XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.adultery, alt.politics.nationalism.black
XPost: talk.politics.guns

On 09 Jan 2024, Lou Bricano <lb@cap.con> posted some news:gfpnN.15839$gw1.11069@fx15.ams1:

The asshole lawyers were defrauding the state of Georgia. Get the GBI
on this so those felons can be disbarred.

Just three days after Georgia prosecutors indicted Donald Trump last
summer, one of the lead prosecutors on the case faced some legal trouble
of his own.

The prosecutor, Nathan Wade, was held in contempt for defying a court
order in an acrimonious divorce proceeding with his wife. Wade, a judge
in Cobb County, Ga., ruled, had “willfully” failed to turn over
documents about his income — including, his wife later said, income from
his work on the Trump case.

Wade’s divorce became abruptly intertwined with the Trump prosecution
this week, when a lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants alleged in a
court filing that Wade has been having an affair with Fulton County
District Attorney Fani Willis. Shortly after the allegation became
public, Wade’s wife, Jocelyn, served Willis with a subpoena seeking her testimony in the divorce proceeding.

The lawyer who alleged the affair has not offered proof, and Willis has
said she would respond in court documents. A lawyer for Wade declined to comment.

Even aside from the salacious allegation, the contempt ruling against
Wade in August 2023 shows that he was fighting his own deeply personal
legal battle — and getting admonished by a judge — as he was helping run
one of the most consequential criminal cases in American history: the indictment of Trump and numerous allies for their bid to subvert the
state’s 2020 election results.

Wade is himself a divorce lawyer — the website for his Atlanta law firm
touts “decades of experience” handling divorce cases. He has little
experience running complex, high-profile criminal prosecutions, and
Willis’ decision to hire him as a “special prosecutor” in the Trump case
has come under intense scrutiny in recent days.

It’s unclear if Wade was fined or received any other punishment under
the contempt ruling. He appears to have eventually turned over the
income documents in question, according to court records.

But any finding of contempt represents a serious and uncommon rebuke
from a judge, experts on Georgia family law said.

“This is bizarre,” said Randall Kessler, an Atlanta divorce lawyer who
formerly chaired the American Bar Association’s Family Law Section. “The
judge basically said, ‘Shame on you.’”

“To actually be found in willful contempt, it’s not a good position,”
said Yaniv Heled, a professor at Georgia State College of Law who
focuses on family law. “It’s not a place where you want to be with the
judge.”

A special prosecutor in the spotlight
Wade joined Willis’ team as an outside contractor on Nov. 1, 2021. The
next day, he filed for divorce from his wife of more than 24 years,
Joycelyn Wade.

In the two years since then, he has been paid nearly $700,000 from the
Fulton County district attorney’s office for his work helping to lead
the Trump case, according to a court filing from his wife.

On Jan. 8, a lawyer for Mike Roman, a former 2020 Trump campaign
official who is charged alongside Trump with a racketeering conspiracy
to subvert the election, filed court documents in the criminal case
accusing Wade and Willis of having a “clandestine” romantic
relationship. Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, also alleged that the
two used some of Wade’s earnings from the Trump case to vacation
together. Merchant is seeking to have Willis and Wade disqualified and
to have the case dismissed — an outcome that legal experts say is
unlikely. Trump and Roman have pleaded not guilty to the charges against
them.

Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, said in court Friday
that he expects to hold a hearing on Merchant’s allegations in early
February. The case does not yet have a trial date.

In the meantime, the allegations are roiling a sprawling and highly
sensitive case. Trump has amplified the allegations on social media,
even as his lawyer, Steve Sadow, told the judge that he was “leery” of
joining Merchant’s call for Willis’ disqualification. The district
attorney herself may become a witness in Wade’s divorce proceeding. And
new scrutiny of the legal documents in the divorce — a case file that
has since been sealed — offers details about how Wade disobeyed a court
order amid a drawn-out dispute over his income.

Throughout 2022 and 2023, lawyers for Wade’s wife accused Wade of
failing to turn over documents showing how much money he made — a common exchange of information in divorce proceedings.

The information Wade did provide “was so woefully inadequate as to be
useless,” his wife’s lawyers wrote in court papers.

Wade, for his part, said he had provided all required documents. Wade’s
lawyer accused Wade’s wife in court papers of “being stubbornly
litigious and dragging the matter out for no stated reasons.”

‘Willful contempt’
On May 10, 2023, Judge Henry Thompson, who is overseeing the divorce,
concluded that Wade had “inadequately responded” to his wife’s discovery requests. He ordered the prosecutor to turn over a host of financial
documents, including all income statements since 2016. If Wade didn’t
comply, the judge threatened, he could face contempt and sanctions.

Three months later, the judge determined that Wade hadn’t complied. On
Aug. 17, 2023, during the same week that Wade helped obtain an
indictment in the Trump case, the judge issued an order finding Wade in “willful contempt” of his directive. If he wanted to avoid sanctions,
the order added, he needed to deliver the material within 10 days.

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fees for NYT, reporters There is no indication in the documents reviewed
by POLITICO that Wade was sanctioned.

But over a month later, Wade’s wife moved to reopen discovery — meaning
she believed her husband still hadn’t given her all the information she
needed.

And, the motion added, she had just learned that her husband was working
on the Trump prosecution.

“Plaintiff has not produced one single document evidencing this income,”
the motion read. “Plaintiff has not produced one single bank statement indicating where those funds have gone.”

On Oct. 24, 2023, the judge granted her motion to reopen discovery. Less
than two months later, Wade’s wife told the divorce court that her
husband had earned almost $700,000 for his work on the Trump case since
May of 2022. She added that he had given her “nearly nothing” in
financial support — a claim that Wade’s lawyers disputed in court
papers.

Kessler, the Atlanta divorce lawyer, said it’s unusual for judges to
hold people in contempt during divorce proceedings. That’s because they
give the parties so many chances to comply.

“It is rare that it gets to this level,” he said.

But Kessler added that he thinks it’s unlikely Wade was scheming to keep
his income from the Trump case a secret. That’s because the work was so public-facing, drawing national media attention.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/13/georgia-trump-prosecutor-nathan- wade-contempt-00135478

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