Donald Trump's Atlanta Attack Ad Fact Checked

Donald Trump's campaign team posted a TV ad this week attacking Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area prosecutor investigating whether he violated election laws in 2020.

The Fulton County District Attorney's office has been examining whether Trump broke the law by asking Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to "find" 11,800 votes to reverse the results in favor of the former president.

She is expected to announce in the coming weeks if Trump, frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, will be indicted.

The video, which has been widely shared on social media, attacked Willis' character and record. The ad includes four distinct claims about Willis; Newsweek's Fact Check team has investigated each of them.

Newsweek has asked Willis' office for comment on the ad. Willis has said the ad contains "derogatory and false" claims but has not commented in greater detail, telling staff in a memo this week not to respond, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"So Incompetent, on Her Watch Violent Crimes Have Exploded"

The campaign ad includes a reference to a June 2021 Fox 5 Atlanta report, quoting text that stated "Atlanta Violence: Nearly 60% More Murders"

While at that time Willis was district attorney for Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta, she had been in the role for only around five months when the Fox report was published, which compared year-to-date statistics for June 2021 with those from June 2020.

End-of-year statistics from the Atlanta Police Department show there was an increase in homicides in 2021 compared to 2020 but only by two percent (157 in 2020 to 161 in 2021). In 2022, the department recorded a year-on-year rise of six percent (nine more homicides than the previous year).

The number of homicides in Atlanta has been increasing each year since 2017. The responsibility Willis shares now over Atlanta's year-on-year increase is a matter of political debate, but the statistics that the Trump ad picked do not fairly reflect the full data available nor the context behind the Fox 5 story it quoted.

"So Tainted, Willis Was Thrown off One Case for Trying to Prosecute a Political Opponent"

This claim exaggerates the facts.

The video references text from a June 2022 New York Times article which does state that Willis was barred from pursuing a criminal case against a Trump ally.

A judge in Atlanta disqualified Willis from developing a case against Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, one of 16 people under investigation over an alleged fake electoral plot in Georgia.

Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court barred Willis because she had headlined a fundraiser for Jones' Democratic rival during the race for the lieutenant governor's office.

However, as the Times reported, the decision did not mean that Jones could not be investigated, it did not affect Willis' wider election interference investigation, and her office could still ask witnesses about Jones.

Claiming that Willis was "thrown off" one case, without this additional context may arguably make the circumstances seem far graver than they were. Suggesting Jones was a "political opponent" is purely editorial.

"So Corrupt, Willis Got Caught Hiding a Relationship With a Gang Member She Was Prosecuting"

No credible evidence has been presented to back up allegations that Willis has ever had a relationship with any gang member. Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign and Willis' office for comment via email earlier this week.

As is quoted in the campaign ad, this is ostensibly based on a Rolling Stone interview with rapper YSL Mondo, co-founder of the Young Stoner Life (YSL) label that is accused of being a street gang. Willis had acted as Mondo's defense attorney in 2019 in an aggravated assault case.

Mondo told the publication that the two had a "cool relationship" at the time.

"She ain't trying to take all these little Black dudes down. She ain't that type of woman, man. I'm telling you, she's not," he said.

Mondo did not say the two had any relationship beyond that of attorney and client, nor did he accuse her of trying to hide their relationship. He said the two had not communicated since his case, and that he had not kept up with her until seeing that she was prosecuting his YSL friends.

Willis told Rolling Stone that she "liked" Mondo and hoped "he is well."

"When I represented [him], he received 110% effort from me. I advocated for him with zeal. I tend to meet my clients where they are. I hope you understand what that means. I want to see him do amazing things with his life, and I hope that's where he's headed," she said.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek on Tuesday that Trump's comments on the case could end in a protective order or gag order.

"The judge in the Atlanta case, if and when Trump is indicted, may issue both a protective order and a gag order. The protective order will cover documents produced in discovery, and is pretty standard. A gag order is less common, and has not been issued in any of the former president's other criminal cases so far," he said in a statement.

"So Dishonest, Willis Was Accused of Creating a Fake Subpoena"

This is a misleading account of a subpoena that was filed five years before Willis was made district attorney for Fulton County.

The campaign ad attributes the claim to "attorney Brian Steel", an attorney for rapper Young Thug. In 2022, Young Thug was one of 28 people indicted on conspiracy to violate Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and alleged criminal street gang activity.

In November 2022, Steel filed to have the case dismissed accusing the district attorney of creating a "fake" grand jury subpoena for rental record information relating to his client. However, as per reporting by The Shade Room, Steel said the subpoena was filed in 2016, five years before Willis was made district attorney.

Willis would have been required to respond but it does not mean that she filed a fake subpoena.