The Georgia district attorney who brought RICO charges against former President Donald Trump and over a dozen others in relation to the 2020 election could potentially face a situation where she has to appear before a judge to address details of another emerging scandal.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis and a whistleblower known as Amanda Timpson were recorded in a 2021 audio conversation discussing potential misconduct by Michael Cuffee, who served as Willis’ campaign social media manager. The discussion revolved around the suspected misappropriation of federal funds, as reported by the New York Post.
In the audio recording, Timpson can be heard voicing her concerns about Cuffee’s attempts to divert a substantial grant of nearly $500,000 for purposes entirely unrelated to their intended use, including the acquisition of “MacBooks, swag, and travel expenses.”
“He wanted to do things with grants that were impossible, and I kept telling him, like, ‘We can’t do that,’” Timpson is heard telling Willis in the recording. “He told everybody … ‘We’re going to get MacBooks, we’re going to get swag, we’re going to use it for travel.’ I said, ‘You cannot do that. It’s a very, very specific grant.’”
She then told Willis, “When I questioned him, he took me off of projects because I questioned him.”
After she reached out to Willis, however, she said that Cuffee warned her: “You think your word is safe. When you reached out to Ms. Willis, she called me and told me everything. So once you reach out to her, she’s going to reach back out to me.”
That revelation effectively isolated Timpson within Willis’ office. The Washington Free Beacon first obtained the recording.
BREAKING NEWS: Audio leaks of the whistleblower warning Fani Willis in 2021 that an aide was attempting to misuse federal funds. Willis would later fire the whistleblower! Source: @FreeBeacon
Does this prove corruption by Fani Willis' office?
Source: @FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/43cSulMZMa
— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) January 31, 2024
“Mr. Cuffee, respectfully, did not know what he was doing. Period,” added Timpson, who worked in the DA’s office before Willis was elected in 2020. Timpson said she was demoted after she called out the campaign aide’s plan.
“So, I respect that is your assessment,” Willis said. “And I’m not saying that your assessment is wrong.”
The DA also said in the recording that she had at least “three supervisors … who have failed” her office and called Cuffee’s threats against Timpson for drawing attention to the abuse “an intimidation tactic.”
In an interview with the publication, Timpson pointed out that the purported mishandling of grant funds bore a striking resemblance to the allegations surrounding Willis’ office’s lavish vacations with private attorney Nathan Wade. There were suggestions of a secretive relationship between Willis and Wade.
“My case and Nathan Wade’s case are very similar when you break them down point by point,” Timpson told the outlet. “Ethical violations, abuse of power, and the misuse of county, state, and federal funds.”
In a court filing last month, a co-defendant in the case asserted that Wade, who is serving as a special prosecutor in the case, was in a romantic relationship with the DA and funded vacations he reportedly shared with Willis using funds the county paid to his law firm for work on the case. The report indicated that his firm has received approximately $650,000 in compensation.
