Rachel Maddow dedicated her Monday night show to Donald Trump’s Georgia election fraud case, which has been pushed back until 2025 due to ongoing attacks on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
“Prosecutors asked the judge to start this trial two months ago. The first trial date they asked for was early March 2024. That was going to be first,” Maddow reminded everyone. This is a far more serious case than Trump’s current New York hush money case. When audio tape came out of then-President Trump pressuring Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes, Willis was obligated to open a criminal investigation.
“Of course she did. How could she not have?” Maddow asked. But as soon as she did, “They opened the floodgates on her.”
Maddow detailed the egregious overstepping by Republican lawmakers in Georgia who have tried to destroy Willis’ credibility, have her thrown off the case, and create new powers of fascistic oversight. On the federal level, Rep. Jim Jordan has begun one of his many circus investigations into the Georgia district attorney, harassing her with subpoena requests.
Through all of this Willis has been steadfast in defending herself, but “this is not a profile in courage. This is a profile in cowardice,” Maddow said. “This is a profile in failure and neglect by us—by the country. Because the reason she is out there defending herself so ably is because nobody else is defending her.”
Maddow interviewed Willis about her experience these past few years, and Willis thanked her for having her on, saying she doesn’t have many people “ask about what is the personal journey that’s been going on, and it really hasn’t been happening in the last year. It’s been happening since about a month after I took office.”
“From the time I took office, I began to get threats,” Willis said.
She detailed how she has not lived in her family home for some time due to security threats but is unwilling to let the home go “because I refuse to give up the home where I raise my children.”
Willis added that, while she must also have an around the clock security detail with her, she feels “it’s well worth it, to have the honor of being the first female district attorney in Fulton County.”
As for the Republican Party’s attacks on the rule of law in general and her in particular, Willis told Maddow that Americans “should feel sorry for those that are trying to deter me from my work. It doesn’t do anything but motivate me to continue to work and to work hard. I’m not someone that’s going to be broken,”
Willis, who faces a primary and election this year, told Maddow, “I am at a point where I need Fulton County voters to get out and vote. I need people around the country to support me, big and small, to say that we are going to be a country that still believes in the rule of law.”
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