Trump investigation brings pressure for new prosecutor
ATLANTA — The Fulton County District Attorney’s office was in disarray when Fani Willis arrived the first week of January.
Her six-term predecessor and former boss, Paul Howard, had refused to speak to her during the transition. Staffers were on edge. And then there were the hundreds of brown file boxes.
Stuffed with paperwork from upwards of 10,000 cases, some originating as far back as the 1970s, they were stacked 7 and 8 feet high, lining the hallways and blocking doorways — a physical manifestation of the mountains of work that awaited the veteran prosecutor trying to turn around what had become a dysfunctional workplace.
Little did Willis know the storm that was about to hit. In a recorded phone call on Jan. 2, then-President Donald Trump leaned on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help “find” votes to reverse his election defeat.
Once Willis determined she had jurisdiction — and that other officers who did, including the state attorney general and U.S. attorney for Georgia’s northern district, might have conflicts — she announced her staff would investigate whether Trump or his allies, including U.S. Sen Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., illegally pressured Raffensperger.
The investigation puts Willis at the center of national debates over presidential power and election meddling. Even her admirers wonder if her years of courtroom experience have prepared her for the legal, personal and professional minefield that comes with probing a former president with a vast personal fortune and tens of millions of devoted followers.
“It’s kind of like the dog who caught the car. You’ve got to be really careful that you don’t grab that bumper and get [dragged] all over the place,” said Bob Rubin, a Decatur criminal defense attorney who taught Willis while she was a student at Emory Law School. Willis says she is up to the task. “I take no pleasure in this, and that’s what I want people to understand,” she said in an interview. “We have a lot of work to do here. I’m pushing people real hard.”
As Willis has entered the national spotlight, though, she’s aggravated some local constituents irked by her push to recuse her office from cases involving Atlanta police officers: the fatal Rayshard Brooks shooting and the tasing of two Black college students last summer.
“The people of Fulton County elected her to show leadership and be someone that would stand up to the police and prosecute these cases where there was evidence of abuse,” said Atlanta attorney Sam Starks.
The 49-year-old mother of two college-age daughters is no stranger to messy legal battles. Willis made her name as the lead prosecutor on the Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial that started in 2014, securing convictions for nearly a dozen former educators on racketeering charges.
Some critics felt the teachers, accused of correcting standardized test answers, were treated unfairly. Willis stands by her handling of the case.
Rubin, who defended one of the convicted
educators, described Willis as a “streetfighter” in the courtroom.
“She was not afraid to use every weapon to her advantage, whether it was the law or a peculiar perspective of the law,” said Rubin, who still believes his client, a former elementary school principal, got a “raw deal.” “In the courtroom, we went at it pretty hard against each other, nose-to-nose, but really, I liked her. At the end of the day it wasn’t personal.”
Willis left the DA’s office in 2018 and embarked on an unsuccessful bid to be a Fulton County Superior Court judge. Two years later, she announced her candidacy for DA, saying the office under Howard’s leadership was “broken.” She cited heavy turnover among assistant DAs and a series of “distractions” linked to her former boss.
Three past or present female employees sued Howard while he was in office, alleging harassment or discrimination. Days before the runoff, Howard agreed to a $6,500 fine for failing to disclose his role as CEO of two non-profits, one of which netted him $195,000 in city grant money. The state ethics commission accused him of 14 violations, which he admitted to in the consent agreement.
The runoff wasn’t even close, with Willis winning nearly three votes to every one Howard received. Six months later, Howard still hasn’t spoken to her, though he did leave behind a photo of the two of them taken after one of her promotions.
“I actually thought that was kind of nice,” Willis said. “Sarcastic, but nice.”
The courtroom is a setting where she’s felt comfortable ever since she was young. On Saturday mornings she would tag along with her father, an attorney and former Black Panther, as he defended clients who had been arrested while partying the evening before.
Her skills as a prosecutor are the stuff of legend in the DA’s office, said Brian C. Ross, a personal injury attorney who worked under Willis for about two years in the complex trial division and considers her a mentor.
He recalled Willis taking over a carjacking case on the very eve of trial.
“She probably got it at about 5 p.m.,” said Ross. “She started picking the jury the next morning at 9. It was a very violent crime with heavy repercussions.”
Willis won. The jury reached its verdict “in like 25 minutes,” Ross said.
Her trademark tenacity dates back to her college days, said Felicia R. Stewart, who attended Howard University and Emory Law with Willis.
“She took her education very seriously. She took her competition very seriously,” said Stewart.