This thread takes another turn onto Bullshit Avenue… but we all knew it was bullshit to begin with. Didn’t we?
GBI speaks out on Fani Willis investigation claims
January 18, 2024
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) confirmed to Newsweek that it is not investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Willis, who is prosecuting former president Donald Trump and others over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, has come under scrutiny after being accused of engaging in an "improper" relationship with a special prosecutor she hired for the case.
The allegations of professional impropriety were made in a motion filed last week by Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney representing Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer who was among the 18 people charged alongside Trump in the case last year. Roman is seeking to have the indictment against him dismissed and to disqualify Willis and Wade and their offices from further prosecuting the case.
Some conservatives speculated on social media that the GBI has launched an investigation into Willis as a result of the allegations.
Jack Posobiec, a Trump-supporting conservative activist, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the GBI had allegedly launched an investigation into Willis.
"There is no GBI investigation" into Willis, a spokesperson for the bureau told Newsweek in an email.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said on Friday that he is awaiting a response to the filing from the district attorney's office and expects to set a hearing to look into the matter in the coming weeks.
Newsweek has contacted the district attorney's office for comment via email.
Merchant's filing alleges that Willis "has been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship" with Wade, a private lawyer she hired to help prosecute the case and that the pair have taken several trips together during the time Wade was being paid by Willis' office. It also questions Wade's qualifications for the job.
The filing offered no evidence of the alleged relationship or trips that Willis and Wade had allegedly taken together.
In her first public remarks since the allegations were made, Willis on Sunday pushed back against her critics.
The Associated Press reported that she told the congregation of Big Bethel AME Church that she had "penned a letter to my heavenly Father" at a low point in recent days.
"You did not tell me as a woman of color, it would not matter what I did. My motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked," she said in her speech, much of which was framed as a conversation with God.
Though she did address the allegations of an improper relationship, she called Wade—without mentioning him by name—a "superstar, a great friend and a great lawyer."
She said she hired three special prosecutors for the election case—a white man, a white woman and a Black man—who are all paid the same hourly rate. No one has questioned the qualifications of the white lawyers, she said.
Update 1/18/23, 6:45 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.