OPINION:
It turns out that Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis may have paid a huge amount of taxpayer money to a chief investigator — who is also her boyfriend.
Further, he reportedly used that money to buy Ms. Willis gifts and vacations.
When the story broke, even The New York Times had to cover it. When sex, power and money combine into one story, the news media simply can’t resist — even if it ruins one of their favorite hobbies (attacking former President Donald Trump).
As a nonlawyer, I was struck instantly that Ms. Willis had almost certainly broken the law and should be subject to criminal prosecution.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer in Georgia confirmed my instinct. He sent me a whole range of crimes that may be implicated by Ms. Willis’ having misused (read stolen) public money for her private pleasures and purposes.
He suggested a preliminary review led to a series of potential federal and state criminal violations. His list included:
• Honest services fraud, 18 USC 1346 (essentially kickbacks).
• Violation of public oath (Ga. Code Ann., § 16-10-1).
• Bribery (Ga. Code Ann., § 16-10-2).
• Improper influence of a government official (Ga. Code Ann., § 16-10-5).
• Criminal conspiracy (Ga. Code Ann., § 16-4-8).
• Conspiracy to defraud government (Ga. Code Ann., § 16-10-21).
• Racketeering (Ga. Code Ann., §§ 16-14-1 through 12).
• False statements and concealment (Ga. Code Ann., § 16-10-20).
• Fulton County’s gift ban (Fulton County Code of Laws § 2-69(a)).
• Similar Georgia anti-public corruption crimes.
Given Ms. Willis’ enthusiastic pursuit of Mr. Trump and many of his associates — using a series of dubious interpretations of various laws — there is a certain irony that she may now be prosecuted under a similar wide range of criminal charges.
This entire case blew open because several of the defendants Ms. Willis went after methodically reviewed her office’s expenditures.
Their investigation led to what may be an even more shocking and powerful set of insights.
By tracking the expense reports of Ms. Willis’ boyfriend, and reviewing his justification for various trips, they learned that he had secretly coordinated with the Jan. 6 committee. Even more astonishingly, the expense reports indicated he had at least twice met with the Biden White House in developing the case against Mr. Trump and his associates.
Amazingly, the defendants’ homework may blow apart the Jan. 6 cases — and all the cases in Georgia. They may have also proved that the White House was deeply involved in coordinating these legal cases against President Biden’s political opponent.
All this devastating material has been laid out in the motion the defendants filed to disqualify Ms. Willis and her office, which you can read for yourself here.
Clearly, the Georgia case is so contaminated by corruption and political coordination that all the charges should be thrown out. Those who previously pleaded guilty should be absolved of actions taken after being pressured by a clearly corrupt prosecutor.
As for Ms. Willis, she will almost certainly be disbarred and may face prosecution and jail time.
Congress now has an obligation to dig into the corruption, lawbreaking and dishonesty of its Jan. 6 committee. Critically, Congress must also uncover how much coordination has been going on between the White House and the various cases against Mr. Trump.
It is conceivable that every one of them is contaminated by White House interference and will have to be thrown out.
Ms. Willis may be a small part of a much larger, deeply corrupt legal war against Mr. Biden’s political opponent.
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
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