ATLANTA (AP) – District Attorney investigating whether former President Donald Trump should face charges for trying to pressure Georgia’s election chief to change presidential runoff results in his favor has a reputation for being a tough veteran of the chamber, not only as a prosecutor, but also as a lawyer and defense judge.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was sworn into office last month after winning a resounding 2020 election victory over his former boss, entered national spotlight Wednesday when letters addressed to senior officials state revealed that his office is investigating if they tried to illegally influence the 2020 state election. This includes the January 2 phone call in which Trump was recorded asking the Georgia Secretary of State to overturn his defeat.
Trump’s prosecution will likely prove Willis is an action that defines his career and is fraught with risks, said Atlanta attorney Robert James, a former district attorney in neighboring DeKalb County. The components of a highly democratic Atlanta would demand aggressive prosecution. The former Republican president would likely unleash an army of lawyers to defend him. And news coverage would examine every step or wrong step.
“No one should be confused about getting into a whirlpool,” James said. “If it’s what you choose to do based on the facts and evidence, from what I know of her as a prosecutor, she’s smart enough and tough enough to handle it.”
In her first weeks of work, Willis has already been criticized for trying to file two high-profile cases against police officers, including a fatal shooting. But fellow lawyers who have faced him in court say he is a skilled litigant who is not afraid of difficult cases.
“She’s a tough, tough trial lawyer,” Atlanta defense attorney Page Pate said. “I would never question his ethics. I would never question his diligence or his intelligence. She’s a bulldog when she thinks she’s on the right side. “
Willis worked for 17 years as a district assistant to Paul Howard, who was Georgia’s first black DA when he took office in 1997. Before challenging Howard for his job in 2020, Willis spent a short time as a lawyer. criminal defender and judge of the municipal court.
With an aggressive campaign in which he accused Howard of mismanagement, Willis beat him in the August election for the Democratic candidacy, garnering nearly 72% of the vote. With no Republicans at the polls, Willis won in November.
In his most notable case led by Howard, Willis was the chief prosecutor filing charges against nearly three dozen Atlanta public school educators accused of a scam scandal. In April 2015, after a difficult trial that lasted for months, a jury convicted 11 former educators of batons for their role in a plan to inflate students ’scores on standardized exams.
Pate, who defended one of the accused educators, said Howard attacked the case and should have lost. But Willis and his co-counselor, he said, “put this thing together, worked day and night to make it what it was.”
The new district attorney has been on fire for trying to unload a couple of cases against Atlanta police. One is agents accused of dragging two black college students out of a car during May protests over racial injustice. The other is about two officers charged in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, a July 12 black man while trying to escape arrest for drunk driving.
Last month, Willis asked Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr to reassign cases to an outside prosecutor, arguing that his predecessor had acted improperly in cases, including his politicization during his re-election campaign. Carr refused to transfer the cases.
Although some lawyers said Willis had good reason to try to deny his office, his attempt outraged members of Brooks’ family.
“Not only did you hurt me, but you hurt everyone who counted on you to do the right thing,” Brooks ’widow, Tomika Miller, told a news conference last week. “You say don’t run away from hard cases. But, girl, you ran away from this one. ”
Shean Williams, an Atlanta civil rights lawyer representing the family of a man killed in a shooting other than police who was prosecuted by Willis’ office, said he understands the desire for those prosecuted to be prosecuted. by the local district attorney. He applauded Willis for investigating Trump’s phone call, and said he trusts him with the hope that he will hold police officers and others accountable.
It is not known whether Willis will seek charges against Trump or anyone else in connection with the election.
Trump’s top adviser Jason Miller has already denied the investigation, saying it is a continuation of a “witch hunt” by Democrats against the former president.
Although Willis’ letters to state officials do not target Trump, prosecutor’s spokesman Jeff DiSantis confirmed that, among other things, investigators are studying the phone call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state. Brad Raffensperger.
Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, can be heard in the call rejecting Trump’s repeated calls for him to change the state-certified results of the presidential election, which President Joe Biden won with about 12,000 votes.
“In most cases, you would have a kind of case where one person claims that another party said something,” said Cathy Cox, dean of law school at Mercer University and former Georgia Secretary of State. “But you have a tape of Trump’s real words. There is no controversy over what he said. “
Regardless, in cases against celebrities and public officials like Trump, even getting a grand jury indictment to allow a case to go to trial can be difficult, said James, the former county attorney for DeKalb. This is because citizens who hear such cases often have difficulty being impartial about famous defendants, he said.
“Ultimately, as a prosecutor, your job is to prosecute cases without fear, favor, or affection,” James said. “Look at the law, look at the facts and compare the two.”
___
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala contributed from Atlanta.