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Lawyer George Conway said on Friday that the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis "wasted" time in her criminal case against former President Donald Trump.
The election interference case against Trump and 18 co-defendants for allegedly conspiring to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election win in Georgia was turned on its head when allegations of a personal relationship between Willis and the lead prosecutor in the case, Nathan Wade, were made public in early January. Trump, who will likely be the GOP 2024 presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the case is politically motivated against him.
Willis and Wade did confirm that they had been in a personal relationship, but said that neither of them financially benefitted from it.
In a long-awaited decision on Friday, Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the election interference case, said Willis and her office would either need to step aside and let another district attorney take over the case, or Wade will have to withdraw himself from the case.
Conway, who is a vocal critic of Trump and the estranged husband of the former president's ex-aide Kellyanne Conway, reacted to McAfee's ruling on X, formerly Twitter.
"This was the obvious solution all along," he wrote. "If the DA had acknowledged the facts more quickly and then said that, to eliminate any issue, Wade is stepping aside, everyone would have been spared a lot of trouble—including and especially the DA—and a lot of time would not have been wasted in satellite circus litigation about the affair."
The allegations against Willis and Wade came to light in an attempt from one of the defendants in the case, Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer, to disqualify Willis and her office and get the charges against him dropped. Roman has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Eight co-defendants, including Trump, later joined Roman in an effort to get rid of Willis and the case.
McAfee said in his decision that "the Court finds the allegations and evidence legally insufficient to support a finding of an actual conflict of interest. However, the appearance of impropriety remains." He added that the defendants' motions were "granted in part and denied in part."
Trump's lawyer Steve Sadow told Newsweek via email on Friday: "While respecting the Court's decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis' extrajudicial MLK 'church speech,' where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism.
"We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place."
Newsweek reached out to Willis' office via email for comment.
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Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more