Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said she doesn’t feel her reputation has been tarnished as she moves forward with her 2020 election interference case against former President Trump after being accused of having an “improper” relationship with the special counsel she hired.
“I don’t feel like my reputation needs to be reclaimed,” Willis told CNN on Saturday after a reporter asked her about it. “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.”
Although the racketeering case was delayed by two months, Willis said her team hasn’t slowed down.
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse, March 1, in Atlanta. (Alex Slitz-Pool/Getty Images)
“My team’s been continuing to work it … We were still doing the case in the way that it needed to be done,” she said. “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 and several co-defendants said Willis was romantically linked with Nathan Wade, whom she hired to prosecute the case, prior to his hiring and alleged that she was financially benefiting from the position he held in her office.
Both Willis and Wade denied those allegations.
Former special counsel Nathan Wade resigned last week. (Alex Slitz-Pool/Getty Images)
After hearing all the evidence presented in court, Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee last week gave Willis an ultimatum — remove herself from the case or fire Wade. Hours after the judge’s order, Wade resigned from the case, allowing Willis to remain on it.
McAfee said that 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.”
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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled last week DA Fani Willis could remain on the case if Nathan Wade resigned. (Alyssa Pointer/Reuters/Bloomberg via Getty Images )
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,” he wrote, adding that Willis and her whole office can choose to step aside, or Wade can withdraw from the case.
McAfee said 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.”
But he went on to say 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.”
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“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,” McAfee said.
McAfee has also given Trump team 10 days to appeal his ruling.
Fox News’ Brianna Herlihy and Claudia Kelly-Bazan contributed to this report.
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