OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
2:09 PM – Monday, October 21, 2024
According to a transcript made public on Monday, Nathan Wade told Congress in a closed-door deposition that before taking office in January 2021, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was already planning to bring charges against former President Donald Trump.
In the transcript of the deposition, which was conducted by the House Judiciary Committee last week, Wade stated that Willis started reaching out to form a search committee related to Trump’s case before she took office on January 1, 2021, the Washington Examiner reported.
“And was there outreach to you to be part of the search committee prior to January 1, 2021?” a committee lawyer asked Nathan Wade in the deposition.
“Absolutely,” Wade said in response, noting that the efforts began “sometime after the [2020] election, but prior to her taking office.”
The district attorney’s early, ongoing motivation in targeting Trump and certain challenges related to the 2020 election were highlighted by Wade’s statements. He explained that Willis contacted him prior to the day she took office in order to organize him and others to prosecute the former president for allegedly “trying to rig the election.”
Wade further explained in his testimony that the search committee’s members were looking for someone who had no obvious or public “axe to grind” against Trump when they started their investigation. Eventually, they asked Wade to take on the position of lead prosecutor in the Trump case.
“So, January 1st, I was a part of the search committee for that newly elected district attorney, and we were tasked with trying to identify someone who would serve as lead counsel on the election interference investigation,” Wade stated, according to the transcript. “Eventually, I guess the committee turned their guns on me and started trying to convince me to accept the role.”
However, following the discovery of a secret romantic relationship between Wade and Willis by the former president and some of his co-defendants, Wade withdrew from the Trump case this year after a judge’s ultimatum forced the two to decide who steps down.
Wade resigned from the Trump case after the defendants argued that the relationship between the two exemplified a clear conflict of interest in the case, and a court partially agreed. Trump then took his case to the Georgia Court of Appeals in an attempt to have Willis removed from the case.
As part of the investigation into their apparent conflict of interest, Wade and Willis were forced to answer questions about their affair earlier this year. Although evidence shown during the investigation indicated they had a close personal relationship before then, both claimed their connection only started in early 2022, after a grand jury investigation investigating Trump was already well underway.
Wade was also questioned by the House Judiciary Committee over his meetings with attorneys in President Joe Biden’s White House, and with members of the now-dissolved Jan. 6 Committee.
Wade has not disclosed any information regarding the meetings, including who attended or their purpose, despite the fact that they came to light via court documents this year. He also claimed repeatedly during his deposition that he was unable to remember the specifics or any real details, as his lawyer nodded.
“I do not recall,” Wade said when asked about a meeting with White House counsel back in 2022. “You know, during the course of this investigation, we interviewed probably hundreds of people, tons of conversations.”
Although there are technically no illegalities involved with local prosecutors requesting evidence from Congress or speaking with White House attorneys, the mystery surrounding Wade’s conversations with the federal government has sparked speculation that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s allies were politically motivated to work with Wade in order to bring charges against Trump.
His deposition is a component of the year-long inquiry into Willis’s prosecution of Trump by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is leading the efforts.
Jordan, a supporter of Trump, has maintained that Willis’s investigation exposes unprofessional political overtones, at the very least. He has persisted in casting doubt on Willis’s use of federal grant funds, pointing out that her office provided Wade with financial support for over two years, during which she had a relationship with him.
Nevertheless, Willis has still denied on numerous occasions that he misused grant funds or that she had political objectives.
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