Former Georgia special prosecutor Nathan Wade who previously led the Fulton County election-fraud case against Donald Trump lacked critical experience for the job and had to take training sessions on racketeering law, he told a House committee last week.
Wade testified before the House Judiciary Committee behind closed doors and admitted to lacking the experience necessary to be special prosecutor, to the point where he attended a course on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to learn how the law worked.
“Prior to your appointment as special prosecutor, had you ever worked in a district attorney’s office?” Wade was asked, according to a transcript of his testimony.
“No,” Wade replied. He was later asked whether he ever prosecuted a RICO case prior to taking on the wide-ranging case against Trump and his associates.
“The answer is no,” Wade said.
To get up to speed, Wade said he went to “RICO school” with racketeering expert John Floyd, a prominent Georgia attorney who assisted the Fulton County district attorney’s office with the Trump prosecution.
“I went to … what I would call RICO school to learn about what it is, what it means, and how it works,” Wade testified. “It’s a very complicated legal concept, but the dubbed godfather of RICO, the gentleman who wrote the book … spent hours and hours teaching me RICO.”
He had to go through the training to ensure he fully understood RICO and could carry out the prosecution against Trump, a requirement that differed from the other special prosecutors handling the Trump case.
“Well, in order to be certain that I can fully, or could fully understand the concept, I was required to go through the training,” he said. “I was required to make certain that I understood how to apply each and every element per the statute.”
Prior to his resignation earlier this year, Wade was the lead special prosecutor pursing the case against Trump and his co-defendants. Wade testified that he did not have anyone overseeing his work as special prosecutor and had ultimate authority over the proceedings.
Initially, Wade was a member of the search committee for selecting the special prosecutors that began when Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis took office in January 2021. Discussions about the search committee began between Willis’s election in November 2020 and the start of her term, Wade said.
Following the 2020 presidential election, Trump repeatedly peddled falsehoods about the election results in Georgia, where Joe Biden narrowly defeated him, and claimed the election was rigged. Trump was indicted in August 2023 on charges including election fraud and racketeering for his alleged efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results.
Wade was eventually chosen for the role after at least two other lawyers turned down the job, including former Georgia governor Roy Barnes, a Democrat. Barnes declined to take the special prosecutor position because of the low pay and security concerns.
“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 said.
“Eventually, eventually I guess the committee turned their guns on me and started trying to convince me to accept the role,” he added. “I said ‘no.’ I said ‘no’ more than once. But at some point, I relented and accepted the case because it did pose some interesting — I thought interesting legal issues.”
Before taking the role, Wade said he discussed it with Willis several times, but he could not recall the exact number of conversations. Wade also spoke with Barnes and others about becoming special prosecutor on the Trump case.
As special prosecutor, Wade confirmed that he met with Biden administration officials on multiple occasions, but he hesitated to disclose details during his closed-door testimony. Wade also met with lawyers affiliated with the January 6th Committee, and similarly declined to talk about the details of those meetings.
Throughout his testimony, Wade failed to recall the details of events he participated in, such as a Zoom call with investigators from other jurisdictions.
Earlier this year, a defense lawyer in the case revealed that Willis and Wade had been involved in a romantic relationship with one another. They tried to have Willis and Wade disqualified from the case, alleging they used the legal proceedings to enrich themselves, that they lied in court filings about when their relationship began, and that they had a conflict of interest.
In March, Wade stepped down from the Trump case after judge Scott McAfee ordered that either he resign or Willis stop prosecuting Trump and his co-defendants.
For much of his legal career, Wade specialized in family law and did not undertake complex prosecutions like the sprawling racketeering case against Trump and his co-defendants. As his relationship with Willis became front-page news, Wade also had to sort out messy divorce proceedings with his ex-wife.
Wade testified that he has “had minimum contact” with the Fulton County district attorney’s office since his resignation. A Georgia appeals court ruled in June that the Trump case will be put on hold until next year when Trump’s defense attorneys appeal McAfee’s ruling and consider whether to try again to have Willis disqualified.
The delay was a major legal victory for Trump and ensured he will not stand trial on the racketeering charges until after the 2024 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and routinely accuses Willis of waging a political prosecution against him.