Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis started 2024 as nothing less than a national Democratic superstar.
The fearless DA successfully brought what looked like the strongest criminal case against President Donald Trump in the country, a 41-count racketeering case accusing him and his allies of illegally trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 elections. A highly touted book, “Find me the Votes,” put Willis on the cover and cast her as the David to Trump’s Goliath. And any conversation about rising stars in the Georgia Democratic politics invariably included Willis as one with international visibility, a national fundraising base and serious statewide potential among Democratic voters down the road.
But just a week into that year, Willis and the entire Trump case were rocked by a mind-boggling accusation that turned out to be true — the DA had begun a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the same married prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. After two days of tabloid-flavored court proceedings wild enough to be an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show,” Willis was eventually removed from the case by the Georgia Court of Appeals over the mere appearance of impropriety that their affair created.
Last week, the sputtering case was finally put on ice, officially taken out of Willis’ hands by the Georgia Supreme Court and sent to the dustbin of the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council. The same group that took nearly two years to decide not to prosecute Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the case will now be tasked with finding a prosecutor somewhere in the state with the time, money and appetite to pick up where Willis left off.
Don’t hold your breath.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State College of Law, said Willis should have known the scrutiny she was bound to be under and acted accordingly.
“The idea that a local district attorney was going to take on the former president of the United States and some of his most powerful and well-known allies in the country and not make sure that every ‘t’ was crossed and ‘i’ was dotted and nothing remotely was done inside that office that was beyond reproach is laughable.”
In other words, Kreis said, “If you come for the king, you best not miss.”
The Supreme Court decision finalizing her removal was the latest blow for Willis in a year that has had many. Along with the Trump case debacle, Willis’ office finally brought to a close the YSL murder case, Willis’ other massive racketeering case that she started since she took office. That case limped to a close without a murder conviction from any of the original charges.
Like the Trump case, Willis targeted a powerful force, in this case Atlanta’s famous rap community, putting all artists on notice in a news conference after launching the indictments.
“I have some legal advice: don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used — or at least get out of my county,” she said.
The alleged gang case included 28 defendants, eight murder charges, a 10-month jury selection process, and 175 prosecution witnesses. The result was the longest trial in state history, with 19 guilty pleas but none for the most serious charges. Young Thug, the accused ringleader of an alleged gang-centered crime ring, received 15 years of probation and moved to Florida.
By the end of the saga in June, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that legal observers called the events that unfolded in and out of the courtroom a “circus” and an embarrassment. The mother of one murder victim called the outcome “a long way from justice.”
Also a long way from justice is the outcome of the election interference case, which included charges against Trump campaign allies for allegedly breaching Coffee County voting machines, as well as harassing Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Above and beyond the case against Trump, those allegations deserve a thorough investigation and resolution or risk being a green light for repeat behavior in the future.
The good news for Willis — and there is some — is that apart from the high-profile RICO cases, crime in the city of Atlanta is going in the right direction. The city’s homicide rate is down 32% from this time last year, which is down from the year before that and even better than the 17% drop nationwide.
Fulton County voters rewarded that and returned Willis to office in the 2024 elections with 68% of the vote well after the Nathan Wade scandal broke.
Finally, if Georgia politics have proven anything in the last five years, it’s that anything is possible.
If Trump can be booked and fingerprinted at the Fulton County Jail, only to win the state and the White House one year later, then there is no infraction voters won’t forgive. If Willis has any future political ambitions, and she hasn’t said if she does, she’d have the base of support that has stayed with her so far.
Tharon Johnson, a Democratic strategist, said Willis has never expressed electoral ambitions to him other than “being a great prosecutor and putting bad people in jail.” But her victory over longtime incumbent Paul Howard in 2020, an “it-factor” at campaign events, and her national profile after indicting Trump trust her onto Democrats’ shortlists of future contenders anyway.
She’s not on the shortlists now. But Johnson added, down the road, “I’d never count her out.”
Staff writer Tamar Hallerman contributed to this column.
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