After Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis faced potential disqualification from Donald Trump’s election interference case in Georgia, legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance warned on Saturday that Willis is a “cautionary tale” for other Trump prosecutors.
Willis has found herself at the center of a potential ethics violation related to her alleged affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. This comes amid Willis’ case against the former president, in which Trump and 18 co-defendants were indicted by a Georgia grand jury in August and face criminal racketeering charges for allegedly attempting to overturn the state’s electoral results in the 2020 election won by Joe Biden. Trump, the presumed 2024 GOP presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty.
In an attempt to get Willis and her team disqualified and the charges against them thrown out, some of the defendants, including Trump, argued that a personal relationship between Willis and her lead prosecutor Wade created a conflict of interest. While Willis and Wade confirmed that they had been in a relationship, they said that neither had personally benefited from it.
On Friday, Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the election interference case, ruled that the evidence presented by the defense was “legally insufficient” to conclude that there was a conflict of interest, however, “the appearance of impropriety remains.”
Alex Slitz-Pool/Getty Images
He said Willis and her office would either need to step aside and let another district attorney take over the case, or Wade will have to withdraw himself from the case. Wade resigned hours after McAfee filed his decision.
In a Saturday interview with MSNBC The Katie Phang Show, Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during the Obama administration, discussed the impact of Willis and the ruling, stating that this became a “sideshow” due to political purposes.
“This is something that’s been blown out of focus for political purposes by defendants in a way that judges wouldn’t tolerate in an ordinary course of business. And it is a cautionary tale for every prosecutor who is involved in a case against Trump,” Vance said.
Vance added that moving forward, prosecutors need to “minimize the sideshow,” adding that Willis could have possibly avoided this if she had filed a response to the defendant’s initial motion acknowledging the relationship and denying the conflict of interest.
“They have to be prepared to move their case forward as prosecutors do, focus on the best interest of the case while trying to minimize the sideshow…Overall this really become a sideshow, it became a real debacle and looking at it in hindsight it’s possible Willis could have cut it all off by filing in response to the defendant’s initial motion, acknowledging the relationships, saying it wasn’t a conflict of interest,” Vance added.
Newsweek has reached out to the Fulton County court via email for comment.
Some legal experts say the various ethics complaints against Willis could still pose a threat to the district attorney in the case against Trump and his allies.
Since Willis and Wade’s relationship was publicized in January, there have been several ethics complaints filed against Willis, accusing her of failing to file personal financial disclosure statements, of violating Georgia campaign finance and ethics rules and of misspending state funds, among other things. Willis has denied any wrongdoing.
“Judge McAfee didn’t make much of a secret of the fact that Ms. Willis may face other issues from this,” trial attorney Andrew George told previously Newsweek. “He noted that there are ‘other forums or sources of authority such as the General Assembly, the Georgia State Ethics Commission, the State Bar of Georgia, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, or the voters of Fulton County may offer feedback on any unanswered questions that linger.'”
He added: “As part of those additional inquiries, new evidence may surface. That new evidence could lead to efforts by the defendants to revisit the removal question, such as evidence contradicting her prior testimony. More likely, though, it keeps negative attention on Ms. Willis and her office.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.