Fani Willis, who is representing the prosecution in former US President Donald Trump's election interference case in Georgia, has admitted to having a relationship with a special prosecutor she hired to work on the case.
However, in her court filing submitted on Friday, she also argued that her "personal relationship" with special prosecutor Nathan Wade forms no basis for her removal from the case.
Citing Willis' and Wade's relationship, Trump and other co-defendents have tried to get her disqualified and the charges dismissed.
Willis has called Trump's request for her dismissal "meritless" and urged Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to reject it.
She, in her court filing, said that there was no relationship at the time Wade was hired as a special prosecutor in November 2021.
In an attached affidavit, Wade said that their relationship began in 2022 and she has "received no funds or personal financial gain from my position as Special Prosecutor."
What is the case against Donald Trump?
Trump is facing a lawsuit alleging his interference in the 2020 election result in Georgia wherein Democrat Joe Biden won by roughly 12,000 votes.
Trump's indictment lists a phone call between him and fellow Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump asks Raffensperger to help "find" the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss to Biden.
Wade, who was hired to assist Willis in her investigation against Trump, has led the prosecution since Trump's indictment in August. (AP, AFP)<>