Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said she does not feel her reputation has been tarnished as she moves forward with her 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump after being accused of being in an “improper” relationship with the special counsel she hired.
“I don’t feel like my reputation needs to be reclaimed,” said Willis to CNN Saturday after being asked about it by a reporter. “I guess my greatest crime is I had a relationship with a man. That’s not something I find embarrassing in any way. And I know that I have not done anything that’s illegal.”
Willis claims her team hasn’t slowed down, although the racketeering case was delayed two months.
“My team’s been continuing to work it…We were still doing the case in the way that it needed to be done,” said Willis. “I don’t feel like we’ve been slowed down at all. I do think there are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming.”
Trump, along with several co-defendants, said AG Willis was romantically linked with Nathan Wade, whom she hired to prosecute the case, before his hiring and alleged she was benefitting financially from the position he held in her office.
Wade and Willis denied allegations that she financially benefitted from his position
After hearing all the evidence presented in court, Scott McAfee, Fulton County Superior Judge, gave Willis an ultimatum last week: fire Wade or remove herself from the case. Hours after the judge’s order, Wade resigned from the case, allowing Willis to remain on it.
McAfee stated the defendants “failed to meet their burden of proving that the District Attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.”
“However, the established record now highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team—an appearance that must be removed through the state’s selection of one of two options,” wrote McAfee. She added that the Attorney General and her whole office can choose to step aside, or Wade can withdraw from the case.
McAfee stated that “[w]ithout sufficient evidence that the District Attorney acquired a personal stake in the prosecution, or that her financial arrangements had any impact on the case, the Defendants’ claims of an actual conflict must be denied.”
Judge McAfee said that his 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.”
“Rather, it is the undersigned’s opinion that Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices — even repeatedly — and it is the trial court’s duty to confine itself to the relevant issues and applicable law properly brought before it,” said McAfee.
The judge has given Trump’s team 10 days to appeal the ruling.
