By Stacy M Brown,
Senior National Correspondent for NNPA Newswire,
@StacyBrownMedia
(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – Georgia’s political landscape remains ablaze as Republicans in the state seek ways to avenge District Attorney Fani Willis’ recent indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants. The controversy has sparked heated debate about the interface between politics and the judiciary.
Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, a prominent Republican, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that GOP leaders are considering Senate legislative hearings to see if Willis is using their authority for political ends. The move follows her sweeping indictment on illegal crimes that has rocked Georgia’s legal landscape to its foundations and threatens to turn the 2024 presidential race on its head. Gooch stressed that Senate Bill 92, a recently passed law that allows a state body to investigate and remove prosecutors found to be acting improperly, could serve as a powerful tool for Trump’s allies to review Willis’ use of public resources.
“We think she’s definitely tainted,” Gooch said. “She’s politicizing it, and we want to make sure these people get a fair trial and a fair settlement.”
The Republican initiatives represent just a fraction of the broader effort by Trump’s allies in Georgia and in Congress to retaliate against Willis and other top prosecutors handling Trump’s ongoing criminal cases. Twice indicted and four times indicted, Trump faces 91 felonies in four jurisdictions related to his 2020 loss to Joe Biden and his alleged misappropriation of classified documents. Earlier this year, a civil court found Trump responsible for sexually assaulting an author and journalist decades earlier
Noted Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has asked the House Judiciary Committee to investigate alleged federal funding of Willis’ office and any possible coordination with White House officials. Greene has even floated the idea of a federal investigation into Willis’s actions. Meanwhile, US Rep. Andrew Clyde, also from Georgia, plans to use an upcoming budget bill to cut federal funding for Willis, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and federal special counsel Jack Smith, who have been spearheading the pending legal action against Trump .
However, Gooch was quick to acknowledge that there were limits to Republican efforts to rebuke Willis. Along with other party leaders, he condemned a petition by Republican State Senator Colton Moore during his first term to force a special session of the Legislature to impeach the District Attorney. Such action would require the support of three-fifths of the legislature, including Democratic members.
“We want to make sure we calm down, we look at things consciously and do it in a mature way,” Gooch said, underscoring the need for a measured approach. He added that he’d had repeated conversations with Moore, asking him to refrain from making derogatory remarks about fellow Republicans.
“There are a lot of angry people on both sides of this issue in this state,” Gooch told the newspaper. “But there is still a majority of the Republican base who feel there was fraud in the 2020 election, and they feel it has not been fully properly verified and investigated. And that’s why many of these people are still upset today. They don’t feel like they’ve been heard. And I think Colton Moore resonates with those people and they support what he’s saying, but maybe not in the way he says it and the way he’s in the hall.”
In contrast, Moore remains steadfast and unapologetic. He insists his fellow GOP members should be outraged at the indictment of fellow senator Shawn Still, who was among the defendants in the Georgia indictment. Still maintains his innocence and insists he did nothing wrong in acting as a fraudulent GOP voter.
“To hear that I need to tone it down as I encourage my colleagues to do their legislative duty is absolutely ridiculous,” Moore said. “And I hope the people of Georgia see what’s going on.”
In a recent appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast, Moore issued a stark warning of the possible consequences of not overturning Willis’s criminal prosecution. “I don’t want a civil war. I don’t want to have to draw my gun. I want to use my legislative resources to eliminate this problem,” Moore said.
Willis, a Democrat, made history as Fulton County’s first female district attorney, taking office after a landslide victory over six-year incumbent Paul Howard. She has pledged to restore the integrity of the District Attorney’s Office while addressing a backlog of cases. During her career, Willis transitioned from the private sector to Assistant District Attorney for Fulton County in 2001. She gained wide recognition as the lead prosecutor in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal — she secured convictions in a 2001 case due to elevated statewide test scores.
In 2018, Willis worked in a private practice specializing in criminal defense and family law, with a focus on representing fathers in custody and child support disputes. Her campaign against Howard began when he faced allegations of misconduct, including financial mismanagement and sexual harassment. Despite initial reluctance, Willis’ friends said she accepted the challenge “motivated by her belief that it was a call from a higher power.”
