{"id":355810,"date":"2025-12-18T09:52:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355810\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T09:52:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:52:16","slug":"fani-willis-defends-trump-prosecution-at-contentious-georgia-hearing-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355810\/","title":{"rendered":"Fani Willis defends Trump prosecution at contentious Georgia hearing | Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis testified on Wednesday at a combative Georgia state senate committee about her prosecution of Donald Trump<\/a> for election interference.<\/p>\n

The state senate created the special committee in early 2024 to investigate Willis after the revelation that she had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, special prosecutor in the Trump case, which ultimately derailed the prosecution of the now-re-elected president.<\/p>\n

Senators initially wanted to know if the two had improperly benefitted financially from the relationship. That inquiry expanded after Trump\u2019s win in 2024, looking for signs that Willis had coordinated with the January 6 congressional committee while using federal grant money to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want something to investigate as a legislature? Investigate how many times they\u2019ve called me the N-word,\u201d Willis said during her contentious testimony. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you investigate them writing on my house? Why don\u2019t you investigate the fact that my house has been swatted? If you want something to do with your time that makes sense. And you can use all this in your campaign ad \u2013 you attacked Fani Willis. What have you done, sir? Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee has the power to amend Georgia<\/a> law and create new legislation, but no power to sanction Willis directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what happened in this case,\u201d said state senator Greg Dolezal, vice-chairman of the special committee on investigations and a Republican candidate for Georgia\u2019s lieutenant governor. \u201cWe laid out a timeline today of coordination with the J6 committee through Nathan Wade\u2019s billing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dolezal was referring to the House January 6 committee, which unanimously voted in 2022 to refer Trump and his lawyer John Eastman to the US Department of Justice for prosecution. Eastman was subsequently one of 19 people indicted in Fulton county in the election interference racketeering case.<\/p>\n

In previous testimony before the committee, Wade said he said that he had been in Washington while the January 6 committee met, and records of his billing note that he had met with the committee.<\/p>\n

Dolezal took note of Willis\u2019s combative testimony, both during and after the hearing. \u201cThe DA wants to make this about everything other than the fact that they coordinated with the White House to bring lawfare against President Trump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

From Willis\u2019s perspective, the committee\u2019s questions were connected to the inquiries of the House judiciary committee and Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who began an inquiry into Willis\u2019s prosecution of Trump, questioning its political motivation and alleging misuse of federal funds.<\/p>\n

Willis asked Dolezal mid-hearing: \u201cAre you and Jim Jordan working together?\u201d Dolezal said he had no contact with him.<\/p>\n

Committees in the US House and Senate have demanded documents from Willis\u2019s office, which she has either ignored or resisted to date, although the end of the election interference case may change her legal calculus.<\/p>\n

Dolezal showed documents indicating that Wade had been paid from forfeiture money. Willis said her understanding was that he had been paid from professional services funds, but that she essentially \u201cturned in a bill\u201d to the county and let them sort it out.<\/p>\n

Dolezal then asked why she hired outside counsel for the Trump case.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we were drowning,\u201d she replied. All her attorneys had major cases, with the prosecution of the murders of Kennedy Maxie and Secoriea Turner \u2013 two children \u2013 of the highest priority, she said. \u201cIt became obvious to me that I needed a lawyer that could manage this team,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nine attorneys were working on the case at the peak, Willis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut different people are needed for different things, and the people of Fulton County elected me to make those decisions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At times, Dolezal cut off Willis\u2019s microphone and tried to silence the objections of former governor Roy Barnes, who sat beside her as her counsel.<\/p>\n

The White House has directed prosecutors to attack Trump\u2019s perceived political enemies, with indictments attempted against Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, former FBI director James Comey and others this year. Dolezal said he has not spoken with federal officials about the state investigation, but \u201cmy guess is that they\u2019re going to find this link to the January 6th commission relatively interesting and I think that they\u2019re also going to probably look at the use of the grant funds\u201d.<\/p>\n

Willis said she would be undeterred by threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not Marjorie Taylor Greene,\u201d Willis said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to quit in a month because someone threatened me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis testified on Wednesday at a combative Georgia state senate committee about her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-355810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}