MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — Fani Willis called out her critics in a defiant speech Thursday at a black church outside Atlanta, naming no names but appearing to point to Donald Trump and others who have challenged Georgia prosecutors’ investigation into the have attacked the former president’s efforts. to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, filed charges against Trump and 18 of his allies last year. She has faced months of criticism for her handling of the case — some of which included racist or sexist tropes — and for the hiring of a special prosecutor, now no longer on the case, with whom she had a romantic relationship.
Willis told a gathering of black church clergy and congregants that friends often express concern about her.
“I live the experience of a black woman being attacked and oversexualized,” she said. “Look, I’m so tired of hearing these idiots call my name ‘fanny’ in an attempt to humiliate me, because the name, like crazy schoolboys, reminds them of a woman’s backside, of her backside.”
Trump has used that statement to mock Willis — whose first name is pronounced FAH’-nee — most notably at a rally in Ohio in March, when he said “fanny, like your ass” when mentioning her name. His campaign did not immediately respond. Responding to a request for comment Thursday, Willis said her father, “a strong, educated, conscious black man,” gave her the name Fani Taifa, which she said means “prosperous people” in Swahili.
Willis’s candor in response to critics is not new. But her out-of-court statements have been seized by Trump lawyers and admonished by the judge in the case, which is largely on hold as an appeals court in Georgia assesses whether she should be allowed to remain in it.
At the Georgia AME Church’s annual planning meeting, Willis told the crowd gathered in the sanctuary of a church in suburban Marietta that friends often express concern about the attacks on her, but she shrugs off the ugliness.
‘What I want to say to you here is that you don’t have to worry about insults from me. I promise I’m not worried about that,” she told the supportive audience, shouting affirmations throughout her 25-minute remarks. “I’m too busy working fifteen hours a day trying to use every talent God has given me to accomplish my God-given purpose.”
Willis also said she is working hard “to hold accountable everyone – all of them, there are no exceptions – who come into our community and break the law.” That reflects her standard answer when asked about the prosecution of a former president: that no one is above the law.
The August indictment accuses Trump and the others of participating in an elaborate scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which Trump narrowly lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
Republican lawmakers in Atlanta and Washington have attacked her since the indictment and opened investigations into her office. She has had a particularly testy exchange with U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who has questioned her motivations and demanded she produce documents.
On Thursday, she appeared to take another swipe at Jordan, saying: “We have politicians who don’t spend time achieving their chosen goals. In fact, we have a clown in Washington DC who was elected for the purpose of making his community safer and passing laws. But he has been there for seventeen years and has passed zero laws.”
Jordan entered Congress in 2007, seventeen years ago. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lawyers for Trump and others have pointed to a speech Willis gave in January at a historic black church in Atlanta, in which she said she inappropriately brought race and God into the case, potentially biasing potential jurors against their clients. These arguments follow an ongoing effort to remove Willis and her office from the election interference prosecution or have the case dismissed entirely.
Willis’ takedown effort began with the revelation that she had been romantically involved with attorney Nathan Wade, whom she had hired as a special prosecutor for the case. Defense attorneys argued that Willis improperly profited from the case when Wade used his earnings to take her on vacation, resulting in a conflict of interest.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled in March that there was no conflict that should force Willis off the case, but he said there was an “appearance of impropriety.” He allowed Willis to stay on the case as long as Wade did not, and the special prosecutor resigned hours later.
The Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case last month, and lawyers for Trump asked the court earlier this week to hear oral arguments. Willis’ team filed a motion Wednesday to dismiss the appeal, arguing there is insufficient evidence to overturn the lower court’s order.
The case against Trump and the other eight defendants involved in the appeal has been put on hold by the appeals court while it reviews the lower court’s ruling. That means the case against Trump, one of four criminal cases against the former president, will almost certainly not be tried before the November general election, when Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee for president.
