Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis claimed during her Thursday testimony at the hearing to disqualify her from the Georgia election case against former President Donald Trump that she took a significant amount of cash from her first election and used it to replenish her physical cash reserves. Willis claimed to use the physical cash to repay her former lover, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, for luxurious vacations.
Willis made the claim about keeping “some of the cash” from her first campaign when asked about the origin of her cash savings. The district attorney claimed she has been saving physical cash “all my life,” and gave as an example, “When I took out a large amount of money on my first campaign, I kept some of the cash of that.”
The district attorney also testified on Thursday that she lost $50,000 in that election, which she admitted left her “broke” toward the end of 2018.
Fani Willis admits a crime:
"When I took out a large amount of money on my first campaign, I kept some of the cash of that."pic.twitter.com/lliMihDfQi
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 15, 2024
Willis apparently referred to her 2018 campaign to become a Superior Court Judge in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, which she lost in a runoff election held on July 24, 2018.
On May 15, 2018, a report suggests Willis loaned her campaign $19,000. However, the document, titled a Two Business Day Report, is required to be submitted within two days of any transaction of more than $1,000 received by the candidate, and it was not received by Georgia elections staff until June 13, 2018. The document itself was additionally submitted without a date or signature.
Willis’ campaign reported that it received the loan just one week prior to the May 22, 2018 general election, during which neither she nor Judge Kevin Farmer received a majority, causing an automatic runoff election.
Though Willis went on to lose the runoff election on July 24, 2018, a campaign filing made just six days prior to Election Day revealed her campaign received another $30,000 loan.
For this loan, however, there is no Two Business Day Report available online. Willis, additionally, never provided the details of either loan in her subsequent Campaign Contribution Disclosure Statements for 2018.
It is not clear whether she loaned the campaign the $30,000 or whether it came through another source.
Additionally, it is unclear where Willis sourced the $19,000 for the documented loan, including whether she retrieved the money from the cash reserves which she testified were used to repay Wade for the luxurious vacations they shared during the span of their relationship.
Willis appointed Wade to oversee her case against Trump, and he has earned more than $650,000 while working on the case. Multiple defendants claim Willis financially benefited from her decision to appoint Wade as special prosecutor because of gifts she received.
Just over a month after her defeat, the Willis campaign report filed for December indicates it repaid $8,545.69 to the candidate and deferred a second loan repayment.
It is not clear from Willis’ campaign filing whether the campaign paid her in cash or check. If Willis was repaid via check, it also remains unclear whether she deposited the check into her bank account, or went to the issuing bank to convert the funds directly into cash, thus allowing her to add the funds to her cash reserves.
The Georgia Star News contacted the Georgia Secretary of State, which oversees elections, for comment, but a spokesman said he could not provide clarification and suggested questions about Willis’ 2018 campaign should be posed to the Georgia State Ethics Commission.
The Ethics Commission did not respond to a request by Star News for more information about the loans made to Willis’ 2018 campaign, including inquiries into the source of the $30,000 loan, and why there is no publicly available paperwork explaining the cash infusion, prior to press time.
An email address provided by the current Willis campaign on government paperwork likewise did not return a comment request from Star News that sought information about the loans and repayment.
Additionally, Star News contacted Fulton County’s government to obtain information from the district attorney’s office about her 2018 campaign, but did not receive a timely response.
At the conclusion of the second day of the hearing to determine whether Willis should be removed from the case, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered private testimony and a review of evidence that will not be made part of the public record. McAfee previously indicated Willis could be disqualified over her relationship with Wade.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
