The Justice Department has uncovered "inconsistencies" in a $480,000 federal grant used by Fulton County DA Fani Willis, two years after she fired a whistleblower who warned against misusing it to pay for "swag," computers, and travel.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the grant is riddled with reporting discrepancies from Willis' office.
"During our review of the award to respond to this inquiry, we have noticed some inconsistencies in what Fulton County has reported to [the Federal Subaward Reporting System] and we are working with them to update their reporting accordingly," a DOJ spox told the outlet on Friday.
No further details were provided regarding the $488,000 grant - which was intended for the creation of a Center for Youth Empowerment and Gang Prevention in Atlanta. While the grant ended in September of last year, the center was never opened.
Jim Jordan
In early February, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed Willis for records related to the grant, as well as whistleblower allegations made by fired staffer Amanda Timpson, who was listed as the grant director until Willis fired her in January 2022.
Jordan threatened to hold Willis in contempt of Congress on March 14 after the district attorney responded to his subpoena with a "narrow set of documents" that had nothing to do with Timpson’s whistleblower allegations. Willis wrote in response that Jordan’s demands were "unreasonable and uncustomary" and suggested his investigation was an effort to derail her election interference case against former president Donald Trump. -Free Beacon
According to Timpson, she was demoted after attempting to stop a top Willis campaign aide, Michael Cuffee, from using part of the $488,000 grant to pay for "swag," computers and travel.
"He wanted to do things with grants that were impossible, and I kept telling him, like, 'We can't do that,'" Timpson wrote Willis in a Nov. 19, 2021 meeting. "He told everybody … 'We're going to get MacBooks, we're going to get swag, we're going to use it for travel.' I said, 'You cannot do that, it's a very, very specific grant.'"
"I respect that is your assessment," Willis replied. "And I'm not saying that your assessment is wrong."
Willis later apologized to Timpson and said that Cuffee had "failed" her administration - yet less than two months later, Timpson was abruptly fired and escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators, according to Timpson.
After she filed a wrongful termination whistleblower complaint, Willis' office said in a statement that Timpson was a "holdover from the prior administration" who was fired due to her "failure to meet the standards of the new administration."
According to the Free Beacon:
Fulton County records show that Willis’s office transferred $88,900 from the federal gang prevention grant to the Offender Alumni Association. But the group’s administrative director, Toni Barnett, told the Free Beacon that she had no idea why the county was reporting making those payments to her group in 2022 and 2023.
"I have no idea where that information is coming from," Barnett told the outlet on March 15. "I have no idea why you’re calling or where you’re getting that information from. You need to go to that government resource and you need to let that validate whatever you want to say or print. Because I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Read the rest of the report here...