Fani Willis requested by DOJ to address discrepancies in federal fund reporting

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s use of a high-dollar federal grant her office received in recent years has come under scrutiny after a whistleblower accusation surfaced that suggested Willis may not have used the funds for their original purpose.

Willis is now facing requests from the Department of Justice and Congress to address certain details about a $488,000 grant her office received that was designated to fund a youth center as part of Fulton County’s gang prevention efforts.

The requests came after a whistleblower named Amanda Timpson accused Willis in January of firing her after Timpson raised concerns in 2021 that a Willis aide planned to use a portion of the grant for frivolous expenses, according to a Washington Free Beacon report.

“I said, ‘You cannot do that, it’s a very, very specific grant,’” Timpson said she told Willis of the aide at the time.

Months after Timpson spoke out on the matter, the Washington Free Beacon revealed Wednesday that the DOJ said it found “inconsistencies” in Willis’s reporting on the grant money and that the department was working with her to correct them. The inconsistencies centered on a portion of the grant money that, according to Fulton County records, went toward a charity called the Offender Alumni Association. The organization told the Washington Free Beacon it did not have a record of receiving the funds.

“During our review of the award to respond to this inquiry, we have noticed some inconsistencies in what Fulton County has reported … and we are working with them to update their reporting accordingly,” a department spokesperson told the outlet.

The DOJ Office of Justice Programs did not respond to a request to confirm that it had identified inconsistencies in Willis’s federal grant reporting.

The House Judiciary Committee is also pressing Willis on her use of federal funds, including the $488,000 grant, going as far as to threaten her with contempt of Congress last month because of what the committee described as Willis’s inadequate responses.

In a letter on Feb. 23 to the committee, reviewed by the Washington Examiner, Willis dismissed Congress’s inquiry as an attempt to “harass” her and “meddle in” her prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

Willis said Timpson was a former “holdover” employee who she said has filed numerous unsuccessful lawsuits with “similar assertions” about the grant allegation since her termination, which Willis said was “for cause.”

“The House Committee on the Judiciary should not afford Ms. Timpson a forum to air erroneous claims merely because it seeks to continue its partisan efforts to target and interfere with this Office,” Willis wrote.

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In her correspondence with Congress, Willis has stood by her use of federal grant money and said she “works closely” with the DOJ on the programs the grant money funds.

Willis’s office did not respond to a request for comment.