayer-funded financial benefactor. We are optimistic that the [Georgia Appeals] Court will favorably decide the appeal in our favor.”
Newsweek reached out to Willis’ office via email Monday for comment.
The Georgia Appeals Court indefinitely paused Trump’s case earlier this month, pending a ruling on the defendant’s appeal of McAfee’s ruling regarding Willis’ position. Wade has appeared in several interviews since resigning from the case, recently telling CNN that he and the district attorney remain “great friends” and “speak regularly.”
Wade’s media appearances have been criticized by legal experts, including former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi, who previously told Newsweek that Wade was “a self-aggrandizing attention seeker.”
“Nathan Wade has crossed the Rubicon from being a possibly forgettable very untruthful hearing witness in the eyes of the Court to being a self-aggrandizing attention seeker,” Rossi said. “President Abe Lincoln once said it best about the Wades of the world: ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.'”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
