Politics
BREAKING: House Republicans Give Fani Willis Devastating News
After weeks of stalling, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will now be dragged in for questioning related to her potential misuse of federal funds in her election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena to Willis ordering her to sit for testimony about allegations from a whistleblower that she diverted money from other youth and gang prevention programs to cover “frivolous, unrelated expenses.”
From the Daily Caller:
“On August 24, 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary wrote to you requesting documents in the custody of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office (FCDAO) relating, in part, to its receipt and use of federal grant funds issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ),” a letter sent from House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan states. “Since that date, we have sent two additional letters, on September 27, 2023, and December 5, 2023, reiterating our requests. To date, you have failed to comply voluntarily with any of our requests.”
“In accordance with the attached Schedule instructions, you, Fani T. Willis, in your capacity as the District Attorney of Fulton County and head of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, are required to produce the following items in your possession, custody, or control, from the period of September 1, 2020, to present in unredacted form,” the letter adds.
In January the Washington Free Beacon reported on a whistleblower within Willis’s office who was fired after raising questions about the use of federal funds to conduct her investigation into President Trump and 18 co-defendants. The former aide, Amanda Timpson, claims she was first demoted after questioning why a Willis campaign aide was redirecting funds away from her youth jail diversion program. She then allegedly told Willis that the campaign staffer, Michael Cuffee, indicated he would be spending the $488,000 federal grant on “‘ swag, computers, and travel.”
“He wanted to do things with grants that were impossible, and I kept telling him, like, ‘We can’t do that,'” Timpson told Willis in a Nov. 19, 2021, meeting. “He told everybody … ‘We’re going to get MacBooks, we’re going to get swag, we’re going to use it for travel.’ I said, ‘You cannot do that, it’s a very, very specific grant.'”
“I respect that is your assessment,” Willis responded. “And I’m not saying that your assessment is wrong,” adding that Cuffee had “failed” her administration.
“According to reporting about the whistleblower’s allegations, instead of using these federal grant funds for the intended purpose of helping at-risk youths, your office sought to use the grant funds to ‘get Macbooks,. . . swag, . . . [and] use it for travel.’ Moreover, the whistleblower’s direct supervisor stated that these planned expenditures ‘were part of [your]vision.’ The whistleblower has stated that she warned you that the use of the federal grant funds in this manner was “impossible” because the terms of the grant were “very, very specific,” Jordan wrote to Willis.
“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.”
The probe by House Republicans is part of a larger effort to slow down or stymie Willis’s investigation into Trump, which critics have claimed is politically motivated. On Monday, Georgia’s Republican Lt. Governor Burt Jones and the Republican-controlled State Senate announced the formation of a new select committee with subpoena power to review whether Willis and Wade carried on a clandestine affair. The move comes after Republican Governor Brian Kemp refused to entertain a criminal complaint against Willis filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), saying a state ethics board is the only proper venue for such matters.