S9, Ep. 2: A force of nature

06/27/22 • 43 min

3 Listeners

The second episode of “The Trump Grand Jury,” the ninth season of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Breakdown podcast, focuses on the woman who is overseeing the investigation of former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis grew up in courtrooms, tagging along with her father, an attorney. When Willis became a prosecutor, she rose through the ranks at the Fulton DA’s Office prosecuting homicide and sexual assault cases.

In 2014, Willis oversaw one of the most high-profile cases in state history: the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating scandal. Thirty-five educators were indicted under the state’s racketeering laws. Many pleaded guilty and of the 12 who went to trial, 11 were convicted.

“I’m still not totally sure how she did it, but she did it,” said Atlanta lawyer John Floyd, a racketeering law expert who assisted Willis in the test-cheating trial. “She was a bit of a force of nature in the sense that she was completely committed to the case.”

Episode 2 will also explain exactly how a special purpose grand jury operates and what it can and cannot do. It will also tell listeners how they will know if, after it adjourns, it is recommending criminal charges be brought.

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer in the player above.

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You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer in the player above.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previous Episode

S9, Ep. 1: The January 2nd phone call

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was sitting in his kitchen on the afternoon of Jan. 2, 2021, when he received a phone call from the White House.

President Donald Trump, his chief of staff and some of his lawyers were on the line. During the conversation, Trump told Raffensperger to “find” him 11,780 votes to overturn the election results. That was one more than the 11,779-vote margin that gave Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes to President Joe Biden and turned Georgia Democratic for the first time since 1992.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s award-winning Breakdown podcast returns for its ninth season — The Trump Grand Jury — to cover an investigation into that hourlong phone call as well as other events in Georgia that happened in the weeks following Election Day.

Episode One explores what happened during the phone call between Trump and Raffensperger as well as another call made to Frances Watson, the Secretary of State’s lead elections investigator. Both conversations were recorded.

The AJC’s legal affairs reporter, Bill Rankin, returns as the host of Season 9 of the Breakdown podcast. He is joined by senior reporter Tamar Hallerman, who covered the Trump White House when she was the newspaper’s Washington correspondent.

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer in the player above.

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Next Episode

S2 Ep. 18: A Momentous Decision

This is the murder case against Justin Ross Harris, who left his 22-month-old son Cooper to die in a hot car on June 18, 2014.

Harris, a Home Depot web developer, took Cooper that morning to Little Apron Academy, the in-house daycare center at work. They stopped at a Chick-fil-A for breakfast. But when they leave, Harris doesn’t make the turn to the daycare. Instead, he drives to work, parks his car and walks in to the office. Within hours, Cooper is dead of hypothermia.

The intense publicity of the case went worldwide when it was disclosed at a preliminary hearing that Harris was sending sexually explicit texts to other women shortly before and after he left Cooper in the parking lot. It would be disclosed he was having extramarital affairs, sleeping with prostitutes and exchanging graphic texts with underage girls.

Harris would be indicted for Cooper’s murder and other crimes. Because of intense pretrial publicity, the trial was moved from Cobb County to Glynn County in coastal Georgia. The jury in Brunswick would convict Harris of Cooper’s murder and he would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Before and during the trial, Harris’ defense lawyers said what Harris did was a tragic mistake because he loved his son. They also tried to keep evidence of Harris’ deviant sexual behavior from being presented to the jury, arguing it was unfairly prejudicial. Prosecutors contended it showed Harris’ motive — to life a child-free life so he pursue sexual relations.

Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark sided with prosecutors and let it all in. The jury heard days of testimony about the affairs, the graphic texts and the prostitutes.

This became a major thrust of Harris’ appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court in his bid for a new trial. The case was argued this past January and the court released its decision on June 22.

Breakdown’s Episode 18 of “Death in a Hot Car; Mistake or Murder?” covers the court’s momentous ruling and the aftermath.

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer from ajc.com.

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