DOJ Finds 'Inconsistencies' in Fani Willis' Use of Federal Grant Funds Amid Congressional Probe
The Department of Justice has found "inconsistencies" regarding the appropriation of federal grant funds used by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' office, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
During our review of the award to respond to this inquiry, we have noticed some inconsistencies in what Fulton County has reported to [the Federal Subaward Reporting System] and we are working with them to update their reporting accordingly.
The shocking revelations come to light two years after Willis terminated a whistleblower who had warned Wills that her office was attempting to misuse nearly half a million dollars awarded in a federal grant for a youth gang prevention initiative to instead pay for, "swag," Mac Book computers, and travel. Amanda Timpson, who was listed as the grant director, said she was abruptly fired by Willis less than two months after reporting the intended misuse of funds to Willis. Timpson claims that she was escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators. She later filed a whistleblower complaint that alleged wrongful termination.
The grant was intended to be used for the creation of a Center for Youth Empowerment and Gang Prevention in Atlanta, but while the grant ended in September 2023, the center was never opened.
The $488,000 federal grant that Timpson warned Willis about is now indicated by DOJ's Office of Justice Programs as plagued with reporting discrepancies from Willis’ office. These errors were only disclosed by federal authorities after initially providing contradictory statements regarding the allocation of the grants by Willis' office.
Rep. Jordan threatened to hold Willis in contempt of Congress after her response to the subpoena only offered a "narrow set of documents," according to Rep. Jordan, that didn't include any of the relevant information related to the Timpson allegations.
In response to Jordan's letter, Willis wrote that Jordan’s demands were,
unreasonable and uncustomary and would require this government office to divert resources from our primary purpose of prosecuting crime.
More Trouble for Fani Willis as Another Hammer Is Set to Drop From the House Judiciary Committee
Inquires from the Beacon to the DOJ centered around discrepancies in payments Willis' office may have made to the Offender Alumni Association, an Alabama-based charity staffed by former inmates. While Fulton County records show that Willis’ office transferred $88,900 from the federal grant to the Offender Alumni Association, the group’s administrative director, Toni Barnett, reported having no understanding of why the county would make those reports.
On March 15, Barret told the Beacon, "I have no idea where that information is coming from."
On March 27, a DOJ spokeswoman told the Beacon that federal authorities had no records on any subgrant payments from Willis’ office to the Offender Alumni Association, only to later contradict this statement on April 1, writing,
Upon further research, we found that the Offender Alumni Association is included as a Fulton County subgrantee in subsequent documents. We apologize for this initial error.
Thus far, the DOJ has refused to provide documents detailing these payments, and Willis' office has offered no comment to the Beacon.
Of course, this is not the first time Fani Willis has been scrutinized for the use of public funding. In the high-profile RICO trial her office brought against former President Donald Trump, defendants challenged her use of public monies to hire Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor, after a romantic relationship between the pair came to light.
In March, Fulton County Superior Court judge Scott McAfee wrote in an order that an "odor of mendacity remains" after weeks of public hearings over Willis’s relationship with Wade. The ruling suggested that Willis could remain on the case if Wade withdrew, and Wade subsequently provided Willis with his resignation.
McAfee wrote,
The trial court then went further, characterizing it is a ‘financial cloud of impropriety’.“Stopping just short of calling their testimony regarding these alleged cash payments an outright fabrication, the trial court half-heartedly said that her testimony on this issue was ‘not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable.'
Between the outrageous public testimony Willis gave regarding how the paper currency known as cash is a "black thing," McAfee's rulings that note a "financial cloud of impropriety", her less-than-substantive response to Congressional subpoenas, and the contradictory versions of the use of federal grants in her office, one thing does remain clear: Fani runs a fuzzy fiduciary franchise in Fulton County.
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