MARIETTA, Ga. — A year before Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis hired Nathan Wade to lead the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump, the relatively unknown private attorney was embroiled in another high-profile case investigating suspicious deaths in an Atlanta-area jail.
Now, as Willis faces accusations of having an improper personal and professional relationship with Wade, his work on the jail deaths case is also being placed under a microscope − including by a defense lawyer seeking to have them both kicked off the Trump prosecution.
Accusations that Wade mishandled the jail-deaths investigation in 2020 are adding to questions about Willis’s judgment in hiring him for the sensitive assignment of investigating the former president and alleged co-defendants in their alleged effort to overturn Georgia’s presidential election that year.
“Ms. Willis is relying on him being appointed in Cobb County as part of his credentials for why she hired him … and why he was qualified ,” said Ashleigh Merchant, a prominent Atlanta defense lawyer.