http://nypost.com/2024/01/12/news/republicans-want-details-of-fani-willis-squeeze-nathan-wades-talks-with-white-house-jan-6-committee/
By Josh Christenson
The New York Post
Published Jan. 12, 2024, 5:09 p.m. ET
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is requesting messages and records from an Atlanta prosecutor assisting in the Georgia case against former President Donald Trump after the lawyer met with Biden administration officials and House Democrats repeatedly in 2022.
Nathan Wade, a private attorney who was hired in late 2021 by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to aid in her investigation, may have abused federal funds by billing the county for trips he took with Willis while the two had an alleged affair, Jordan informed Wade in a Friday letter.
“According to a recent court filing, you have been paid more than $650,000—at the rate of $250 per hour—to serve as an ‘Attorney Consultant’ and later a ‘Special Assistant District Attorney’ in the unprecedented investigation and prosecution of the former President and other former federal officials,” the House Judiciary Committee chairman wrote.
Wade was reimbursed $4,000 for two eight-hour meetings at the White House on May 23 and Nov. 18, 2022, which were listed as “Conf with White House Counsel” and “interview with DC/White House,” respectively, according to a bombshell Monday filing by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman.
Another invoice shows that he met with the Democrat-led House January 6th Select Committee in April 2022, giving Willis’ attempts to gather evidence for her case a “boost,” Politico reported.
Jordan said the “filing also alleges that while receiving a substantial amount of money from Fulton County, you spent extravagantly on lavish vacations with your boss, Ms. Willis.”
The GOP letter noted the Atlanta prosecutor’s office “received approximately $14.6 million in grant funds from the Department of Justice between 2020 and 2023” and that Wade had been “compensated … using a concoction of comingled funds” from Fulton County and Willis’ office.
The payments, Jordan went on, raise questions about federal funding being used to pursue Willis’ state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act probe of the former president’s attempt to overturn 2020 election results in the Peach State.
“In fact, on one day—November 5, 2021—you billed taxpayers for 24 hours of legal work, attesting that you worked all day and night without break on a politically motivated prosecution,” Jordan said.
Wade was told to hand over by 10 a.m. Jan. 26 any documents and communications from Willis’ office, the White House Counsel’s office, the January 6th Select Committee, the Justice Department, and the Executive Office of the President.
Wade was also asked to turn in records of communications between himself and special counsel Jack Smith — who indicted Trump in federal court for attempting to overturn the 2020 election — as well as further credit card statements, reimbursement requests and financial information from his law office.
The invoices were made public in Roman’s filing to dismiss the case against him, which he argued was compromised beyond salvaging by Wade’s “improper” relationship with Willis.
Wade — who filed for divorce from his estranged wife Joycelyn in November 2021, around the time he began working for the Fulton County DA — did not deny the allegations when asked Thursday by The Post.
The Wade & Campbell Firm attorney flew with Willis to Florida, the Caribbean and Napa Valley while being paid nearly $700,000 by her office from 2021 to 2022, Roman’s filing claimed.
The “undisclosed conflict of interest” could qualify as honest services fraud, the defendant contended, a federal crime that faults vendors for providing kickbacks to an employer.
Wade did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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