Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks to the media after a Grand Jury brought back indictments against former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies of their try and overturn the state’s 2020 election results, in Atlanta, Georgia, August 14, 2023.
Elijah Nouvelage | Reuters
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee opened an investigation into the work of the Atlanta prosecutor who has criminally charged Donald Trump and others with interfering within the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
The House committee on Thursday sent Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis a letter asking for documents and knowledge, including any communications her office had with Jack Smith, the federal special counsel prosecuting Trump for charges related to attempting to overturn the national results of the 2020 election.
“Your indictment and prosecution implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether or not they are politically motivated,” Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote Willis.
“The indictment appears to be an try and use state criminal law to manage the conduct of federal officers acting of their official capacities,” Jordan wrote.
Along with asking for communications with Smith, Jordan asked for documents related to the DA office’s use of federal funds, and her communications with any officials within the federal executive branch.
Jordan asked Willis to supply the knowledge by Sept. 7.
Trump is as a consequence of give up at an Atlanta jail on Thursday evening to be booked within the case. Eighteen other people, including lawyers who promoted false claims concerning the 2020 election, also were indicted within the case.
The lion’s share of Jordan’s letter is devoted to justifying why a congressional committee has the suitable to demand details about a state criminal investigation.
Traditionally, the committee’s jurisdiction is restricted to oversight of federal courts and federal officials.
But Jordan claims that Willis’ case, which concerns Trump’s effort to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia’s election, falls under his committee’s purview because she is targeting actions of then-federal officials, amongst them Trump and his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The House Judiciary Committee earlier this yr demanded similar information from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., who’s prosecuting Trump in one other criminal case.
Trump is charged in Latest York state Supreme Court by Bragg with falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case. He’s currently leading polls amongst all contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
In his letter, Jordan noted that Willis had “identified plenty of acts that you just claim were committed in furtherance of this purported criminal enterprise” by Trump and others.
Those include “the then-White House Chief of Staff asking a Member of Congress for the phone variety of the Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; (2) the then-President tweeting that hearings within the Georgia legislature were being aired on a news channel and commenting on those hearings; and (3) quite a few acts going down in other states not involving the conduct of the 2020 election in Georgia or the counting of the votes solid in Georgia.”
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Christina Wilkie
