When you hear the phrase “As American as apple pie,” your mind may conjure images of faded blue jeans, the crack of a baseball bat or dazzling Fourth of July fireworks exploding in time to the music of a hometown band.
But if you ask Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ former lover, Nathan Wade, he would tell you to add “workplace romances” while married to that list.
In an interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis — part of which aired Monday on “Good Morning America” — the former special prosecutor in the corruption and racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and others defended his romantic relationship with Willis, which led to his resignation from the high-profile election interference case.
“Workplace romances are as American as apple pie,” Wade told Davis. “It happens to everyone. But it happened to the two of us.”
When pressed on whether he regretted it, the former special counsel responded, “I regret that that private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution.”
“This is a very important case,” he said. “I hate that my personal life has begun to overshadow the true issues in the case.”
Davis pointed to a Feb. 16 piece by Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse, who wrote, “What were they thinking? How could two seasoned attorneys, embroiled in the prosecution of a former president, start a romance and not see this trouble coming a mile away?”
“And so, what were you thinking in that moment?” the interviewer asked Wade.
“Again, you don’t plan to develop feelings,” he responded. “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. … Those things develop organically. They develop over time.
“And the minute we had that sobering moment, we discontinued it.”
.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Former special prosecutor Nathan Wade speaks out.
“I hate that my personal life has begun to overshadow the true issues in the case.”https://t.co/9cZIiUDeqc pic.twitter.com/ii0zFP63VT
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 6, 2024
Leave aside the fact that calling a workplace affair — Wade was married at the time — “as American as apple pie” is like calling the anti-Israel encampments on college campuses “as kosher as matzo ball soup,” the details uncovered during the trial were very different from his assertions.
This was not, as Willis and Wade attempted to convince the judge, a “workplace romance” that occurred after the two started working together on the Trump case.
Witness Robin Yeartie, a friend and former co-worker of Willis, testified that the affair preceded the case against the former president, according to PBS.
Additionally, as reported by Forbes, an affidavit filed by a private investigator hired by Trump’s legal team said Wade’s phone records showed him visiting the area near Willis’ Atlanta condo at least 35 times between January and November 2021, months before he was hired to work on the Trump case.
The affidavit, citing AT&T cell tower data, further said Wade and Willis exchanged nearly 12,000 text messages and had more than 2,000 phone calls during the 11 months before his late-2021 hiring, long before the 2022 date they claimed their relationship began.
While workplace romances, especially when either of the parties is married, are not what anyone wants to associate with America, the relationship between Willis and Wade was not even the reason for the complaint against them.
Should Fani Willis’ indictment of Trump be thrown out?
It said they had a personal motivation for the case because it financially benefited Wade and, by extension, Willis, who had hired him.
According to the filing by the attorney for Mike Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, Wade received legal fees ranging from $653,000 to potentially as much as $1 million for his work on the high-profile prosecution, the U.K.’s Guardian reported in January.
The motion further alleged that Wade used a portion of these funds to finance trips he took with Willis to luxurious destinations such as California’s Napa Valley and the Caribbean, the report said.
Despite Willis’ claims that she “paid her own way,” neither she nor Wade was able to produce a single receipt or bank statement to prove it.
NEW: DA Fani Willis says she would pay back Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade in cash for their vacations but didn’t go to the ATM to get the cash.
The comment from Willis came after Wade said Willis paid him in cash after he business expensed their vacations.
Willis lashed out… pic.twitter.com/CRPqFRBvIM
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 15, 2024
Nathan Wade doesn’t have a single deposit slip or any documentation indicating Fani Willis reimbursed him in cash.
Is anyone buying this embarrassing testimony?? pic.twitter.com/GHH9yPAdrY
— The Conservative Read (@theconread) February 15, 2024
Rather than taking accountability for his ethical failings, Wade is shamefully trying to pander for empathy and relatability by portraying workplace affairs as just another casual part of American culture and workplace dynamics that “happens to everyone.”
It is an insult to the countless American families who work hard to preserve their marriages and keep their commitments, even when faced with temptation or tough times.
But even beyond that, Wade’s defense skirts the real issue, which is the timing and motivation of the Trump case.
What most Americans gleaned from the prosecution was that what Wade and Willis did was no different from what certain ambulance chasers do — concocting a high-profile case against a wealthy target in order to get paid huge legal fees, and using that money to bankroll luxurious romantic trysts and a jet-setting lifestyle.
Only, this time, the cash cow being milked on a high-profile case was the American taxpayer.
