Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s get-Trump case, secretly coordinated with White House counsel shortly before indicting the 45th president.
The news emerged shortly after it was revealed that Willis and Wade have been involved in a secret romantic relationship since before the case was launched.
Willis hired her secret lover to serve as special prosecutor in the Georgia racketeering case against Trump and 18 other defendants, according to a Monday filing.
According to the filing on behalf of Mike Roman, a defendant who led Election Day operations for the 2020 Trump campaign, Willis and Wade have been “profiting significantly” from their case against President Trump.
“[T]he district attorney and the special prosecutor have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers,” Roman alleges.
Wade is a private attorney currently in the middle of a divorce who “has little to no experience trying felony cases, much less complex RICO actions,” according to the 127-page filing.
The filing seeks to have the charges against Roman dropped and both Willis and Wade disqualified from further participation in the case.
According to the complaint, Wade has raked in at least $653,000 and upward of $1 million for handling the high-profile get-Trump case.
Because of their relationship, that bundle of taxpayer money benefits Willis, as they’ve traveled together to Florida, the Caribbean, and Napa Valley, California.
Wade has also bought tickets for the pair to travel on Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise ships.
In addition to his $250 hourly rate, Wade has also billed Fulton County for thousands of dollars in air travel and hotel stays, according to invoices attached to the filing.
He categorized them as trips for interviews and research.
The Trump filing also alleges that Willis contracted with Wade contract without proper approval.
Such a move requires a vote by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant tells the Wall Street Journal her search of board meeting minutes found no indication his appointment was ever discussed, much less voted upon.
Wade filed for divorce the very day after his first contract with Willis began.
The suspiciously-timed divorce is still pending, and Wade managed to have the proceedings sealed — for now.The merchant is asking for them to be unsealed, however.
Monday’s filing highlights the suspicious nature of the dealings:
On the day before Wade filed for divorce, [Willis] entered into an agreement to pay Wade far above what any other prosecutor in her office was being paid, and she hid this agreement from Fulton County, despite Wade being the single biggest expenditure in her office for professional service contractors for both 2022 and 2023.
…
Wade is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to prosecute this case on her behalf. In turn, Wade is taking Willis on, and paying for vacations across the world with money he is being paid by the Fulton County taxpayers and authorized solely by Willis.
“It’s a bad look and it’s potentially criminal—again, assuming everything is true,” former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons tells the WSJ.
However, while Willis’s procurement of Wade’s services may have been illegal, Timmons doubts it would affect the indictment.
Meanwhile, Willis has yet to comment on the accusations.
A spokesman for Willis says a response will come “via a filing with the court.”
The filing contains plenty of documentation about Wade’s hiring and billings.
However, aside from hotel bookings, there’s not much evidence of a romantic relationship, beyond citing “sources close” to the couple.
Yet, more allegations in the filing suggest an even deeper conspiracy than just a clandestine relationship and a corrupt use of expenses.
According to evidence in the form of billing records included in Roman’s motion to dismiss, Wade met with Democrat President Joe Biden’s White House counsel shortly before Willis indicted Trump.
As the Daily Caller notes:
After his appointment as a special prosecutor, Wade met with officials of the White House Counsel’s Office on May 23 and Nov. 18, 2022, during Willis’ investigation of Trump and several months prior to his indictment, according to billing records included in a motion to disqualify Wade from the case.
In both cases, Wade billed the district attorney’s office $2,000 for eight hours of work regarding his meetings with the White House Counsel’s Office.
The names of the officials he met with are unknown, and it is unclear whether he met with Dana Remus or Stuart Delery, Biden’s two White House counsels during that period.
Four defendants have pleaded guilty in the Fulton County case that alleges a conspiracy to interfere with the 2020 presidential election.
Roman faces seven charges, including conspiracy to commit forgery, conspiracy to file false documents, and racketeering.
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