Embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis admitted on Friday to having a “personal relationship” with the lead prosecutor she hired for former President Donald Trump’s election interference case – but shot down claims the relationship ever tainted proceedings.

Willis insisted there were no grounds to toss Trump’s case — or disqualify her from it – because she hadn’t sparked up the relationship with Nathan Wade when she tapped him to lead the prosecution back in 2021, according to a 176-page filing submitted Friday.

“Although District Attorney Willis and Special Prosecutor Wade have been professional associates and friends since 2019, there was no personal relationship between them in November 2021 at the time of Special Prosecutor Wade’s appointment,” the court papers said.

The filing also included a sworn affidavit from Wade where he, too, confirmed their relationship status and backed up the DA’s timeline.

“In 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship,” Wade wrote in his affidavit.

It marks the first time Willis and Wade have publicly addressed their romance in the nearly four weeks since Trump co-defendant, Michael Roman, alleged a conflict-of-interest in the case over what he described as a “clandestine” relationship between the DA and lead prosecutor.

The Friday filing by DA’s team was a tit-for-tat response to the motion filed by Roman that sought to have the case against him thrown out and to have Willis, Wade and their offices barred from further prosecuting the case.

Willis, in her filing, fired back at the defendant’s “baseless” claim that she wrongfully appointed an unqualified Wade to helm the Trump probe and paid him $654,000 in total legal fees since 2022.

The DA fiercely defended Wade’s qualifications, arguing in the court papers that he has distinguished himself as and “exceptionally talented” litigator and pointed to his “successful, decades-long legal career.”

Willis added that Roman’s own defense lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, was “well-familiar” with Wade’s resume because she supported his campaign to become a Cobb County Superior Court judge in 2016.

Exhibits attached to the filing included a photo of Merchant donning a Wade campaign t-shirt and a social media post where the defense attorney had once described Wade as “ethical.”

Merchant acknowledged her prior support for Wade, but told The Post on Friday “that has no bearing on whether or not he is qualified to be appointed in this matter.”

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The district attorney went on to defend Wade’s salary, arguing he “made much more money than the other special prosecutors only because Wade did much more work.”

Roman had alleged in his motion last month that Willis benefited from Wade’s high earnings when he whisked the DA off on getaways, including to California and Miami.

But Wade rejected those claims in his sworn affidavit, insisting none of the funds paid to him as part of the job were then shared with Willis and they would split the cost of travel.

“At times I have made and purchased travel for District Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and purchased travel for she and I from her personal funds,” his affidavit charges.

Elsewhere in the lengthy filing, Willis argued that Georgia law doesn’t prohibit relationships between lawyers – and griped there were other romantic relationships going on between defense attorneys.

“It is worth noting that there are at least two personal relationships among the collection of defense attorneys representing the defendants that, under the standard urged by the Roman’s motion, would almost certainly require disqualification,” Willis’ filing says.

Judge Scott McAfree, who is overseeing the election case, had already set a Feb. 15 hearing on Roman’s motion.

Willis and Wade are among a dozen witnesses Roman’s attorney has subpoenaed to testify at the hearing, but Friday’s filing urged the judge to toss those subpoenas and dismiss the motions without a hearing.  

Trump and one of the other 14 remaining co-defendants charged with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State have since joined in Roman’s motion.

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, said Willis was asking the judge “to turn a blind eye to her alleged personal and financial misconduct.” 

“Her sole objective is to try and stop the court from holding the evidentiary hearing that is set for February 15,” Sadow said in a statement.

“While the DA admits to an intimate relationship with her employee Special Asst. DA Wade, she fails to provide full transparency and necessary financial details.”

In a subsequent filing just hours later, Merchant fired back saying Willis and Wade were trying “to escape accountability.”

“If they had nothing to hide in the first place because they did nothing wrong, then why did they intentionally not tell anyone about it until they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar?” Merchant wrote.

Willis’ team’s filing, meanwhile, argued that Willis has no financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies removing her or her office from the case.

The filing calls the allegations “salacious” and says they “garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain.”