Fulton DA denies rumors circulated by Trump

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday flatly denied that she had a relationship with a former client and other rumors spread by former President Donald Trump in a new campaign ad.

In an email to her colleagues, obtained by The Atlanta JournalConstitution, Willis called the information in a television spot bankrolled by the Trump campaign “derogatory and false.” She urged her staff not to respond to any of the allegations.

“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, sent early Wednesday. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”

A Willis spokesman declined to comment.

In the minute-long ad, titled “The Fraud Squad,” the narrator refers to Willis as “Biden’s newest lackey.” It says that Willis presided over a sharp rise of violent crimes in Atlanta and highlights her office being disqualified from investigating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in her long-running election interference case due to a political conflict of interest.

But the most incendiary allegation is that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” It cites as evidence a Jan. 25, 2023, article in Rolling Stone.

But the ad gets several facts wrong. The Rolling Stone article is an interview with YSL Mondo, one of Willis’ former clients in 2019 when she worked as a defense attorney, and it doesn’t make reference to any sort of affair.

In the interview, Mondo is quoted saying that he had some “auntie-to-nephew, mother-toson type of talks” with Willis.

But the article notes that the two didn’t talk after his case was resolved.

After Willis was elected DA, her office opened a racketeering case against the rapper Young Thug and the alleged street gang Young Slime Life. YSL Mondo co-founded the Young Slime Life music crew with Young Thug in the early 2010s, according to Rolling Stone, and in the article commented that the Willis who defended him is not the same person who would pursue such a racketeering case.

Trump made a similar baseless relationship allegation against Willis during a Tuesday campaign rally in Windham, N.H.