Donald Trump slams Fulton DA Fani Willis for ‘political witch hunt’
Ex-president defends ‘perfect’ phone call with Secretary of State Raffensperger; says Atlanta is nation’s murder capital
ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - Former President Donald Trump slammed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis late Monday afternoon, accusing her of conducting a “strictly political witch hunt” as she pursues an investigation into alleged election interfering in the 2020 presidential vote count.
In a statement, the nation’s 45th president also took aim at Atlanta as “number 1 in the country in murders and heinous crimes, especially on a per capita basis - even worse than now-fabled Chicago.
“Yet yet the District Attorney there is spending almost all of her waking hours, which aren’t many, on attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J. Trump, who got more votes in 2020 than any sitting president in the history of the United States.”
Last year, Willis opened a criminal investigation “into attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election.” A special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request. In court filings last month, she alleged “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”
Willis’ investigation revolves around an alleged plot involving 16 Republicans who served as fake electors, one of whom has been identified as state Sen. Burt Jones, a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor this fall.
Gov. Brian Kemp has also been called to testify before the grand jury, but Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney has agreed to allow Kemp to testify after this year’s midterm elections, set for Nov. 8.
Last month, Kemp filed the motion to quash the subpoena on the same day Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, testified before that same grand jury.
Kemp is facing a reelection challenge from Democrat Stacey Abrams, who he defeated in 2018′s open gubernatorial race by only a few thousand votes, an election that Abrams has yet to concede.
Trump also defended his now-famous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger a few days after the last presidential election. Willis, he said, “is basing her potential claims on trying to find a tiny word or phrase (that isn’t there) during an absolutely PERFECT phone call, concerning widespread Election Fraud in Georgia, with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and many lawyers and other officials who were knowingly on the line, had no problems with the call, and didn’t voice any objections or complaints about anything that I said on the call which could be construed as inappropriate.”
Back in June, Raffensperger told a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud “were false.”
Georgia’s secretary of state, along with Gabriel Sterling, the office’s chief operating officer, appeared before the Democrat-led House Select Committee when the commission resumed its round of nationally televised public hearings.
Raffensperger told the committee the Nov. 6, 2020, election went “remarkably smooth,” with average ballot-casting wait times between two to three minutes statewide.
“I felt we had a successful election,” Raffensperger said.
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