Fani Willis, Letitia James Face Probe Over Donald Trump Cases
Left: Fani Willis looks on during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on March 1, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia. Right: New York State Attorney General Letitia James attends a local St Patricks Parade, March 17, 2024, in Staten Island, New York.
Fani Willis and Letitia James, two prosecutors involved in legal actions against former President Donald Trump are among those facing a probe surrounding their communications with the Department of Justice.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has asked the DOJ to provide communications between the department and Willis, the Fulton County district attorney and New York Attorney General James. Bailey has also asked the department to hand over activity and communications between the department and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith.
Willis, James, Bragg, and Smith are prosecuting Trump in four criminal indictments and a civil case.
Willis is prosecuting Trump and others accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. James successfully prosecuted Trump in his civil fraud case which found Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization liable for a scheme in which the value of Trump’s net worth and assets were unlawfully inflated to obtain more favorable business deals.
Meanwhile, Smith alleges Trump worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election, won by President Joe Biden. He is also prosecuting the former president in his classified documents case in which he is accused of retaining national security information after leaving the White House.
The final case, led by Bragg, concerns Trump allegedly falsifying business records over hush money payments to former adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair secret in the weeks before his 2016 election. The case is currently in its fourth week of trial and is expected to last six weeks.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024, has denied any wrongdoing across all cases and has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges against him.
Newsweek contacted representatives for Willis and James by email, Smith and the DOJ by website form and Bragg by phone to comment on this story outside of business hours.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Bailey said his office had “reason to believe Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice is the headquarters of the illicit prosecutions against President Trump.”
He said: “The investigations and subsequent prosecutions of former President Donald J. Trump appear to have been conducted in coordination with the United States Department of Justice.”
In another post, he alleged the legal actions “have been weaponized to keep President Trump sidelined from the political arena.” He vowed to “fight for President Trump until he is back in the White House.”
Speaking to Newsweek, Todd Landman, a professor of political science at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom said the probe has implications for all the aforementioned cases.
He said: “The motivations to do this are evident from the tweet, but it is perfectly legitimate to ask the question. The genesis of the Manhattan case of course was during the Trump administration, which was then accelerated by Alvin Bragg, where the indictments were decided by a grand jury.”
Landman said the other cases were launched after Trump lost the 2020 election. “If the investigation reveals any political pressure to bring them, then this could have implications for all the cases. The DOJ will need to demonstrate that it followed all protocols, carried out investigations to obtain evidence, and crafted indictments based on the evidence and the absence of direction from the Biden administration.”
He said: “In Georgia, the investigation was led from the DA’s office and the indictment resulted from a grand jury. The DA’s role has been adjudicated and is under appeal.”
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