Former Fulton County special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, repeatedly refused to answer questions about his past romance with the county’s district attorney, Fani Willis, during his tense deposition before the House Judiciary Committee last week, according to a transcript released by the committee on Monday. He also told committee lawyers that he had to attend what he joked was “RICO school” after he was offered the position of leading the investigation into President Trump for alleged racketeering violations.

The committee has been seeking information about Mr. Wade’s relationship with Ms. Willis for months, and the former special prosecutor — who was forced to resign from the case following a decision by Judge Scott McAfee — finally sat for his deposition on October 15. The committee is investigating abuse of power by prosecutors such as Ms. Willis, whom the committee’s chairman, Jim Jordan, has accused of politically persecuting Trump with a selective prosecution.

Mr. Wade said he had no previous experience in working RICO cases, either as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney. He says that after Ms. Willis deputized him for the investigation into Trump, he went searching for clarifications about exactly how Georgia’s RICO law worked. 

“I went to what … I would call RICO school to learn about what it is, what it means, and how it works. It’s a very complicated legal concept,” Mr. Wade told committee staff during a closed-door deposition. He says he sought out the “godfather of RICO” in Georgia, John Floyd, who was also aiding the investigation into Trump. Mr. Wade billed the district attorney’s office for more than $700,000 during the course of his employment with the office. 

Mr. Wade told investigators that Mr. Floyd “spent hours and hours teaching me RICO.” Mr. Wade went so far as to attend a class Mr. Floyd was teaching. 

“So how did you go about contacting Mr. Floyd?” asked a Republican lawyer for the Judiciary Committee majority, whose name was redacted from the deposition transcript. 

“He was teaching a RICO course, and I went to the course,” Mr. Wade responded.

“So when you say you went to RICO school, that would be accurate; you did [attend a] class about RICO to understand the contours of the law?” the lawyer clarified. 

“Absolutely,” Mr. Wade said. 

Mr. Wade also acknowledged that he met with White House officials on at least two occasions, and billed the district attorney’s office for those events, according to the transcript. In his notes obtained by the committee, Mr. Wade referred to a “conf” — or “conference” — with the White House counsel. In a separate note, Mr. Wade writes of an “interview” with the White House official at the District of Columbia. Mr. Wade told the committee he does not recall the context of those meetings.

On the same day, Mr. Wade appeared for a deposition, Ms. Willis, who has also been subpoenaed by the committee, sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee reiterating that she would not appear for any deposition. “My legal duty to protect the secrecy and integrity of all criminal investigations has been bestowed upon me by Federal, State and Local law,” the district attorney wrote in her letter. A source at the Judiciary Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the panel would move to hold her in contempt — as they threatened to do earlier this year. 

The Fulton County district attorney’s prosecution of Trump and his co-defendants was embroiled in scandal in January of this year when one of the defendants filed a motion asking that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade be disqualified from the prosecution due to their previously undisclosed romantic relationship, and their lavish trips together that were paid for while Mr. Wade was being paid by Fulton County taxpayers. 

Towards the end of the Republican staff’s questioning period of Mr. Wade, they tried to get answers from the former prosecutor about his romantic relationship with the district attorney. Judge McAfee ruled in March — following contentious testimony from both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade on the stand — that an “odor of mendacity” required that at least one of the attorneys resign from the case. 

“Were you ever concerned that if your relationship with DA Willis became public, that it would cause an issue with the case, cause motions to be filed, for a motion to dismiss and disqualify? Did that ever concern you?” a Republican staff attorney asked Mr. Wade.

“So now I’m getting confused because I didn’t — I didn’t think I was coming here to answer questions about my personal life,” Mr. Wade said in response. 

The witness’s attorney then chimed in, saying that details about Mr. Wade’s relationship with Ms. Willis would be “exceeding the scope” of the subpoena the committee had issued to Mr. Wade. 

“A personal relationship that may have existed has nothing to do with whether it’s politically motivated. And, I mean, I — you know, if we go into folks’ sex habits here, you won’t be able to,” Mr. Wade’s attorney said before being cut off by a Republican staff member, who said, “We aren’t.”

Mr. Wade was pressed one more time on the question of whether he was concerned at the very least about an appearance of impropriety, to which Mr. Wade responded, “I don’t understand how a personal relationship has anything to do with your prescribed scope.”

Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis have been accused, by attorneys for the defendants in the Trump RICO case, of lying under oath — in a hearing before Judge McAfee — about the timeline of their romance, specifically about whether it was underway before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade. The former couple has denied their romantic relationship predated his hiring. This was contradicted by testimony by a disgruntled former roommate of Ms. Willis who is also a former employee. 

Despite refusing to discuss his romance under oath to House Republicans, Mr. Wade has been on a press tour in recent months where he did answer questions from friendly interviewers. He told “Good Morning America” that office romances are “as American as apple pie.” He also appeared on “The Daily Show”, where guest host Marlon Wayans asked Mr. Wade lewd questions about Ms. Willis and posed in an obscene manner to demonstrate a sexual position. Mr. Wade also did an interview with CNN that was interrupted by his attorneys when the conversation veered into the timing of his romance.

An appeals court is currently weighing whether to throw Ms. Willis off the case, after Trump and his co-defendants appealed Judge McAfee’s ruling that kept her in place as long as Mr. Wade exited. Furthermore, a committee of the Georgia state legislature is also investigating the ethics of prosecutors, and Ms. Willis has refused to cooperate with its subpoena.