A former employee of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office detailed to Georgia senators on Thursday how she was demoted and eventually fired after alleging her bosses were misspending federal grant dollars.
Amanda Timpson, who worked as director of gang prevention and intervention for the DA’s office, told members of the Special Committee on Investigations that she was retaliated against by DA Fani Willis and others for being a whistleblower about two grant programs.
“I’m here today to fight for my reputation, to fight for the youth of Fulton County but also for the truth,” said Timpson, who began working in the DA’s office in late 2018 under then-DA Paul Howard until she was fired in early 2022.
Timpson alleged that her supervisors wanted to use federal funding meant for creating a center for youth empowerment and gang prevention for computers, swag and travel, expenses she said were ineligible under program rules. Her complaints about the alleged misspending ultimately led to her being harassed, demoted and terminated from the DA’s office, she testified.
Jeff DiSantis, a spokesman for the DA’s office, said Timpson’s “claims of wrongdoing by this office are untrue. She has shopped her false claims in multiple courtrooms. Almost all have been rejected and we expect the remainder to be rejected soon.”
One of Timpson’s lawsuits was dismissed in federal court. Another, in Fulton Superior Court, is in the discovery phase, according to her attorney.
The panel’s chairman, Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, said Timpson’s testimony provided evidence of financial improprieties by the DA’s office and that lawmakers may need to draft legislation addressing that.
“We need some standards of conduct for prosecutors,” he said. “Apparently there were no guardrails in place, or none that (Willis has) followed, but she claims there’s not. The general public is just dismayed by her conduct here.”
GOP lawmakers from Atlanta to Washington have seized on Timpson’s story as they seek to keep the spotlight on Willis amid the push to disqualify her from the election interference case involving former President Donald Trump and 14 others.
The Senate investigative committee was created earlier this year as nine defendants sought to remove Willis from the Trump case due to a romantic relationship the DA had with the probe’s lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade. Legislators initially said they wanted to investigate whether Willis improperly spent any state money on trips she took with Wade.
The panel previously heard testimony from Ashleigh Merchant, the defense attorney who led the removal push, and Fulton County leaders who discussed how they appropriate local funding.
The committee is limited in how it can directly punish Willis, who is a state constitutional officer, but Cowsert has discussed subpoenaing Willis, Wade and others.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes, a Marietta attorney, has said he will represent Willis before the state investigative committee.
A trio of Senate Democrats in a recent op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called the state investigative committee a “kangaroo court that’s fixed the rules in favor of its purpose: advance a narrative beneficial to Donald Trump.”
Following Thursday’s hearing, Sen. Harold Jones, one of the committee’s Democratic members, highlighted that Timpson had no role on the prosecution team that collected evidence against Trump, nor did she have inside information about how Wade was paid.
“I heard one of the questions (asking) is she being used as a pawn,” he later told reporters, “I would say the Republicans absolutely are doing that, 100%.”
Timpson and her attorney Mario Williams vehemently disagreed.
“She came here because she wanted you all to understand the truth about her experience from her perspective,” Williams told lawmakers.
Timpson testified that when she alerted her supervisor that grant money the DA’s office received was not being used for its intended purpose, her concerns were ignored. She said despite receiving favorable recognition about her performance as a program manager at work, she was demoted to file clerk. She said she was later fired by Willis shortly after she met with Fulton County’s Office of Diversity and Civil Rights Compliance.
Timpson also testified that the office abused rules for its Junior DA program, a summer camp-style outreach program designed for at-risk youths. Even though it should have been limited to those living in Fulton County, some youths from out of state were admitted, she said, along with children of well-connected local officials.
DiSantis described Timpson as a “holdover employee from the prior administration”
“In this administration, Ms. Timpson was unsuccessful in three different positions and performed poorly under the supervision of three different supervisors,” he said.
The Georgia Senate isn’t the only body that’s taken an interest in Timpson’s story. Republicans on Capitol Hill have also highlighted it as they seek to discredit Willis and her work on the Trump case.
The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Willis for documents related to the Timpson’s complaint and has threatened to hold the DA in contempt of Congress for not complying to the satisfaction of the panel’s leaders. Two Republican U.S. senators, meanwhile, have asked Willis for information about expenditures on federal grants.
During Thursday’s hearing, Willis’ Republican challenger, Courtney Kramer, posted on X that Timpson was “a public servant who was trying to make sure that the office was following the law. Let that sink in.”
Willis, for her part, has indicated she does not plan to cooperate with the committee and suggested it does not have authority to subpoena her.
“I will not appear to anything that is unlawful, and I have not broken the law in any way,” Willis said at a campaign event with clergy members earlier this month. “I’ve said it, you know, I’ll say it amongst these leaders, I’m sorry folks get pissed off that everybody gets treated equally.”
Cowsert disagreed, telling reporters he would take the issue to the courts if he needed to.
“We think the law is clear,” he said. “The legislative branch has inherent investigative powers and we have statutory authority to issue subpoenas for documents and for testimony. The reasons that she would refuse to come here are beyond me because it just shows this narrative of her poor judgment, her refusal to comply with the law.”
Meanwhile, defendants in the election case have appealed a March ruling that allowed Willis to continue leading the prosecution. The Georgia Court of Appeals plans to hear the matter.
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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
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