Fulton County ethics board won't hear complaints against Fani Willis

A Fulton County, Georgia, ethics board scheduled to hear complaints filed against District Attorney Fani Willis on Thursday scrapped those plans after finding it lacked jurisdiction.

The Fulton County Board of Ethics was scheduled to hear two complaints against Willis after a co-defendant of former President Trump in the Georgia election interference case alleged Willis had an improper affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired to prosecute Trump. However, days before the board convened on Thursday, the meeting agenda was updated to remove consideration of those complaints. 

At Thursday's meeting, Chairman Daraka Satcher announced the board lacked jurisdiction over the complaints because Willis is a state constitutional officer, not a county official, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

"The Fulton County Code of Ethics, our code of ethics, only applies to county officers and employees," Satcher said in a prepared statement. He said the Georgia State Ethics Commission is the proper body to review the complaints against Willis.

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Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis winks before being sworn in to testify at the hearing about an allegedly improper relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. (Screenshot/Fox News)

Last year, Willis indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants, including Michael Roman, a GOP political operative who first filed motions alleging Willis financially benefited from her romantic entanglement with Wade.

A state judge is currently weighing evidence against Willis’ alleged impropriety and whether she and her team should be disqualified from the case. 

At the same time, state lawmakers have formed a special Senate committee with subpoena power to investigate claims against the district attorney. 

The two complaints filed with the ethics board are separate from the disqualification proceedings and the state Senate investigation.

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Special prosecutor Nathan Wade testifies during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on Feb. 15. (Alyssa Pointer-Pool/Getty Images)

Two individuals, Gregory Mantell and Steven Kramer, filed complaints in January and February, respectively, alleging numerous ethics violations by Willis.

Mantell, who founded the Substack blog Investigative News Service, filed his complaint against Willis on Jan. 27. According to Newsweek, Mantell claims the district attorney's office improperly denied his records request for expense reports for 2021-2023 and all contracts and payments made to Wade during those years. He had also requested records pertaining to $14.6 million in awards for the Department of Justice, Newsweek reported.

Kramer's lengthy complaint raises questions about the hiring of Wade, the affair, Wade's compensation, money spent on dates and trips, the possibility that the relationship created a hostile workplace environment and whether taxpayer dollars paid to Wade might have been better spent, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.

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"The extra resources and financial costs for the court and the district attorney’s office, both paid for by Fulton County taxpayers like me, are to deal with this improper relationship," Kramer wrote in the Feb. 14 complaint. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a staunch Trump supporter, said she also filed two ethics complaints against Willis and was looking forward to the hearing. 

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Had the Fulton County ethics board found Willis to be in violation of the county ethics code, she would have faced a $1,000 fine. 

However, since the board determined Willis is outside its jurisdiction, she will not be reprimanded.