The news went from bad to worse for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis Friday.
A week after being permanently removed from the election interference case she began against President Donald Trump, the New York Times reported that Trump’s own Justice Department had subpoenaed records related to Willis’ travel.
Why the department had asked for the records is not known, but the news came one day after the Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey, following Trump vow to jail his “enemies.” One of those enemies is Fani Willis.
It was a striking turn of events for Willis, who started 2024 as nothing less than a national Democratic superstar.
The DA had successfully brought what looked like the strongest criminal case against President Donald Trump in the country, a 41-count racketeering case accusing him and his allies of illegally trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 elections. A highly touted book, “Find me the Votes,” put Willis on the cover and cast her as the David to Trump’s Goliath. And any conversation about rising stars in the Georgia Democratic politics invariably included Willis as one with international visibility, a national fundraising base and serious statewide potential among Democratic voters down the road.
But just a week into that year, Willis and the entire Trump case were rocked by a mind-boggling accusation that turned out to be true — the DA had begun a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the same married prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. After two days of tabloid-flavored court proceedings wild enough to be an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show,” Willis was eventually removed from the case by the Georgia Court of Appeals over the mere appearance of impropriety that their affair created.
Last week, the sputtering case was finally put on ice, officially taken out of Willis’ hands by the Georgia Supreme Court and sent to the dustbin of the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council. The same group that took nearly two years to decide not to prosecute Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the case will now be tasked with finding a prosecutor somewhere in the state with the time, money and appetite to pick up where Willis left off.
Don’t hold your breath.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State College of Law, said Willis should have known the scrutiny she was bound to be under and acted accordingly.
“The idea that a local district attorney was going to take on the former president of the United States and some of his most powerful and well-known allies in the country and not make sure that every ‘t’ was crossed and ‘i’ was dotted and nothing remotely was done inside that office that was beyond reproach is laughable.”
In other words, Kreis said, “If you come for the king, you best not miss.”
The Supreme Court decision finalizing her removal was the latest blow for Willis in a year that has had many. Along with the Trump case debacle, Willis’ office finally brought to a close the YSL murder case, Willis’ other massive racketeering case that she started since she took office. That case limped to a close without a murder conviction from any of the original charges.
Like the Trump case, Willis targeted a powerful force, in this case Atlanta’s famous rap community, putting all artists on notice in a news conference after launching the indictments.
“I have some legal advice: don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used — or at least get out of my county,” she said.
By the end of the saga in June, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that legal observers called the events that unfolded in and out of the courtroom a “circus” and an embarrassment. The mother of one murder victim called the outcome “a long way from justice.”
Also a long way from justice is the outcome of the election interference case, which included charges against Trump campaign allies for allegedly breaching Coffee County voting machines, as well as harassing Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Above and beyond the case against Trump, those allegations deserve a thorough investigation and resolution or risk being a green light for repeat behavior in the future.
The good news for Willis — and there is some — is that apart from the high-profile RICO cases, crime in the city of Atlanta is going in the right direction. The city’s homicide rate is down 32% from this time last year, which is down from the year before that and even better than the 17% drop nationwide.
Fulton County voters rewarded that and returned Willis to office in the 2024 elections with 68% of the vote well after the Nathan Wade scandal broke.
Tharon Johnson, a Democratic strategist, said Willis has never expressed higher electoral ambitions to him other than “being a great prosecutor and putting bad people in jail.” But her victory over longtime incumbent Paul Howard in 2020, an “it-factor” at campaign events, and her national profile after indicting Trump trust her onto Democrats’ shortlists of future contenders anyway.
She’s not on the shortlists now. But Johnson added, down the road, “I’d never count her out.”
But Friday’s news about the Justice Department subpoena changes the conversation entirely. Although there was no illegality ever alleged during Willis’ removal proceedings, Trump has shown he is more than willing to go after the prosecutors who went after him, including Fani Willis.
Staff writer Tamar Hallerman contributed to this column.
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