After indicting former president Donald Trump and 18 other people on charges of racketeering related to the 2020 election, an increasing number of state Republican lawmakers in Georgia are considering measures to prevent Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump.
Newsweek reported on Wednesday that discussions to have Willis removed from office or face investigations and impeachment hearings over claims of a partisan investigation against the former president and front-runner in the 2024 GOP primary were in progress “shortly after the indictment against Trump and others was filed.”
GOP lawmakers are examining a number of options, including making use of a bill that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed in May, which would enable them to create a new commission with the power to dismiss county prosecutors who are found unable to carry out their “constitutional and statutory duties.”
The Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PAQC), which will start receiving complaints about prosecutors on October 1, was established, according to a statement made at the time by Kemp’s office, to serve as a “valuable oversight mechanism” for district attorneys in the state.
Kemp said, “I won’t stand by while dedicated law enforcement officers are greeted with resistance from rogue or incompetent prosecutors who refuse to uphold the law. dedicated law enforcement officers routinely risk their lives to investigate, confront, and arrest criminal perpetrators.
The establishment of the PAQC, he continued, “will help make our communities safer by holding prosecutors accountable who are driven more by out-of-touch politics than by a commitment to their duties.”
After the statute was enacted, four district attorneys sued to have it overturned on the grounds that it violated both the Georgia state constitution and the U.S. constitution, according to Newsweek.
GOP Georgia state senator Clint Dixon announced on Facebook on August 21 that he would ask the PAQC to look into Willis for allegedly using Trump as a political target and for having a “unabashed goal to become some sort of leftist celebrity.”
Dixon stated, “We can ask the Prosecutorial Oversight Committee to look into and take action against Fani Willis and her efforts to weaponize the legal system against political opponents once they are appointed in October.
He added, “This is our best measure, and I will be prepared to request that probe.
Regarding worries that Willis’ prosecution is political, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he heard from a very “reliable source” that Willis was given the order by “someone in Washington” to indict Trump on the Monday before grand jurors were supposed to return the following day during an interview on Real America’s Voice streaming network with host Charlie Kirk earlier this month.
He hypothesised that the reason for the haste was to divert attention from a circumstance involving David Weiss, the U.S. attorney who had spent years looking into Hunter Biden but decided not to press any actual charges, shortly after Weiss was named a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland days earlier.
“I’m told by a trustworthy source that on Friday night, someone in Washington called the Atlanta district attorney and urged him or her to file charges on Monday. He noted that it was “hearsay” and said, “We have to cover up all the mistakes we just made with Weiss.”
Gingrich said, “And she replied, supposedly, ‘My jurors aren’t coming back until Tuesday.
You failed to hear me. He said, echoing the purported Washington sources, “You have to on Monday.”
Gingrich said, quoting Willis, “‘But they’re not gonna grab her before noon. “They responded, ‘That doesn’t matter. This indicates that it will be eight, nine, or ten o’clock, the woman remarked. It doesn’t matter, they remarked. We require a shift in the news away from Weiss.