Following the GOP-controlled state Senate’s opening of an investigation into District Attorney Fani Willis’s office and professional conduct this week, Willis is under increased pressure.
A Georgia state Senate committee convened again on Friday “to hear testimony about her hiring of Wade, a former special prosecutor in Donald Trump’s Georgia election interference case,” Newsweek reported, citing Atlanta News First, a local publication. This put the top prosecutor in Fulton County under investigation.
According to the publication, the group discussed using campaign finances and the timeframe of Willis and Wade’s relationship. It also said that the committee would question Chief Financial Officer Sharon Whitmore and Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts about their consent to Willis hiring Wade.
Additionally, Newsweek added:
Willis is prosecuting Trump and 18 others accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. The Republican lost the state by roughly 12,000 votes.
But in the last few months, attention has turned away from Trump to Willis, who found herself embroiled in a scandal pertaining to a romantic relationship she had with Wade, a special prosecutor she hired in the case. It was argued that the relationship was improper and should disqualify Willis from continuing to lead the case. She was allowed to remain on the condition that Wade was removed and he resigned, but the decision to keep Willis on the case is being appealed.
Republicans in the Georgia state Senate formed a special committee earlier this year with the intention of “enacting new laws or amending existing ones” that would target the district attorney and “thoroughly investigate the allegations of misconduct” against Willis and her “potential conflicts of interest and misuse of public funds.”
The head of the committee, Republican Bill Cowsert, told Atlanta News First that the public loses faith in the impartiality of the criminal justice system if they believe that prosecutors are pursuing cases so their partners can amass wealth. Our responsibility is to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, not to pursue any individual.
Defense attorneys leveled more charges of impropriety against Willis’ office towards the end of last month, this time in relation to the rapper Young Thug’s YSL trial.
Young Thug’s true name is Jeffrey Williams, and his attorney, Keith Adams, is defending him. Adams raised concerns about what Assistant District Attorney Adriane Love allegedly “misrepresented” when it came to the inclusion of a 17-second video as evidence in the trial. It was still unclear exactly what the video was about.
Lead prosecutor Love is leading the RICO case against Williams and 27 other defendants. In May 2022, Willis released the lengthy indictment, which claimed Williams was the leader of the Atlanta-based criminal group Young Slime Life (YSL), which is connected to the Bloods.
Adams said during the trial that Love told the judge that people in the background of the video could only be heard repeating “yeah, yeah, yeah.” Adams countered that the people in the video were actually audible saying other things like “snitching b*****” and “I’m going to tell a lie on God.”
“If she wins the motion, ultimately, she wins. But you don’t do it standing there, three feet from you, in your face, and lying to the court. And that’s what she did, she knew what she was doing and it’s not right,” Adams said regarding Love’s portrayal of the video.
Unlike Adams, Glanville did not accuse Love of lying to the court, even though he agreed that her account of the video was not totally true.
“What you did tell me, Ms. Love, wasn’t the entirety of what was purportedly on [the video.] It did have other statements on it. It’s different if you had told me, ‘Judge, there’s statements on there. Probably need to listen for yourself.’ Not just ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’” he said in court, according to Newsweek.
Love retorted that she just missed the other comments made in the video.
