Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis concealed her investigation into former President Donald Trump in her budget request related to an accumulation of cases, officials said during a Friday hearing.
A Trump co-defendant in the Georgia election interference case accused Willis in a January motion of not receiving approval from the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to appoint her former lover Nathan Wade as special prosecutor, and that she paid him using funds requested to clear a backlog of cases from the COVID-19 pandemic. Fulton County Board of Commissioners Robb Pitts and county Chief Financial Officer Sharon Whitmore said during the hearing that Willis never disclosed she would use the funds to probe Trump.
The COVID-19 Case Resolution Project commenced in December of 2021 to solve a backlog of over 140,000 open and active cases that piled up during the pandemic, according to the Fulton County government. The county received $75 million for the project, according to the National Association of Counties.
“So she hadn’t really told you how she spent the money?” Georgia Senate Majority Leader Bill Cowsert asked later, to which Pitts responded “no sir.”
Pitts clarified that the budget was for the entire justice system and not just for Willis, and answered affirmatively when asked if his board distributed “many millions of dollars” to the district attorney “to get caught up on a backlog of criminal prosecutions.”
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“And when you did that, there was no mention of any election integrity case, was there?” Cowsert asked.
“I believe that’s correct,” Pitts responded.
Whitmore added that any election integrity case “for additional resources … would have come through as an enhancement request.”
“So, as a commission, you weren’t aware that you were funding an election interference case, certainly not before 2023, which would have been three years after the election?” Cowsert followed up.
“I think that’s correct,” Pitts answered.
Willis announced in a letter on February 11, 2021, that she had opened a criminal investigation into Trump for alleged election interference.
“Whatever part of that $75 million that she received, and how much was used for the backlog, how much was used for the YSL case, how much was used for the election interference case, we don’t know. And we’re not being given any information, other than with the backlog,” Pitts said during the hearing. “That’s probably easier to quantify. I don’t know how she would give us, or any district attorney, for that matter, would give us a report for how a case is going until it’s concluded.”
Pitts confirmed she could have told him how the money was being spent, but did not. He also clarified she was not required to because she is a constitutional officer.
Earlier in the hearing, Pitts testified that the board was “not advised of the hiring of the — and not that it was required — of a special prosecutor nor the payment, hourly rate, whatever the rate was.”
“We were just following the law and obviously I like to have more information, but that was a law at the time and is the law at the time as I understand the law,” he said.
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Willis appointed Wade in November 2021 and allegedly gave him a “lucrative” contract that she benefited from because he took her on trips and cruises using the money he earned from the position, according to the motion.
Willis did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
