Fulton County district attorney slams Trump campaign ad and says claims are "false and derogatory"
From CNN's Sara Murray
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis slammed a Trump campaign ad as “derogatory and false” and warned her staff that it would be airing in the Atlanta media market, according to an email obtained by CNN.
In the note Wednesday, Willis did not directly mention former President Donald Trump or his campaign, but she denounced the ad and instructed her staff not to comment on it or any other criticism that may be directed toward her, her staff or her office in the coming months. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported on the email.
Willis is expected to go before a grand jury next week and seek charges against more than a dozen individuals in her long-running criminal investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
“We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any. This is business, it will never be personal,” Willis wrote. “We have a job to do. In this office, we prosecute based on the facts and the law. The law is non-partisan. You should feel no need to defend me.”
Willis added: “Your instruction from me is to ignore all the noise and keep doing your job with excellence.”
More about the ad: The Trump campaign ad takes aim at a handful of prosecutors investigating Trump, including Willis. It notes – accurately – that she was disqualified from investigating Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones due to a conflict of interest after she held a fundraiser for one of his political opponents.
But it also includes a salacious and baseless allegation that Willis hid a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting. The Trump campaign cites a Rolling Stone article that does not back up claims of an improper relationship and instead focuses on Willis’ prior legal representation of the local rapper when she was in private practice.
Medium Buying, which tracks political ad buys, posted on social media that the Trump campaign paid $79,000 for the ad to air on cable networks in Atlanta from Aug. 9 to Aug. 13.
22 min ago
Trump’s co-defendants are set to enter pleas today on new charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case
From CNN's Holmes Lybrand
A Mar-a-Lago property manager and former President Donald Trump’s personal aide are set to be arraigned Thursday morning in Fort Pierce, Florida, on new charges brought by the special counsel in the case regarding the mishandling of classified documents.
Carlos De Oliveira, the Florida property manager, and Trump’s body-man Walt Nauta have been charged with multiple offenses related to Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of documents after leaving office, including classified material.
Nauta, who was charged alongside Trump earlier this summer, pleaded not guilty to the charges he faced in the original indictment.
De Oliveira was charged in a superseding indictment against Trump in Nauta late last month and was released on a $100,000 bond following his initial appearance days later.
The charges Nauta and De Oliveira face include making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing documents.
Trump submitted a waiver of appearance for Thursday’s arraignment on the new charges earlier this month, entering a plea of not guilty. The former president has been charged with retaining and concealing documents from investigators that he was required to turn over following his presidency.
According to the superseding indictment, in the summer of 2022, Nauta – at Trump’s direction – helped to conceal documents from a grand jury subpoena by moving boxes, some of which contained classified information, out of a storage room which was later searched by a Trump attorney to comply with the subpoena.
De Oliveira, according to the indictment, helped Nauta move some but not all of the boxes back to the storage room prior to the search. The rest, however, were kept at Trump’s residence, away from his attorney’s search.
The indictment also alleges that Nauta and De Oliveira had asked an employee if they could delete security footage at Mar-a-Lago. The two men also made false statements to investigators regarding their involvement in moving Trump’s boxes, prosecutors allege.
17 min ago
Analysis: Trump’s legal drama grows by the day
CNN's Stephen Collinson
Donald Trump’s already daunting legal predicament gets grimmer by the day as new details emerge of the depths to which he was prepared to stoop to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election.
It’s rare for any criminal defendant to face the kind of ever-widening stack of indictments, potential trials and investigations that Trump is confronting. It’s unprecedented for a former president and front-running presidential primary candidate to be stuck in such a vise.
And as the former president’s legal team juggles court dates in different cities this week, their task in defending Trump is getting ever more complex.
Trump’s next possible indictment could be looming in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now expected to seek more than a dozen indictments next week in what could be the broadest sweep against Trump and his associates yet. The former president believes he will be among those charged, sources told CNN.
Heightened security and expectations around the Atlanta-area prosecutor are competing for attention with special counsel Jack Smith’s moves in Washington. The special counsel has already indicted Trump twice – over the mishandling of classified documents and, separately, over efforts to subvert the 2020 election. But the intrigue around that second case thickened Wednesday with the revelation, from a newly unsealed court filing, that prosecutors secured a search warrant of the former president’s Twitter account during a secret court battle that underscored just how much of Smith’s investigation remains under wraps.
Adding to the daily drumbeat of disclosures about Trump’s legal cases, The New York Times reported the contents of a memo that revealed new details about how the Trump campaign initiated its plan to subvert the Electoral College process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states. The report underscores the stunning, anti-democratic audacity in Trump’s camp – even after his multiple challenges to the fairness of the 2020 election were rejected in many courts.
In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek more than a dozen indictments when she presents her case before a grand jury next week regarding efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Meanwhile in Florida, a Mar-a-Lago property manager and Trump’s personal aide are set to be arraigned this morning on new charges brought by the special counsel in the case regarding the mishandling of classified documents.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis slammed a Trump campaign ad as “derogatory and false” and warned her staff that it would be airing in the Atlanta media market, according to an email obtained by CNN.
In the note Wednesday, Willis did not directly mention former President Donald Trump or his campaign, but she denounced the ad and instructed her staff not to comment on it or any other criticism that may be directed toward her, her staff or her office in the coming months. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported on the email.
Willis is expected to go before a grand jury next week and seek charges against more than a dozen individuals in her long-running criminal investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
“We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any. This is business, it will never be personal,” Willis wrote. “We have a job to do. In this office, we prosecute based on the facts and the law. The law is non-partisan. You should feel no need to defend me.”
Willis added: “Your instruction from me is to ignore all the noise and keep doing your job with excellence.”
More about the ad: The Trump campaign ad takes aim at a handful of prosecutors investigating Trump, including Willis. It notes – accurately – that she was disqualified from investigating Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones due to a conflict of interest after she held a fundraiser for one of his political opponents.
But it also includes a salacious and baseless allegation that Willis hid a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting. The Trump campaign cites a Rolling Stone article that does not back up claims of an improper relationship and instead focuses on Willis’ prior legal representation of the local rapper when she was in private practice.
Medium Buying, which tracks political ad buys, posted on social media that the Trump campaign paid $79,000 for the ad to air on cable networks in Atlanta from Aug. 9 to Aug. 13.
A Mar-a-Lago property manager and former President Donald Trump’s personal aide are set to be arraigned Thursday morning in Fort Pierce, Florida, on new charges brought by the special counsel in the case regarding the mishandling of classified documents.
Carlos De Oliveira, the Florida property manager, and Trump’s body-man Walt Nauta have been charged with multiple offenses related to Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of documents after leaving office, including classified material.
Nauta, who was charged alongside Trump earlier this summer, pleaded not guilty to the charges he faced in the original indictment.
De Oliveira was charged in a superseding indictment against Trump in Nauta late last month and was released on a $100,000 bond following his initial appearance days later.
The charges Nauta and De Oliveira face include making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing documents.
Trump submitted a waiver of appearance for Thursday’s arraignment on the new charges earlier this month, entering a plea of not guilty. The former president has been charged with retaining and concealing documents from investigators that he was required to turn over following his presidency.
According to the superseding indictment, in the summer of 2022, Nauta – at Trump’s direction – helped to conceal documents from a grand jury subpoena by moving boxes, some of which contained classified information, out of a storage room which was later searched by a Trump attorney to comply with the subpoena.
De Oliveira, according to the indictment, helped Nauta move some but not all of the boxes back to the storage room prior to the search. The rest, however, were kept at Trump’s residence, away from his attorney’s search.
The indictment also alleges that Nauta and De Oliveira had asked an employee if they could delete security footage at Mar-a-Lago. The two men also made false statements to investigators regarding their involvement in moving Trump’s boxes, prosecutors allege.
Donald Trump’s already daunting legal predicament gets grimmer by the day as new details emerge of the depths to which he was prepared to stoop to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election.
It’s rare for any criminal defendant to face the kind of ever-widening stack of indictments, potential trials and investigations that Trump is confronting. It’s unprecedented for a former president and front-running presidential primary candidate to be stuck in such a vise.
And as the former president’s legal team juggles court dates in different cities this week, their task in defending Trump is getting ever more complex.
Trump’s next possible indictment could be looming in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now expected to seek more than a dozen indictments next week in what could be the broadest sweep against Trump and his associates yet. The former president believes he will be among those charged, sources told CNN.
Heightened security and expectations around the Atlanta-area prosecutor are competing for attention with special counsel Jack Smith’s moves in Washington. The special counsel has already indicted Trump twice – over the mishandling of classified documents and, separately, over efforts to subvert the 2020 election. But the intrigue around that second case thickened Wednesday with the revelation, from a newly unsealed court filing, that prosecutors secured a search warrant of the former president’s Twitter account during a secret court battle that underscored just how much of Smith’s investigation remains under wraps.
Adding to the daily drumbeat of disclosures about Trump’s legal cases, The New York Times reported the contents of a memo that revealed new details about how the Trump campaign initiated its plan to subvert the Electoral College process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states. The report underscores the stunning, anti-democratic audacity in Trump’s camp – even after his multiple challenges to the fairness of the 2020 election were rejected in many courts.
