Fani Willis’ Office Flagged for Potentially ‘High-Risk’ Spending Practices

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office was recently flagged for potentially “high risk” spending practices, according to a new report.

Willis, whose office is leading the prosecution of former President Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the key swing state of Georgia, has been facing mounting scrutiny from critics since she was at the center of a potential ethics violation related to her romantic relationship with a special prosecutor in her office, Nathan Wade. Wade ultimately resigned from the case.

The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has accused Willis of targeting him for political purposes. Since launching the Trump investigation, her conduct has faced heightened scrutiny from conservative critics, including congressional Republicans who have raised questions about her use of federal funds.

According to a report of the Fulton County Procurement Review produced by North Carolina-based accounting firm Cherry Bekaert and published on April 4, the Fulton County sheriff’s office and the Fulton County district attorney’s office were rated as having a “high-risk level” for their procurement and spending activities.

The report, which specifies that the review itself was not an audit and was not seeking wrongdoing, said the review was intended to provide “a sense of the county procurement system by interviewing key officials and a diverse sampling of departments/agencies based on suggestions of the Office of the County Auditor.”

The report added that Willis’ office had used prosecutorial discretion in purchasing decisions and that there was reduced accountability over the purchasing tendencies of some constitutional offices and elected offices, leading to an increased risk of damage to the reputation of the county.

“We were informed that the use of prosecutorial discretion has sometimes moved past securing services such as expert witness testimony during the course of a trial, to items such as gun holsters for agents and office supplies and other items that likely could have been planned for and obtained through the Department of Purchasing,” the report reads.

The report stated that some constitutional officers and other elected officials have special or unique business needs that “if not handled or accommodated within County procurement policies/processes can lead them to seek alternative procurement methods without established procurement policies and procedures or oversight and lacking in transparency…This lack of accountability could damage the County’s reputation and erode public trust if perceived as mismanagement or inadequate oversight of public funds.”

While the report found the county’s overall risk level to be low as far as procurement, it recommends reducing alternative procurement methods and increasing oversight to prevent the risk of financial mismanagement or misuse of funds to improve the risk levels.

Newsweek has reached out to the Fulton County district attorney’s office via email for comment.

Willis is also facing new scrutiny after the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week reportedly confirmed they have found “inconsistencies” in how her office has spent federal grant money, according to a report from The Washington Free Beacon. However, specific details about what inconsistencies the DOJ found, what the specific grant was intended for, or what the funds may have been used for remained unconfirmed.

In addition, Willis has previously sparred with Representative Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, over her office’s use of grant funds.

In February, Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Willis’ office requesting documents relating to her office’s receipt and use of federal funds, threatening to hold her in contempt of Congress if she did not provide further documents by March 28.

However, in her own letter, Willis responded that her office had “already provided you with substantial information about our programs that are funded via federal grants.”

The letter added: “Further, as I expressed to you in my letter dated February 23, 2024, this office is in the process of producing relevant documents to you on a rolling basis and is undertaking a good faith approach to provide you with responsive information about our federal grant funding.”

Her office also wrote that Jordan’s request of “extensive document demands,” is “unreasonable and uncustomary and would require this government office to divert resources from our primary purpose of prosecuting crime.” She added that the congressman’s efforts “will not derail” Trump’s election interference trial.