Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has won reelection, per The Associated Press, defeating Courtney Kramer, a former Trump White House legal intern who said the charges Willis has pursued against the former president and his allies had prompted her to run.
Fulton is the most populous county in Georgia and a Democratic stronghold. Willis raised more than eight times as much money as Kramer, The Associated Press reported a few days before Election Day, noting that no Republican had even run for district attorney in Fulton County since 2000.
Kramer, 31, was an intern in the White House counsel’s office during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Willis has for years pursued criminal charges against Trump and others who sought to overturn the 2020 election. She launched her investigation just a few months into her first term in office, shortly after Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find 11,780 votes” during a phone call on Jan. 2, 2021. A grand jury ultimately indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023.
“The resources that were used for that investigation could have been used for many other things that would have been much more beneficial for the citizens of Fulton County, and I want to give those citizens a voice, an opportunity to vote for somebody else,” Kramer said of the Trump prosecution when she launched her candidacy.
The case hit turbulence with the revelation that Willis had a past relationship with the special prosecutor she assigned to lead the case, Nathan Wade. A judge allowed Willis to continue the prosecution if Wade stepped down from the case, which he did, but the case was stalled as a result of Trump’s legal team’s appeal of that decision. A hearing is set for December.
Last month, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee tossed three counts in the indictment, including two in the case against Trump. That was on top of six counts, including three against Trump, that he dismissed earlier this year. Prosecutors from Willis’ office have asked an appeals court to reinstate those counts.
Out of 13 original counts against him, Trump currently faces eight, including the most serious, allegedly violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act. Four of Trump’s co-defendants have pleaded guilty.
Willis has faced threats to her safety due to her office’s prosecution of Trump and his allies. A man who left threatening voicemails targeting Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat was recently sentenced to nearly two years in prison, after pleading guilty in June. Another man, Marc Shultz, pleaded guilty in August to making death threats against Willis in online posts. Willis’ father said earlier this year that she has moved homes so often as a result of the threats that he doesn’t know where she lives.
Willis has also faced personal attacks. Trump has referred to her name as “Fanny, like your ass,” and Rudy Giuliani has referred to the prosecutor as a “ho.”
“I could drop the ‘ho’ part if she’d just quit and go away,” said Giuliani, who has been disbarred in New Yorkand Washington, D.C., as a result of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A judge recently ordered him to hand over several luxury items and ownership of a Manhattan penthouse apartment to two Georgia election workers who he defamed following the last presidential election.
