DA taking on Donald Trump in Georgia is an ‘equal-opportunity prosecutor’

Donald Trump came to Fani Willis’ attention the very first day she entered the Fulton County district attorney’s office.

As the newly elected prosecutor walked into work that morning, Mr Trump’s now infamous phone call - where he pressured officials to “find” him “more votes” - was being broadcast on cable news.

“My very first day in this office,” she later recalled, “[and] it’s all over the TV.”

Ms Willis, an elected Democrat, has said she hoped to avoid being drawn into one of the most unprecedented cases in history.

But mere weeks later, she had publicly announced she was probing possible illegal “attempts to influence” the 2020 election results.

Ms Willis, 52, deployed one of her favourite tools to indict Mr Trump - a controversial law designed to take down mob bosses.

By her own admission, Ms Willis is “a fan” of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) laws.

She has made a name for herself bringing Rico charges against everyone from school teachers to a Grammy-winning rapper.

A seemingly fearless prosecutor, she was elected after pledging to restore integrity to the office - ousting her former mentor, and a six-term incumbent, in the process.

Rico laws originated in the 1970s as a powerful tool to take down organised crime bosses, from mafia chiefs to street gangs and even pharmaceutical executives.

Georgia’s state racketeering laws are more expansive than most, and Ms Willis has been innovative in her use of them.

She won 11 convictions – and national media attention – when she used the mobster statute in relation to the school cheating scandal.

Ms Willis has also pursued racketeering, drug and other charges against the rapper Young Thug and more than two dozen others.

But critics say she overuses Rico laws, unnecessarily complicating cases that could otherwise be tried in less time with fewer resources.

Devin Franklin, a lawyer who spent 12 years in the Fulton County public defender’s office, said using racketeering laws has a tendency to “sensationalise the cases’’.

Ms Willis has used Rico laws to charge Mr Trump and his 18 co-defendants with conspiring to conduct a “criminal enterprise”.

The charges include racketeering, violating the oath of a public officer, forgery, false statements and more.

Mr Trump has denied all wrongdoing, describing his call to Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger as a “perfect” phone call.

He has branded Ms Willis, who is black, a “racist” and a “rabid partisan”.

Ms Willis, however, describes herself as an “equal-opportunity prosecutor” who has targeted defendants regardless of race or class.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, black, white, Democrat or Republican. If you violated the law, you’re going to be charged,” she told CNN.

“She’s really a tough-on-crime liberal, which is kind of a rare bird these days,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor.

She is described by both colleagues and adversaries in court as a skilled litigator with a preacher’s gift for oratory and a talent for charming juries.

A blow to her reputation

However, Ms Willis suffered a serious reputational blow when it emerged she had a relationship with a lead prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade. 

The discovery led to an effort to disqualify her from the case and weeks of embarrassing scrutiny both in court and in the media. 

Mr Trump and his co-defendants argued Ms Willis had improperly benefited from the romance, with the couple taking luxury holidays around the world. 

Ultimately, the judge presiding over the case found there to be “legally insufficient” evidence to support the claims but acknowledged the “appearance of impropriety”. 

The judge demanded that Ms Willis either step aside from the case, along with her entire team, or remove Mr Wade before the case. Mr Wade departed the team almost immediately. 

The ruling, which criticised her “tremendous” lapse in judgement and “unprofessional manner” on the witness stand, could also taint her in the eyes of a potential jury.

Destined for the law?

Ms Willis spent most of her career as an assistant district attorney in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta and is Georgia’s most populous county.

She left for a time but returned after winning a bitter Democratic primary fight to oust her former boss and mentor Paul Howard, Georgia’s first black district attorney.

Given her upbringing, Ms Willis may always have been destined to be a lawyer.

She was raised mostly in Washington by her father, whom she said was a former Black Panther turned criminal defence lawyer. He routinely took her to court as a child

She graduated from Washington’s Howard University and found her way to Georgia, attending Emory University’s Law School. She chose to stay on in Atlanta to practice law.