Fani Willis laid the groundwork to prosecute Trump before he took office, ex-prosecutor Wade reveals

House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan released the transcript of the closed-door testimony Monday of Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor hired by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to help handle the interference case Donald Trump’s election campaigns from his office before he came under scrutiny for his romantic and financial relationship. with Willis.

Wade said Willis planned to prosecute Trump and began discussing a search committee to find a special prosecutor to investigate the former president before he takes office in January 2021.

The former special prosecutor also confronted his own records showing he met with White House officials, for eight hours on one occasion, though he told investigators he could not recall the details of the meetings.

Wade served on that search committee, which was established on the first day of Willis’ term in January 2021. After an unsuccessful search, Wade was eventually invited to take on the role himself, which he claimed which he reluctantly accepted.

“And so, the search committee, you said it started when DA Willis took office on January 1, 2021. Is that correct?” the researchers asked.

“Yes,” Wade replied.

“And was there contact with you to serve on the search committee prior to January 1, 2021?”

“Absolutely,” he confirmed, saying the disclosure began “sometime after the election, but before his inauguration.”

The transcript of Wade’s statement Tuesday was released by Jordan’s committee a week after the interview. The GOP-led committee subpoenaed Wade as part of an investigation into his relationship with Willis. Last year, Willis indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants in Georgia for their alleged efforts to contest the state’s 2020 election results.

Wade resigned from the case in March after a Georgia judge threw out a condition allowing Willis to remain on the case after evidence emerged of an inappropriate financial and romantic relationship between them.

You can read the transcript below:

Wade also failed to recall key details about meetings with White House officials, although he recorded them in his invoices to Willis’ office. According to the transcript, Wade billed Willis’ office for an eight-hour meeting with White House lawyers. These meetings were reported by Just the news after court documents filed by a Trump co-defendant showed Wade booked a ticket for a meeting with the White House counsel’s office in Athens, Georgia, in May 2022.

Although Wade testified that he did not remember the meeting, he told congressional investigators that “the bill says to travel to Athens. So that means to me that I traveled to Athens.”

Invoices provided in the lawsuit show at least one more meeting with Biden’s White House staff, in November 2022, that appears to have taken place in Washington, D.C., although there is no record of a visit by Wade in the White House visitor records.

Willis last week tried unsuccessfully to block Wade from testifying before the committee on the grounds that he might “improperly disclose confidential information” about his investigation into the former president.