“Did she misuse Georgia taxpayer money for personal benefit?” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) quipped on social media last Thursday.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been at the center of news headlines since last month after allegations of misuse of public funds came to light.
On Friday, Rep. Jordan issued a subpoena for the district attorney’s office, requesting Willis to disclose records and any communication related to the federal funding her office had received since September 1, 2020.
Additionally, Jordan condemned the district attorney for failing to voluntarily comply with their two previous demand for information.
Willis, on the other hand, responded to these requests last year, accusing the committee of “abusing” his “authority” and attempting to obstruct Georgia’s “criminal prosecution.”
“In our prior letters, we requested several categories of material relevant for our oversight. However, in response to the recently disclosed whistleblower allegations and as an accommodation, we are prioritizing the production of documents concerning your office’s receipt and use of federal funds,” Jordan wrote.
The House Judiciary Committee’s efforts to obtain these documents followed statements of Amanda Timpson, a staff from the district attorney’s office, who notified Willis of the possible misuse of grant funding from the Department of Justice by Willis’ senior staff.
According to Timpson, Willis demoted her after she went against misusing the federal grant funding.
The Washington Free Beacon published a recording of the conversation between Willis and Timpson. The district attorney’s former employee reported to Willis that Michael Cuffee, a senior aide, intended to use the federal grant to fund their “swag,” MacBook, and travel.
Timpson said two months later, armed guards escorted her out of the office, and was “abruptly terminated.”
Jordan hit Willis in a letter that accompanied the committee’s subpoena. He said, “Instead of using these federal grant funds for the intended purpose of helping at-risk youths, your office sought to use the grant funds to ‘get MacBooks … swag … [and] use it for travel,’”
“Moreover, the whistleblower’s direct supervisor stated that these planned expenditures ‘were part of [your] vision.’”
“These allegations raise serious concerns about whether you were appropriately supervising the expenditure of federal grant funding allocated to your office and whether you took actions to conceal your office’s unlawful use of federal funds,” the lawmaker pressed.
Willis denied the allegations and accused Timpson’s statements as “baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the prior administration who was terminated for cause.”
Willis’ office turned down Jordan’s subpoena and condemned their request.
Democrats are part of the problem