ATLANTA — Nathan Wade, the former special prosecutor in the Georgia 2020 election RICO case involving former President Donald Trump and other defendants, says the revelation of his relationship with Fulton DA Fani Willis and subsequent side proceedings about whether she would be disqualified from the case did not damage it.
"None at all," he told ABC News' Linsey Davis in an interview, his first public comments since Judge Scott McAfee ruled DA Willis could stay on the case -- so long as Wade resigned.
Wade defended the romance, which became the subject of a motion to disqualify Willis, alleging it constituted an improper conflict.
"Workplace romances are as American as apple pie," he said. "It happens to everyone -- but it happened to the two of us."
He was asked if he regretted how things played out.
"I regret that that private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution," he said. "This is a very important case. I hate that my personal life has begun to overshadow the true issues in the case."
Wade was also asked, in essence, what he and Willis were thinking when they pursued the relationship.
"You don't plan to develop feelings, you don't plan to fall in love, you don't plan to have some relationship in the workplace -- you don't set out to do that," he said. "Those things develop organically, they develop over time, and the minute we had that sobering moment -- we discontinued it."
The attorney added that he could concede, when asked if the pair might have simply paused the relationship until after the case was completed, that "that could have been an approach."
"But there again when you are in the middle of it, these feelings are developing," he said. "And you get to a point where the feelings are so strong that you know you start to want to do things that really are none of the public's concern."
Wade also declined to directly answer why he and Willis chose not to publicly address the initial allegation of their relationship when Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for one of the Trump codefendants, first raised it in the motion to disqualify Willis.
He said that "my conversation here with you today, is just that, it's Nathan's conversation -- I do not speak for the District Attorney's Office, I do not speak for their position."
"As a matter of fact I'm certain that they'd rather me not be having this exchange with you," he added, further explaining his lack of a direct answer as, "I want to continually protect the integrity of this prosecution -- I don't want to say or do anything that would jeopardize this case."
Asked to reflect on the last few months and the fallout from the disqualification proceedings, Wade said that he would "conceded that the relationship did not happen in ideal timing."
But, he added, "I don't think that anything that occurred during the course of the relationship should cause question as it would relate to the sufficiency of the indictment, as it would relate to any of the evidence that was uncovered and may or may not be presented at trial."
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