Donald Trump may have met his match if he faces off with District Attorney Fani Willis who has shown an impressive command of how to present a case to a jury, according to Fulton County court observers.
With the former president expected to be indicted this week for 2020 presidential election tampering under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, lawyers who have watched Willis ply her craft had nothing but praise for her skills across the board, even if they didn't always agree with cases she filed.
Speaking with the Guardian's Jewel Wicker, Devin Franklin of the Southern Center for Human Rights stated, "She’s a prosecutor through and through. She wholeheartedly believes in the work, for better or for worse, depending on which side of the lane you fall on."
With defense attorney Brian Steel calling her “extremely honest” and “extremely hard-working,” Wicker wrote, "Willis’s career, like most people’s, is full of the type of complexities that don’t always fit neatly into a box. What’s clear from speaking with several of her colleagues in Atlanta’s legal community, however, is that the district attorney’s entire career has been preparing her for this moment in the spotlight.
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Anna Simonton, an editor with the criminal justice news organization The Appeal, said a review of a transcript of a trial Willis participated in revealed that she is a formidable presence in the courtroom.
“In reading the trial transcripts, she began to emerge to me as a distinct part in the prosecution team and someone who was very theatrical,” she recalled. “One of her tactics was to really pull on the emotions of the jury. I was surprised by some of the things I was seeing her say in the transcript because of how bombastic it was at the time.”
Atlanta NAACP president Gerald Griggs also sang her praises and said he's "looking forward" to the trial.
“I know Fani and I’m looking forward to seeing her actually try this case herself. Especially after the former president has gone after her personally. I think he’s going to be very surprised when he’s sitting across from her for months on trial. He’ll find out how great of a lawyer she really is," he predicted.
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