Since she opened her election interference investigation against Donald Trump, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has become a favorite target of the former president’s allies.
Top Republicans in the Georgia Senate first tried to use a new state law to reprimand Willis for bringing the indictment and more recently have launched an investigation into how a backlog of cases is affecting the beleaguered Fulton County Jail.
Willis has mostly been tightlipped about the pushback — until now. In a Tuesday interview with our AJC colleagues Tamar Hallerman and Bill Rankin, the prosecutor said most of the GOP lawmakers behind the probe “don’t know what they’re talking about.” The full interview airs Thursday on the AJC’s “Breakdown” podcast.
“Those state senators should worry about the state prisons because the state prisons are out of control,” she said, adding that she’s “not responsible for the jail.”
She continued:
“It's an extremely weak attempt to add a slap at this office. And, you know, it's just politics. They worry the hero is treated the same as everybody else. And now they want to come up with foolishness."
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Tyson A. Horne/AJC
Tyson A. Horne/AJC
BIG PLANS? While Fani Willis initially planned to seek three terms as Fulton’s top prosecutor, the first-term DA said Tuesday a different role might allow her to have a greater impact on policies.
“Sometimes I wish I had the power to make decisions in other areas,” she told the AJC’s Tamar Hallerman and Bill Rankin in an interview. “And if there was something that I could do that would impact my state in a great way, you know, maybe I would consider it. But I’m still doing my work here, and I’ve got work left to do here.”
Willis is running for reelection next year, but she’s the subject of much speculation about a 2026 bid for Georgia attorney general or other higher office.
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Bob Andres/AJC
Bob Andres/AJC
HOWARD’S END? Speaking of Fani Willis, the man she defeated in her 2020 race for district attorney, former Fulton DA Paul Howard, will be on trial this week.
Jury selection starts today in a federal sexual harassment case filed against Howard by Cathy Carter, a 15-year employee of the DA’s office. The AJC’s Alexis Stevens reports Carter’s suit alleges Howard subjected her to “overt, manipulative and aggressive sexual misconduct and harassment” during her employment.
Willis worked as a subordinate to Howard for 16 years and made his conduct in office a focal point of her campaign when she ran against the six-term DA.
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Katelyn Myrick/AJC
Katelyn Myrick/AJC
NEWEST ELECTION EQUIPMENT. Election officials from across the state gathered in Athens this week for a conference and left with an unlikely piece of new gear: doses of Narcan, a medication that reverses an opioid overdose.
The Narcan was distributed in response to Fulton County’s election office receiving a letter containing fentanyl, a powerful and often-times deadly opioid. Poisoned mail is just the latest threat election workers face as the 2024 vote nears.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger talked about the challenges ahead during an appearance Tuesday at a “Politically Georgia” special event held at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta. Raffensperger joined the AJC’s Greg Bluestein and Patricia Murphy for a 30-minute question-and-answer session chronicled by reporter Mark Niesse.
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LISTEN UP. The “Politically Georgia” radio show and podcast reached a new milestone Tuesday with our first 2024 presidential candidate interview. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie joined to talk about his campaign to become the next GOP nominee, the Georgians he relies on for advice, and why he flipped on former President Donald Trump in 2020 after endorsing him for president in 2016.
The show airs live every weekday at 10 a.m. on WABE 90.1 FM, at AJC.com and at WABE.org. Catch the podcast version at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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MUG SHOT MERCH. Former President Donald Trump has already turned the infamous mug shot snapped at the Fulton County Jail into a fundraising bonanza. Now he’s looking to raise more campaign cash off his arrest on election interference charges.
Trump collected more than $7 million from merchandise featuring his scowling visage in the days after his Aug. 24 booking photo was released, Politico reports.
File photos
File photos
His campaign is now selling a set of digital trading cards priced at $99 each. Anyone who strokes a $4,653 check to buy 47 cards in a single transaction will also get a “historic” scrap of the suit he wore to the jail.
His campaign calls it “a piece of history and a testament to resilience.” You can call it another reminder of the not-so-blurred lines between his campaign for president and his legal defense.
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AJC
AJC
MOVING ON STILL. State Sen. Shawn Still has a lot on his plate as a member of the Georgia Senate who is also under indictment in Fulton County for his role as one of 16 Trump electors following the 2020 vote. The Republican now has a Democratic challenger for his Gwinnett seat, since Johns Creek native Ashwin Ramaswami on Tuesday announced his run for office in 2024.
The race would be an uphill one for a Democrat, since Still’s District 48 remains largely Republican-leaning even under the maps redrawn by the General Assembly last week.
But Ramaswami is hoping his background as a Stanford-educated computer scientist and his Georgetown law degree will convince voters it’s time to turn the page from Still, whom he’s hitting squarely as an “election denier” for former president Donald Trump. Ramaswami’s computer-science specialty? Election security.
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File photo
File photo
RAY OF LIGHT. Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple in Atlanta offered a hopeful message to lawmakers on Tuesday when he delivered the opening prayer at the U.S. Senate.
“Let us never forget that this is a time of year we all bring light and hope to despair and darkness. Let us resolve to do our share to hasten the day by taking a true measure of life, by learning to face life and judge the challenges before us, with realism, courage, and understanding,” Berg said.
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MILITARY POLICY. The U.S. Senate is poised to vote on whether to accept a compromise agreement ironed out with House leaders on the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Senate vote could happen today or Thursday and is expected to be overwhelmingly in favor of the package. If that happens, the bill goes to the House where some conservative Republicans have already found fault with what was left out of the agreement. The GOP had sought to use the legislation to defund some of President Joe Biden’s climate programs
Among the critics is U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome. She was appointed to the conference committee and had expected to have an active role in ironing out the compromise package. Greene posted on social media last week that she had no input on the final version and accused leaders of debuting a deal made “behind closed doors” with “horrible results.”
“I’m voting NO!!!” she concluded.
Tia Mitchell/AJC
Tia Mitchell/AJC
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, who also served on the conference committee, said the compromise agreement includes language from more than a dozen amendments he sponsored. The Tifton Republican said he plans to support the package when it comes to the floor.
“Georgia has nine military installations that rely on the NDAA to support their critical missions,” he said in a statement.
Congress has reauthorized the NDAA each year since its inception in 1961, making it one of the few major pieces of legislation that passes every year.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
- The U.S. House votes on a resolution condemning antisemitism on university campuses and the testimony of three Ivy League university presidents during a recent committee hearing. A vote on authorizing an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden is still tentative.
- The Senate could vote on whether to approve the conference report, a compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act.
- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds his monthly news conference on the economy where he will announce any decision on interest rate changes.
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PERSONNEL NEWS. House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, has hired veteran communications strategist Stephen Lawson as a senior adviser.
Newsletter readers will know Lawson as a longtime Republican operative with experience working for former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.
Before he moved to Georgia, Lawson was a deputy to Florida Govs. Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis. Lawson plans to continue working as a partner at Full Focus Communications.
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ATTENTION, ROAD WARRIORS: The Atlanta-Washington commute just got a bit easier, as the long-term project to upgrade security screening equipment at Hartsfield-Jackson’s domestic terminal is finished. Our AJC colleague Kelly Yamanouchi reports that it expands capacity just in time for the holiday rush.
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IT’S A BOY! Congratulations to state Rep. Phil Olaleye, who welcomed smiling baby boy Antony Rizal Olaleye last week. The Atlanta Democrat wrote on social media, “Sabrina, big brother August, and I are so very blessed. Thank God — he is always on time.”
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DOG OF THE DAY. Have you ever met dogs who act a lot like people? Then you’ll recognize the charms of Sadie and Moose Downey, the black-and-white duo who call Georgia State Board of Education chair Jason Downey their person.
Courtesy photo
Courtesy photo
Sadie, a 10-year-old black mutt, counts eating people food, relaxing on the Downey family couches and barking at the woods among her hobbies, while a reliable source tells us Moose spends his time “harassing family members, playing peek-a-boo and being incredibly lazy.”
Also, judging by the photo, Sadie does not have time for your foolishness. But we have time to name them our Dogs of the Day.
Send us your dogs of any political persuasion and location, and cats on a cat-by-cat basis, to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us at @MurphyAJC.
Courtesy photo
Courtesy photo
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AS ALWAYS, “Politically Georgia” readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com, and adam.vanbrimmer@ajc.com.
