House Republicans subpoena Georgia district attorney handling Trump case

House Republicans are escalating their standoff with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has come under scrutiny for her handling of a Georgia elections case involving former President Donald Trump.

Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) issued a subpoena Friday for Willis to hand over records, including documents and any communication, related to receiving or using federal funding since Sept. 1, 2020, according to a copy of the subpoena reviewed by POLITICO.

It’s the latest step in a larger House GOP probe into whether or not Willis used federal funds as part of her investigation into Trump, who was indicted last year on racketeering charges for attempting to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. Trump has denied the allegation.

In addition to the Georgia investigation, House Republicans have used their majority to probe nearly all of Trump’s legal cases.

Jordan, in a letter on Friday that accompanied the subpoena, said Willis’ office had failed to voluntarily comply with two previous requests for information. But Willis, in a letter to Jordan last year, accused him “abusing your authority as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary to attempt to obstruct and interfere with a Georgia criminal prosecution.”

“In our prior letters, we requested several categories of material relevant for our oversight. However, in response to the recently disclosed whistleblower allegations and as an accommodation, we are prioritizing the production of documents concerning your office’s receipt and use of federal funds,” Jordan wrote Friday.

The subpoena comes after the conservative Washington Free Beacon published audio of a former employee in the district attorney’s office telling Willis that she believed she was being retaliated against after warning a campaign aide against misusing federal grant funding.

Jordan, in his letter, said the employee was fired less than two months later and that the allegation raises “serious concerns about whether you were appropriately supervising the expenditure of federal grant funding allocated to your office and whether you took actions to conceal your office’s unlawful use of federal funds.”

Willis rebuffed the claims from her former employee in a statement on Friday, calling them “false allegations [that] are included in baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the previous administration who was terminated for cause.”

“Any examination of the records of our grant programs will find that they are highly effective and conducted in cooperation with the Department of Justice and in compliance with all Department of Justice requirements,” she added.

The letter comes as Willis has been under a growing spotlight after a lawyer for a co-defendant in the Trump case claimed Willis was having an affair with Nathan Wade, who she hired to help run the prosecution. Willis has until Friday to respond to the allegations, which include allegations she and Wade took vacations together using income that Wade earned from the Trump case.

Betsy Woodruff Swan contributed to this report.