As the national tide turns in President-elect Donald Trump’s favor, Fulton County DA Fani Willis is the last woman standing in his way — but she isn’t likely to last long.
Willis is prosecuting the only court case left against Trump before he returns to office in January, over alleged election interference in Georgia.
Federal cases into the returning president’s involvement in the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington DC and his alleged hoarding of classified documents were both dropped after he won the presidential election.
A lot has changed from one year ago when Willis, 53 — the first woman elected as Fulton County DA in 2021 — was riding high as the prosecutor set to take down Trump in a blockbuster high-profile RICO racketeering case.
Although Willis appears adamant she will stay the course, she could potentially be kicked off the case by a body who are investigating it or usurped by the state Supreme Court, who are likely to step in and close it, according to sources.
“Fani doesn’t see how she’s headed for a brick wall, she’s going full tilt with vengeance and emotions,” one local defense lawyer who knows her told The Post.
“She’s still so full of herself and hasn’t learned her lesson yet. She doesn’t realize she is her own demise and she’s the reason everything’s falling apart.”
Willis – who won re-election for a second term as DA in November – has remained defiant and ignored a subpoena in September from a special senate committee looking into the case, refusing to show up for a hearing when was supposed to testify.
Last week, a Georgia appeals court abruptly canceled oral arguments scheduled for next month in the case and Trump’s lawyers are likely cite the federal end to the election interference charges against him to get the Georgia case thrown out.
“I would be shocked if it wasn’t (dismissed) but Fani has an ego bigger than the entire state so who knows,” a source close to the Willis investigations told The Post.
Representatives for Willis and Wade did respond to requests for comment from The Post for this article.
Willis, the daughter of a Black Panther-turned-criminal defense attorney, blew up her own reputation in Jan. 2024 when it came out that she had hired her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, a criminal defense lawyer with no prior experience with felony cases, to be a special prosecutor on the Trump case. Wade, who operates out of a basement office in a local industrial park, was allegedly paid thousands more than the other qualified lawyers on the team by Willis’ office.
Despite the scandal which engulfed Willis and effectively derailed the case, she still keeps an Official Fani Store online selling personalized merchandise, including “On My Grind: Madam’s Coffee,” T-shirts with the words “Fani T. Willis Fan Club,” a “Fani T. Willis Integrity Matters” button, as well as framed posters, hoodies and mugs with her name and photo.
Meanwhile, another high-profile case Willis is involved in — a sprawling and costly trial over Atlanta area rapper Young Thug and his associates in the group YSL – Young Slime Life — is also going astray.
Her decision to prosecute Young Thug and YSL under RICO statutes, as if the rapper and his associates were a Mafia-level criminal gang also backfired, several sources close to the case told The Post. The original indictment charged 28 people with conspiring to violate Georgia’s RICO act but only six defendants were part of the trial that began one year ago.
Jurors began deliberating this week are considering whether to convict Shannon Stillwell and Deamonte Kendrick, who raps as Yak Gotti, on gang, murder, drug and gun charges. The other four defendants, including Young Thug, took plea deals in October which one source close to the case told The Post were “far better deals” than they had been offered at the start.
“No doubt this case has been a fiasco,” Doug Weinstein, the attorney representing Yak Gotti told The Post. “There were about 50 mistrial requests alone and repeated instances that bordered on prosecutorial misconduct. The judge scolded the prosecutors regularly. They were unprepared and disorganized. And while Fani Willis was not the prosecutor in charge, she chose the one who was and the buck stops with Fani.”
“Fani Willis wanted to appear as being tough on crime,” a commenter in a forum online about the case posted. “She thought a famous rapper high profile case would bolster her image, so they went after Thug without real evidence and that’s why the case is a complete clusterf–k.”
In the Trump case, Nathan Wade was forced to drop out after a hearing in February instigated by Trump’s defense team over Willis’ apparent conflict of interest in hiring her boyfriend.
Both Wade and Willis testified at the hearing they were no longer romantically involved. However, eyebrows were raised in September when they turned up together after Willis’ daughter was pulled over for driving while using her cellphone. Cops found she had a revoked license and arrested her.
Some sources told The Post they believe Wade and Willis are still together.
At the same time, Wade is said to be acting in an advisory capacity for another of his protégés, incoming Cobb County DA Sonya Allen. The new DA had most recently worked under Willis at the Fulton County DA’s office and prior to that was legal counsel to the Cobb County Sheriff. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.
Allen, rumored to have been a one-time paramour of Wade, came under fire alongside him in 2020 when she hired him to investigate suspicious deaths at the Cobb County jail. However, Wade ended his work at the jail without ever issuing a report or showing any documentation of what he did.
Last week the Justice Dept released a scathing 150-page report based on a year of investigating Fulton County Jail, painting a Dickensian picture of horrifying conditions there. Among other things, a mentally ill inmate died, apparently partly as a result of being plagued by lice and by bedbugs.
Willis opponents told The Post they blame a huge backlog of cases on Willis because her office spent so much time and resources on the YSL and Trump cases, leading to overcrowded jails.
But even those who criticize Willis say they still believe she has a future.
“The optics on all of this are just not good for Fani,” Dwight Thomas, a veteran criminal defense attorney in Atlanta told The Post. “I don’t think the Trump trial will ever happen, even if she tries to get it postponed to 2029.
“She’s made some mistakes but at the same time she’s a good lawyer and I think she has aspirations to go further. Maybe even as a law professor somewhere. I would not write her off.”
