Politics
Race, gender debate brewing after Fani Willis' hearing testimony: 'High-profile Black woman'
A conversation about race and gender is beginning to brew as Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis attempts to maintain her post as the lead prosecutor in the election racketeering case against former President Trump.
Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, previously said the allegations brought against her of having an “improper” romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade were made because she is Black.
Now, a little more than a month after making that claim, a handful of Willis’ proponents are echoing her position.
Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, the presiding prelate of the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Georgia, told the New York Times he believes Willis wouldn’t be facing the allegations of misconduct if she were “not a woman and Black.”
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Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, previously said the allegations brought against her of having an “improper” romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade were made because she is Black. (Getty Images)
“If she was not a woman and Black, I don’t think she would have gone through this,” said Jackson, whom the outlet noted has prayed with and counseled Willis in private in recent weeks.
“What this was all about was distraction and delay,” he added. “I think it’s time to move on.”
Kamina Pinder, a law professor at Emory University, told the outlet she knows Black women face “unique challenges” when holding positions of power.
“Everything she does is going to be scrutinized, so for her to do this is just bizarre,” Pinder told the outlet. “As a Black woman, I know there are unique challenges when you’re in a position of power, but that doesn’t excuse behavior that was dubious and unethical.”
Similarly, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat who was the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, suggested Willis is a “bigger target” for opponents because she is a “high-profile Black woman.”
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“Obviously, it was in somebody’s interest to bring her down,” Braun told the Times earlier this week. “The fact that she’s a high-profile Black woman just means that she’s a bigger target.”
“The fact that she’s a high-profile Black woman just means that she’s a bigger target,” former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill., said of Willis. (Bridget Bennett for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
An article from the Associated Press this week also pointed out the narrative that Willis is facing political turmoil due to her race.
“It absolutely feels familiar. There is no secret that the common sentiment among Black women in positions of power (is that they) must over-perform to be seen as equals to their counterparts,” Jessica T. Ornsby, a family litigation attorney in the Washington, D.C., area, told the outlet.
“Here, Ms. Willis is being scrutinized for things that are not directly related to her job performance, in ways we see other Black women regularly picked apart.”
Court documents filed last month claimed Willis hired Wade, her alleged partner, to prosecute Trump and benefited financially from the relationship in the form of lavish vacations the two went on using funds his firm received for working the case.
After the allegations were made, Willis spoke on the matter at the Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta, where she said the claims against her were based on her race.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks in the Fulton County Government Center during a news conference Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
“They only attacked one,” she said at the time. “First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now.’ … But no, God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one?”
Fulton County records show Wade has been paid nearly $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022, an amount authorized by the district attorney, or Willis in this case.
The filing also calls for the entire district attorney’s office, including Willis and Wade, to be disqualified from prosecuting the case.
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Willis said last month that John Floyd and Anna Green Cross, both prosecutors assigned to the case, are both white and were not targeted.
“Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years,” Willis questioned.
Earlier this week, Willis took to the witness stand at an evidentiary hearing regarding her relationship with Wade.
Fani Willis testifies at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta Feb. 15, 2024. (Alyssa Pointer)
Willis’ testimony was marked with notable hostility on Thursday, with the prosecutor calling some of the allegations “dishonest” and “extremely offensive.” At one point, Willis held up a printed copy of the allegations against her in both hands and turned to the judge, yelling, “This is a lie!”
Willis also called defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant’s interests “contrary to democracy.”
Trump was indicted by Willis in August and pleaded not guilty to charges related to allegedly attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, including violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law.
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick, Brianna Herlihy and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of Mr. Trump drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.
Disclosed just days before his second inauguration, the venture is the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Trump that blur the line between his government role and the continued effort by his family to profit from his power and global fame. It is yet another sign that the Trump family will be much less hesitant in this second term to bend or breach traditional ethical boundaries.
Mr. Trump himself announced the launch of his new business on Friday night on his social media platform, in between announcements about filling key federal government posts. He is calling the token $Trump, selling it with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!”
The venture was organized by CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, which already has been selling an array of other kinds of merchandise like Trump-branded sneakers, fragrances and even digital trading cards.
But this newest venture brings Mr. Trump and his family directly into the world of selling cryptocurrency, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Trump recently disclosed he intended to name a cryptocurrency advocate as S.E.C. chairman.
A disclosure on the website selling the tokens says that CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80 percent of the supply of the new Trump tokens that will be released gradually over the coming three years and that they will be paid “trading revenue” as the tokens are sold.
The move by Mr. Trump and his family was immediately condemned by ethics lawyers who said they could not recall a more explicit profiteering effort by an incoming president.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office” said Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit ethics group. “It is beyond unprecedented.”
Eric Trump, who helps run Trump Organization business operations, said on Saturday that this offering was part of a new and growing business sector that the Trump family has entered.
“I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto,” Eric Trump said in a statement to The New York Times. “$Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth.” He added: “This is just the beginning.”
But even some in the cryptocurrency industry were quick to criticize the new token.
“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” wrote Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist and former executive at Coinbase, one of the largest crypto trading platforms, in a social media posting on Saturday.
The president-elect and his three sons had, as of late last year, already lent their name to another cryptocurrency startup called World Liberty Financial, an arrangement that included a cut of token sales for the Trump family in exchange for helping promote the new brand.
But the members of the Trump family, with World Liberty Financial, were not actually owners of the platform or officers in the company.
There are other crypto currency coins in the marketplace based on Mr. Trump that are not directly affiliated with his family like the new Trump Meme. Typically, these so-called meme coins — which were born when coins were created as a joke inspired by an internet meme or cartoonish animal faces — are largely worthless and traded more like a hobby.
With this new venture, companies associated with Mr. Trump’s family have a direct financial stake in the value of the new tokens and in the volume of their sales, which quickly surged after going on the market.
“GetTrumpMemes.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office or governmental agency,” the venture’s website says, adding, “Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP.’”
The legal disclosures say the tokens are not intended to be seen as “an investment opportunity, investment contract or security of any type.” But trading of them on cryptocurrency markets began immediately, driving up the value of each token from $7 to nearly $30 as of noon on Saturday.
This suggested that the so-called fully diluted value of all the tokens as of Saturday at noon was $30 billion, a number achieved less than a day after the token went on the market, according to CoinMarketCap, a site that tracks cryptocurrency trading.
Mr. Trump and his family are clear in the marketing of the new token that the image picked for the coin had been inspired by the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.
“President Trump faced death and came up fighting!” the website promoting the tokens says.
Cryptocurrency markets tend to be highly volatile, in part because tokens are not backed by any tangible assets. The website for Mr. Trump’s new venture includes an extensive collection of disclaimers limiting the ability of anyone buying the token to file a class-action lawsuit related to it and warning buyers that “Trump Memes may be extremely volatile, and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies could impact the price.”
Mr. Trump has already made clear that he will be working to promote the cryptocurrency industry.
He has announced his intention to appoint regulators who will lift restrictions on the sale of new tokens and ties between cryptocurrency companies and other more traditional financial enterprises.
This stands in contrast to efforts by Biden-era regulators to tightly regulate the industry, out of a concern that a sudden crash in the value of cryptocurrency could potentially lead to a future financial crash.
Thousands of mainly female protesters descended on Washington, D.C. to protest President–elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday. However, the crowd is only a tenth of the half a million who turned out for the “Women’s March” in 2017.
Saturday’s march, rebranded as the “People’s March,” is taking place at three different locations with demonstrators advocating for a wide range of left-wing causes and showcasing a united front to the new administration.
This morning, a kickoff event took place in Franklin Park for “gender justice” and bodily autonomy, and then demonstrators walked downtown before making their way towards the Lincoln Memorial for the day’s main event.
Demonstrators participate in the “People’s March” on Washington January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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“It’s really healing to be here with all of you today in solidarity and togetherness, in the face of what’s going to be some really horrible extremism,” Mini Timmaraju, the head of advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, told the crowd as events kicked off.
Other protesters gathered at two other parks also near the White House, with one group focused on democracy and immigration and another on local Washington issues,
Vendors hawked buttons that said #MeToo and “Love trumps hate,” and sold People’s March flags for $10. Demonstrators carried posters that read “Feminists v. Fascists” and “People over politics.”
Lillian Fenske, 31, drove six hours from Greensboro, North Carolina, to participate. Her signs expressed concern over oligarchs and the disunity. “America is not for sale,” said one, while another said simply, “Divided We Fall.”
Protesters representing a variety of rights groups attend the “People’s March on Washington” on January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)
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There is a heavy police presence, although law enforcement is not expecting a repeat of the violent scenes seen across the city ahead of Inauguration Day in 2017, where protesters shattered glass storefronts and torched cars, with police arresting more than 200 people in demonstrations that spanned several days.
The enthusiasm behind the so-called resistance movement to Trump has waned somewhat, with many progressive voters expressing feelings of exhaustion and disappointment following Trump’s landslide win in November. He dominated both the Electoral College and the popular vote to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris after a historic campaign cycle.
Animated pro-choice and cliamte protesters holding signs at the march. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The 2017 Women’s March took place on the day after Trump’s inauguration. Celebrities like America Ferrera, Madonna, Ashley Judd, Cher, Katy Perry, Amy Schumer, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, Debra Messing, Patricia Arquette and others attended the march.
President-elect Trump is expected to leave Mar-a-Lago later today and head to Washington.
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Trump’s advisers have not detailed how he will spend the first part of the day, and the only public event on Trump’s schedule is an evening reception and fireworks show at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
President-elect Trump delivers his inaugural address on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017,, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On Sunday, there will be a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and a “Make America Great Again” rally, at which Trump will deliver remarks, followed by a candlelit dinner.
Monday is Inauguration Day when Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will participate in the swearing-in ceremony, which has been moved indoors due to the forecasted frigid temperatures.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, in one of her last public appearances in the role, signed her ceremonial desk drawer at the White House on Thursday, a tradition that dates back nearly a century.
As a crush of current and prior staffers gathered in Harris’ formal office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, she thanked them for their “extraordinary commitment” to public service and prioritizing the hopes and dreams of the American people.
“We have each taken on a life and a calling that is about doing work in the service of others, and doing it in a way that is fueled yes with ambition, yes with a sense of almost stubbornness about not hearing no and knowing we can make a difference,” Harris said.
Kamala Harris’ and other vice presidents’ signatures on a desk drawer in Harris’ office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
Then, as Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff snapped pictures, Harris used a Sharpie to sign her desk drawer, a tradition that dates back to the 1940s and has been carried on continuously since the Ford administration. The vice president noted that she has met every one of her predecessors who signed the desk with the exception of Presidents Eisenhower and Truman.
As onlookers chanted, “MVP! MVP!” Harris, who unsuccessfully challenged President-elect Donald Trump for the White House in 2024, was asked what she planned to do next. Speculation about whether she would run for governor of California has been swirling.
“I’ll keep you posted,” she said, smiling.
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