Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis attends a Harrison Floyd bond revocation hearing at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on Nov. 21, 2023.
Dennis Byron | Reuters
WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has subpoenaed District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County, Georgia, demanding documents from her office following allegations that Willis fired a whistleblower who tried to stop a top campaign aide from misusing federal funds.
The subpoena, obtained by NBC News, is part of a broader probe by Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Republicans into whether Willis used federal funds in conducting her more-than-two-year investigation into former President Donald Trump, who was indicted in Fulton County last year on charges that he attempted to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
In a letter Friday, Jordan says Willis has failed to comply with two earlier requests for documents related to her office’s use of federal grant money. The subpoena calls on the district attorney’s office to provide documents and communications “referring or relating to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s receipt and use of federal funds” and “referring or relating to any allegations of the misuse of federal funds.”
Willis’ office has condemned Jordan’s requests, writing last year in a letter to him that there is “no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter.”
Jordan’s push for documents follows allegations that the district attorney’s office retaliated against an employee who tried to stop what she said was misuse of Justice Department grant funding by a top Willis campaign aide.
The former employee in the district attorney’s office told Willis that she was demoted after she warned a Willis campaign aide against misusing federal grant funding earmarked for a youth gang prevention effort, according to a recording of the call reported by the conservative Washington Free Beacon. Two months later, the employee was “abruptly terminated” and “escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators,” Jordan’s letter says, quoting the report.
“Instead of using these federal grant funds for the intended purpose of helping at-risk youths, your office sought to use the grant funds to ‘get Macbooks … swag … [and] use it for travel,'” Jordan wrote. “Moreover, the whistleblower’s direct supervisor stated that these planned expenditures ‘were part of [your] vision.'”
“These allegations raise serious concerns about whether you were appropriately supervising the expenditure of federal grant funding allocated to your office and whether you took actions to conceal your office’s unlawful use of federal funds,” he added.
Willis called the allegations “false” in a statement, saying they were included in “baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the prior administration who was terminated for cause.”
The statement said courts have found no merit in the claims, adding, “We expect the same result in any pending litigation.”
“Any examination of the records of our grant programs will find that they are highly effective and conducted in cooperation with the Department of Justice and in compliance with all Department of Justice requirements,” the statement said.
Willis faces broader scrutiny related to her prosecution of Trump in the Georgia election interference case after a co-defendant alleged that she improperly benefited from the hiring of an outside attorney who is alleged to be Willis’ romantic partner.
— Blayne Alexander contributed.
