Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor in Donald Trump's Georgia election interference case, has resigned after a judge said his affair with District Attorney Fani Willis was inappropriate.
Mr Trump and his co-defendants had tried to get Ms Willis disqualified, saying her relationship with Mr Wade - whom she hired - compromised the trial.
The judge disagreed but said it did create an "appearance of impropriety".
He said either Ms Willis or Mr Wade should leave the case to resolve that.
Mr Wade's resignation letter admitted no wrongdoing, and said his decision was "in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public, and to move this case forward as quickly as possible".
In a letter accepting his resignation, Ms Willis praised him for his "professionalism and dignity", and for having endured threats since joining the case.
In his ruling earlier on Friday, Judge McAfee said Ms Willis had committed a "tremendous lapse in judgement" by engaging in an affair with Mr Wade, and also called her testimony at a hearing last month "unprofessional".
Mr Trump and the 18 others are being prosecuted in Georgia for conspiracy to overturn the state's 2020 election results, which they deny.
But they accused Ms Willis - who is leading the prosecution - of misconduct, for having a romantic relationship with Mr Wade, a lawyer she hired on the case.
They alleged there was a financial conflict of interest, saying the couple used the money paid to Mr Wade for working on the case to fund luxury trips together.
But Ms Willis and Mr Wade said there was no financial benefits and they split the cost of their holidays together.
Judge Scott McAfee ruled there was not enough evidence to show a conflict of interest, but there was an "appearance of impropriety", and there was a "need to make proportional efforts to cure it" before the case can continue.
The Georgia election interference case is one of four criminal cases Mr Trump faces, that both sides of the political aisle are watching closely ahead of November's presidential election.
But some of the cases have faced delays. His New York case over alleged hush money payments to a porn star has been pushed to at least April.
In Florida, where Mr Trump is facing charges for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, both sides also say the trial will need to be postponed, although a judge denied Mr Trump's motion to dismiss the case outright.
In his 23-page ruling on Friday, Mr McAfee presented Ms Willis with two options: step down, along with her team, and have the Prosecuting Attorney's Council take the case over, or have Mr Wade step down.
An outsider could easily think she was "not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences," Mr McAfee wrote.
"As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist."
Mr Trump's lead lawyer on the Georgia case said in a statement: "While respecting the court's decision, we believe that the court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade. 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."
Mr Trump and his co-defendants could appeal the judge's ruling and further delay the proceedings.
The former president criticised Judge McAfee's decision in a fundraising email from his campaign, saying it was "not enough" to remove Mr Wade.
'A win-win'
According to Adrienne Jones, an assistant political science professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, delaying the case was exactly what Mr Trump and his co-defendants had hoped for.
"They will ride that out as long as possible," she said.
Ms Jones characterised the judge's decision as effectively a win-win for both Ms Willis and Mr Trump. The district attorney has the option to stay on the career-defining case, she said, and Mr Trump might not face trial before he is possibly elected president.
However, Ms Jones said the judge's "gratuitous comments" about Ms Willis' behaviour could harm the case by undercutting her credibility.
To the question of whether this could have an effect on a potential jury, Ms Jones said: "Absolutely. Everybody here is likely to be influenced by the news coverage of the judge's decision."
The case has not yet been scheduled for a trial.
Earlier this year, Ms Willis admitted she had a romantic relationship with Mr Wade, but said it had no bearing on the case. She denied allegations of impropriety from the witness stand during an evidentiary hearing before Judge McAfee.
Visibly upset, she held up papers presented to her by the defence and shouted: "It's a lie!"
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The hearing laid bare multiple intimate details about her private life, including that she kept large sums of cash in her home, some of which she said she used to pay for overseas trips she took with Mr Wade.
The hearings often revolved around disputes about exactly when the relationship began, with Ms Willis saying it started after she hired Mr Wade but a former friend saying the romance was already established by then.
The details of the romance came forth after one of Mr Trump's co-defendants, Michael Roman, filed a motion accusing Ms Willis of engaging in an "improper, clandestine personal relationship" with Mr Wade.
Separately, earlier this week, Judge McAfee threw out some of the criminal charges against Mr Trump and the other defendants.
He found six counts in the 41-count indictment lacked detail - although he said they could be refiled at a later date.
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2024-03-16 01:07:06Z
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