Fani Willis facts for kids

Fani Taifa Willis (/fɑːniː/, FAH-nee; born 1971) is the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, which contains most of Atlanta. She is the first woman to hold the office.

Early life

Willis was born in Inglewood, California. Her father was a member of the Black Panthers and a criminal defense attorney. When Willis was in the first grade, her family moved to Washington, D.C. Her parents divorced, and her mother eventually moved back to California. Willis mostly stayed with her father. Willis studied political science at Howard University, graduating cum laude in 1993, then moved to Atlanta to attend Emory University School of Law, graduating in 1996 with a Juris Doctor.

She spent 16 years as a prosecutor in the Fulton County district attorney's office. Her most prominent case was her prosecution of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal. Willis, an assistant district attorney at the time, served as lead prosecutor in the 2014 to 2015 trial of twelve educators accused of correcting answers entered by students to inflate the scores of state administered standardized tests. Eleven of the twelve were convicted of racketeering under Georgia's RICO statute in April 2015.

In 2018, she went into private practice. That year, she ran for a seat on the Fulton County Superior Court, and lost. In 2019, Willis became chief municipal judge for South Fulton, Georgia.

District attorney of Fulton County

In 2020, Willis was elected district attorney for Fulton County, defeating Paul Howard Jr., a six-term incumbent and her former boss. In this role she is known for successfully using Georgia's RICO statute to prosecute non-mobsters, and, as of 2023, is using the same statute to prosecute former president Donald Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators.

2020 election influence investigation

On February 10, 2021, Willis launched a criminal investigation into Donald Trump's attempts to influence Georgia election officials—including the governor, the attorney general, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger via a telephone call—to "find" enough votes to override Joe Biden's win in that state and thus undo Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. In January 2022, she requested a special grand jury to consider charges of election interference by Trump and his allies. In May, a 26-member special grand jury was given investigative authority and subpoena power and tasked with submitting a report to the judge and Willis on whether a crime was committed.

Willis sent target letters to people she is investigating related to the fake electors plot. These include two Republican officials—State Senator Brandon Beach and David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party—and the 16 people who falsely presented themselves as electors. She also sent a target letter to State Senator Burt Jones, but then a judge said she could not target Jones due to a conflict of interest which was created by Willis hosting a fundraiser for the democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

After hearing from 75 witnesses—including former US Senator Kelly Loeffler, former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, and possibly Sidney Powell—the special grand jury completed its work and was dissolved on January 9, 2023. On February 16, following a judge's order, parts of the report were released. The judge did not permit the release of recommendations for possible charges, intending to preserve the "due process" for anyone who might be indicted later. Several days later, the foreperson of the grand jury hinted that the recommendations were not "some giant plot twist" and that no one would be "surprised".

On April 24, 2023, Willis announced she would announce decisions to charge Trump and his associates during the Georgia Superior Courts' fourth term, perhaps as soon as July or August 2023. Willis's office indicted Trump and 18 others on 41 charges on August 14, 2023. Their mugshots, including Trump's, were taken at Fulton County Jail.

Personal life

On the day she took the Georgia bar exam, Willis met Fred Willis, who was working an extra job as a videographer. They married in 1996 and have two daughters together. They divorced in 2005.