OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Republican leaders have declared they will launch an investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis following the revelation of a letter she sent to a Democrat-controlled committee soliciting aid for her case concerning former President Donald Trump.
Just the News reported earlier in the week that the probe was launched after GOP investigators discovered a letter from Willis “in 2021 asked for the House Democrats” on the Nancy Pelosi-picked January 6th Committee “to send her evidence that would further her prosecution of Trump.”
The House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Barry. Loudermilk, R-Ga., said “it was concerned that the Democrat-run investigation led by Reps. Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney may have shared evidence such as video depositions with Willis’s office while not providing them to the Republicans that took over the House chamber in 2023,” the outlet’s report added.
The panel has accused Willis of “collusion” with the committee in one chapter of their report.
“During its initial review of records archived by the Select Committee, the Subcommittee discovered a letter from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to the Select Committee dated December 17, 2021,” the report said, according to Just the News.
“In this letter, Willis requested access to any Select Committee records relevant to her investigation into President Trump’s actions to challenge the 2020 presidential election, including ‘recordings and transcripts of witness interviews and depositions, electronic and print records of communications, and records of travel.’”
“Although no additional communications between the Select Committee and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office were archived by the Select Committee, the prospect of the Select Committee sharing video recordings of witness interviews with Willis but not this Subcommittee remains particularly concerning,” the report added.
On Friday, the Fulton County judge presiding over Willis’ case against Trump and 18 co-defendants ruled that she could continue to lead it after hearing allegations that she compromised herself over a sexual relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired, and that she and Wade lied to the court about when their relationship began.
But Judge Scott McAfee nevertheless admonished Willis over various aspects of her behavior and ordered that she either must fire Wade or remove herself and her entire team from the case.
Wade quit later in the day on Friday.
McAfee’s decision to allow Willis to continue working on her case contained seven potentially career-ending lines, according to CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.
Honig pointed out that the language in McAfee’s decision on Friday was extremely damaging to Willis’s reputation, even though Willis had submitted earlier in the morning that the decision was “pretty close to the best” that she could have expected.
“So if I’m the D.A., I’m taking this as a win. It is a win, she has survived. That is the most important thing here; I’d be breathing a sigh of relief. But Sara earlier said there’s some bruising involved — wow, is there some bruising,” began Honig.
“Let me just give you the seven, I think, most severe lines. And these are really serious findings by the judge about the D.A. and these are all verbatim from the opinion.”
He continued: “First of all, there is a, quote, ‘significant appearance of impropriety that infects the prosecution team.’ Second, ‘a tremendous lack in judgment.’ Third, ‘the unprofessional manner of the D.A.’s testimony.’ Fourth, ‘the odor of mendacity remains.’ I Googled mendacity, it means lying. Fifth, the legally improper speech that was made in the church that Laura just talked about, ‘legally improper with the effect to cast racial aspersions on the defendants.’ Sixth, the D. A. has ‘created dangerous waters for the D.A. to wade further into.’ And finally, and I think this is the most damning, “there are reasonable questions about whether the D.A. testified untruthfully.'”
