Special counsel in Donald Trump’s Georgia case steps down after judge’s ultimatum

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A lawyer working on the election meddling case against Donald Trump in the state of Georgia has resigned just hours after a judge ruled that his romantic relationship with the district attorney leading the prosecution created an “appearance of impropriety”.

The judge, Scott McAfee, had been asked by some defendants in the sprawling racketeering case to disqualify Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, alleging she had benefited financially from a relationship with Nathan Wade, who was hired to help lead the office’s prosecution against Trump and 18 others.

Those 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”, McAfee said in his ruling.

Nevertheless, 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”, he wrote.

Willis could stay on the case — but only if Wade left, McAfee ruled. Hours after the order was handed down, Willis accepted Wade’s letter of resignation.

Willis’s compliance with the judge’s order would mean the case — one of four criminal indictments brought against Trump over the past year — will be able to move forward again after weeks of delay to consider the disqualification request.

The district attorney’s office and Wade did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“While respecting the court’s decision, we believe that the court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade,” a lawyer representing Trump in Georgia said in a statement. “We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place.”

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, called the ruling “nonsensical”. The decision “reinforces the narrative that there is a two-tiered system of justice for president Trump and those around him,” he added in a statement.

Disqualifying Willis would have dealt a crippling, and potentially fatal, blow to the case. State officials would have had the power to replace her and any external appointment could have resulted in further delays to the trial or a shift in strategy.

The motion itself has delayed what was one of the most complex and damaging cases against Trump. State prosecutors had requested the trial begin for the remaining defendants on August 5. Four defendants have already pleaded guilty.

Efforts to dismiss the district attorney also cast a shadow over Willis as she handles the most high-profile case in her prosecutorial career.

A two-and-a-half-day-long hearing on the matter at times delved into intimate details of the relationship between Willis and Wade, including trips they took to locations including California, Belize and Aruba. A defiant Willis took the stand to testify, denying any wrongdoing and portraying efforts to push her off the case as being “contrary to democracy”.

“These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” Willis said during her testimony. “I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

The four criminal cases against Trump have been beset by delays over the past few months, making it increasingly unlikely that all or most of them will reach trial before the November presidential election. Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee to square off against President Joe Biden in an expected rematch of the 2020 vote.