Nathan Wade, the former special prosecutor caught up in a salacious sexual affair with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, doesn’t appear to regret his actions.
Wade, who worked with Willis on her election interference case against former President Donald Trump, told ABC News he was only sorry that his private affair with Willis became public. “I regret that that private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution,” he said, according to the New York Post. “This is a very important case. I hate that my personal life has begun to overshadow the true issues in the case.”
Asked about the propriety of dating his boss, Wade essentially shrugged. “Workplace romances are as American as apple pie,” Wade said. “It happens to everyone. But it happened to the two of us.” He did not speak to allegations of nepotism based on evidence that Willis lied under oath when she testified that the romance did not begin until after Wade was hired.
In March Wade resigned following a judicial order stating “that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the State selects one of two options.” Either “the District Attorney may choose to step aside, along with the whole of her office” or “Wade can withdraw” allowing the case to proceed without further distraction. While there wasn’t evidence of a conflict of interest, Judge Scott McAfee wrote at the time, “an odor of mendacity remains.” Wade ultimately chose to resign from a position where he earned about $700,000 in the span of two years.
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Wade conceded that he and Willis should have pressed pause on their relationship, which continued in the midst of the Trump trial as well as his own divorce proceedings, but that romance doesn’t always follow the rules of logic. “When you are in the middle of it, these feelings are developing and you get to a point where the feelings are so strong that you start to want to do things that really are none of the public’s concern,” he said.
The revelation of their romance continues to haunt Willis. Separate investigations by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Georgia State Senate are dogging her office’s use of funds in the Trump case, and a new commission signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp is now empowered to remove activist district attorneys from office. She has garnered a strong Republican opponent in her election as well as a lawsuit from a former Democratic lawmaker who alleged Willis failed to protect her from a stalker.
Wade’s resignation came after Judge McAfee quashed six charges in the case for all defendants, including three for President Trump, related to the pressuring of state officials to violate their oaths of office. Prosecutors previously charged Trump over a statement made to Republican Secretary of State Ben Raffensperger allegedly demanding he “find” over 11,000 votes to change the outcome of the state’s 2020 election.