Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reemerged in the spotlight last year after her office charged 19 co-defendants, including Donald Trump, regarding efforts by the former president and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
She campaigned on the premise of restoring integrity to the Fulton County district attorney’s office, was elected after ousting six-term incumbent Paul Howard and inherited a stack of backlogged cases.
Within a month, her office was firing off letters to Georgia officials asking them to preserve documents related to attempts to influence the state’s 2020 election.
Besides leading the election subversion probe, Willis has also brought anti-corruption indictments against Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug and his associates. The district attorney has spoken fondly of RICO – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – and has used it in unorthodox ways to bring charges against school officials and musicians, including Young Thug.
From California by way of Washington, DC, Willis obtained her undergraduate degree from Howard University in 1992 and graduated from Emory School of Law in 1996, according to her biography. Her name, Fani, is Swahili and means “prosperous,” and her father was a lawyer and Black Panther.
According to a South Atlanta Magazine profile, she worked in the private sector for five years before becoming assistant district attorney for Fulton County in 2001.
Read more about Fulton County’s first female district attorney.
