Dershowitz Cites ‘Overwhelming’ Evidence Against Fani Willis, Calls for Criminal Investigation

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., on March 1, 2024. Alex Slitz/AFP via Getty Images

Retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be on trial for some of the “worst crimes” that he’s seen prosecutors commit and called for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to lead a criminal investigation into her actions.

“She ought to be on trial for perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury, witness tampering,” Mr. Dershowitz told Newsmax in an April 2 interview. “The evidence is overwhelming that she committed perjury, including technical scientific evidence and several witnesses.”

Mr. Dershowitz’s remarks add to those made by a number of analysts, who have said that Ms. Willis perjured herself during statements she made in court last month when she claimed her relationship with former Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade didn’t begin until after his appointment to the case against former President Donald Trump.

There have also been allegations that Ms. Willis tampered with a witness by discouraging testimony.

President Trump and over a dozen other co-defendants have been charged for allegedly seeking to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County. The former president has pleaded not guilty, calling the case an underhanded attempt to thwart his 2024 comeback bid.

In January, a co-defendant of President Trump accused Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade of being in a secret relationship in which they both allegedly profited.

The pair denied any financial benefit from the relationship, while insisting they didn’t begin dating until after Mr. Wade became special prosecutor and that they broke up in the summer of 2023. While they both said that Ms. Willis either paid for things herself or used cash to reimburse him for travel expenses, they did not provide any records or receipts to back up the repayment claim.

Mr. Dershowitz previously pointed to the lack of records of repayment as a possible indication that they were lying.

“When you admit that you paid for all these trips on your credit cards, then the burden of proof shifts to the other side to demonstrate that there was payback in cash,” he said in mid-February.

“The fact that there are no records and the payments all have records but the repayments have no records gives rise to a plausible interpretation that that’s not true,” he added.

More Evidence

There’s also witness testimony pointing to possible perjury on the part of Ms. Willis.

Robin Yeartie, a former friend and co-worker of Ms. Willis, testified on Feb. 15 that she saw the two hugging and kissing long before Mr. Wade was hired in November 2021.

While Mr. Dershowitz didn’t specify what technical scientific evidence of perjury he had in mind, cell phone location data brought up in court points in that direction.

Defense attorneys submitted an affidavit from investigator Charles Mittelstadt that analyzed Mr. Wade’s cellphone data showing that he had texted and called Ms. Willis thousands of times months before he was hired in November 2021. The data also allegedly showed that he visited the neighborhood where Ms. Willis had lived numerous times in the same time period.

In regard to Mr. Dershowitz’s allegation of witness tampering, it’s likely this was in reference to a motion filed by Trump co-defendant David Shafer earlier in March. In the filing, Mr. Shafer’s attorney cited testimony from Cindi Lee Yeager, a prosecutor in nearby Cobb County, who said she had overheard Ms. Willis tell witness Terrence Bradley, Mr. Wade’s former divorce lawyer and law partner, that, “They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us.”

Still, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to back claims that Ms. Willis benefitted financially from Mr. Wade’s appointment, although he did describe their relationship as a “tremendous lapse in judgment.”

The judge then ordered that either Ms. Willis or Mr. Wade needed to stop working on the case, with Mr. Wade later resigning.

‘Open and Shut Case of Perjury’

President Trump and several codefendants appealed Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Ms. Willis, arguing in a court filing that there was “damning evidence” of a “significant appearance of impropriety” that the judge’s decision failed to rectify.

In his Tuesday interview on Newsmax, Mr. Dershowitz lent credence to this view, arguing that not only should Ms. Willis be disqualified but she should also face a criminal investigation.

“Essentially she got kickbacks for appointing this highly unqualified person to head the prosecution,” Mr. Dershowitz told the outlet.

“I sure hope the appellate court takes the case and throws her out of the case and recommends that there be a criminal investigation,” he continued, adding, “we have to have an independent prosecutor of some kind looking into what is an open and shut case of perjury.”

The Fulton County DA’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the legal scholar’s remarks.

However, Ms. Willis said in a recent CNN interview that she is “not embarrassed by anything” she’s done and stressed she did not do “anything that’s illegal.”

(L–R) Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, prosecutor Daysha Young, attorney Andrew Evans, and special prosecutor Nathan Wade listen during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case in Atlanta on March 1, 2024. Alex Slitz/AFP via Getty Images

Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for one of President Trump’s co-defendants, recently suggested that there is more evidence and new leads to be revealed during the appeals process.

Ms. Willis told CNN that her office has continued to work on the case throughout the disqualification hearings, calling the various allegations against her a delay tactic.

“While that was going on, we were writing responsive briefs, we were still doing the case in a way that it needed to be done. I don’t feel like we’ve been slowed down at all. I do think there are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming,” she told the outlet.