Politics
Fani Willis Throws A Tantrum In Response To Jim Jordan’s Subpoena
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis released a scathing letter in response to House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) request for documentation about her office’s use of federal grants, calling his probe “politically motivated” and comparing his efforts to acts of violence threatened against her and her family.
A copy of Willis’ letter, obtained by CNN’s Zachary Cohen, helps paint the picture of an embattled Democratic prosecutor mired in a quagmire of state and federal investigations since coming under fire earlier this year for a romantic relationship with a subordinate prosecutor. In it, she rebukes Rep. Jordan for asking for speedy production of paperwork related to her office’s acceptance of federal gang-diversion funding which whistleblowers have alleged she diverted to fund her case against former President Donald Trump.
“[W]e have already provided you with substantial information about our programs that are funded via federal grants,” she writes.
“Your primary complaint appears to be that we did not complete the production of your extension document demands (including five categories of documents over a four-year period) in less than two months. That demand is unreasonable and uncustomary and would require this government office to divert resources from our primary purpose of prosecuting crime,” she continued.
WATCH:
“We will not shut down this office’s efforts to prosecute crimes — including gang activity, acts of violence and public corruption — to meet unreasonable deadlines in your politically motivated ‘investigation’ of this office.”
Fulton County DA Fani Willis responds to GOP Rep. Jim Jordan’s demand for documents but calls his ‘investigation’ of her office “politically motivated.” pic.twitter.com/x672ZhbjIP
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) March 27, 2024
Toward the end, Willis goes toe-to-toe with Jordan, warning him that any probe meant to interfere with her investigation of Trump is similar to violent and racist threats she claims to have received as a result of her own probe.
“[L]et me state this clearly: nothing that you do will derail the efforts of my staff and I to bring the election interference prosecution to trial so that a jury of Fulton County citizens can determine the guilt or innocence of the defendants,” she concludes in her letter. “My family, my staff and I have been threatened repeatedly by people making violent, often racist, attacks.”
“Neither those threats, nor anything your colleagues or you say or do, will deter us from fulfilling our duty to bring this case to trial.”
During a conference speech in February, Rep. Jordan said his committee obtained testimony from a whistleblower inside Willis’ office who saw her order the redirection of anti-gang funds to inflate the budget for her Trump case.
“No, we haven’t heard back from her yet. We’ll see what we get,” said Jordan when asked about whether Willis has responded to the committee’s request for various documents, “but there’s a whistleblower in her office who we have talked to, our committee staff. And she, the whistleblower, I think she’s like four foot eleven. But Fani Willis had seven police escort her out when she fired this lady, because this lady raised the concern that Miss Willis was not spending federal funds … not following the grant the rules of the grant and the grant dollars in the appropriate manner,” he said.
“So she raised this concern and Fani Willis fired her. She’s now talking with our office, and we’ll see where that goes. And that’s why we we subpoenaed for records and documents related to this. We’ll see what we get. There’s still a few hours left in today. She also was interesting. She instead of accepting service on the subpoena, she made us send the US Marshals even though our office had talked with her office, we’ve had correspondence back and forth. She made the US Marshals take the subpoena there. So go figure this is Fani Willis,” Jordan continued, according to the American Tribune.
In a letter announcing the beginnings of its investigation, the Oversight Committee warned Willis about the serious nature of funneling federal funds away from an intended purpose in order to buttress a politically-charged prosecution of Trump.
“These allegations raise serious concerns about whether you were appropriately supervising the expenditure of federal grant funding allocated to your office and whether you took actions to conceal your office’s unlawful use of federal funds,” Jordan wrote on behalf of his committee.
Earlier this month a Fulton County judge allowed Willis to continue prosecuting the case but ordered that she dismiss Nathan Wade, a fellow prosecutor who was in the midst of a divorce when the two carried on an affair. Wade’s former attorney has testified that his relationship with Willis stretched further back than both alleged under oath, potentially perjuring Willis and putting her legal career at risk. She has also drawn a Republican challenger for her reelection as a result of the multiple controversies surrounding her.
