The Fani Willis saga continues, and today, we got a whole new twist.
We previously reported that one big problem is that DA Willis broke the rules in appointing a Special Prosecutor to benefit Wade. The filing claims that Willis did not correctly represent how she would use Fulton County funds to eliminate the backlog of legal cases pending from the pandemic.
The other big problem is that DA Willis was benefiting from the funds given to the Special Prosecutor who has received “almost $1,000,000 in legal fees” from the county. According to allegations, some of those funds paid for extravagant vacations for the two.
On top of that, NBC News got a hold of a court filing from attorneys representing Nathan Wade’s estranged wife, Joynclyn Wade. That filing showed credit card statements from Nathan Wade purchasing plane tickets for himself and Willis to San Francisco and Miami.
The allegations prompted Fulton County Board of Commissioners member Bob Ellis to initiate an investigation.
“Under no circumstances should an elected official contract with or hire someone who they are in a romantic relationship with,” Commissioner Bob Ellis said in a statement, according to NBC News, adding that even in the absence of a relationship, “accepting favors and extravagant gifts from such contractors should also be considered improper.”
Well, it gets even better.
There are new allegations that Fani Willis may have fired an employee who alerted her that federal funds were being mismanaged.
From The Washington Free Beacon who broke the story:
Less than a year into her tenure as Fulton County district attorney, in 2021, Willis met with Amanda Timpson, an employee in the district attorney’s office responsible for giving nonviolent juvenile offenders “alternatives to the juvenile court system.” During their conversation, a recording of which was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, Timpson claimed to Willis that she had been demoted after attempting to stop a top Willis campaign aide from misusing federal grant money meant for a youth gang prevention initiative.
According to Timpson, the aide, Michael Cuffee, planned to use part of a $488,000 federal grant—earmarked for the creation of a Center of Youth Empowerment and Gang Prevention—to pay for “swag,” computers, and travel.
“He wanted to do things with grants that were impossible, and I kept telling him, like, ‘We can’t do that,'” Timpson told Willis in a Nov. 19, 2021, meeting. “He told everybody … ‘We’re going to get MacBooks, we’re going to get swag, we’re going to use it for travel.’ I said, ‘You cannot do that, it’s a very, very specific grant.'”
“I respect that is your assessment,” Willis responded. “And I’m not saying that your assessment is wrong.”
Later in the conversation, Willis apologized to Timpson, and said Cuffee had “failed” her administration.
Less than two months later, Willis abruptly terminated Timpson and had her escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators, according to Timpson. When Timpson filed a whistleblower complaint the following year that alleged wrongful termination, Willis’s office issued a statement describing Timpson as a “holdover from the prior administration” who was terminated because of her “failure to meet the standards of the new administration.”
Willis, who claimed she would restore “integrity” to the prosecutor’s office, appears to have some ethical issues going on.
BREAKING: @FreeBeacon has obtained audio of a whistleblower privately warning Fani Willis in 2021 that her top aide was trying to misuse federal funds.
Willis did not dispute the allegations.
56 days later, Willis fired the whistleblower and perp walked her out of the office. pic.twitter.com/YEkKIB2L5f
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) January 31, 2024
