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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp responded to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene request for help in investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, amid claims that the prosecutor personally benefited from tapping Nathan Wade to lead the RICO case against former President Donald Trump.
Kemp told Newsweek in a statement that Greene had "every right" to refer her complaint to Georgia lawmakers, calling the accusations against Willis "deeply troubling." The governor stopped short of urging Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr to order an immediate criminal investigation into the matter, as Greene has requested in her letter to the two state officials.
"Evidence should be presented quickly," Kemp said. "Georgians need to be able to have confidence in this trial and the Georgia General Assembly laid out a specific process to investigate matters such as these. The Congresswoman has every right to refer her complaint to the oversight commission once it commences full operations."
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The governor's office told Newsweek that Kemp sees the oversight commission created last year is "the appropriate route to handle these sorts of complaints."
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Kemp and Greene, while both Republicans, have become political foes over their beliefs about the 2020 presidential election. The governor broke with Trump and his allies when he insisted that Georgia's elections were secure and refuted claims that election fraud led to Trump's election loss. Kemp's position has earned the ire of many Trump loyalists, including Greene, who has spoken out about her frustrations with the governor.
"His message should have been against this, not arguing with President Trump about the election and making it about his own ego and pride over Georgia's election," Greene told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August. "That's a bad statement, and I was very upset over it."
Greene nonetheless reached out to Kemp this week amid the recent allegations that Willis had an improper relationship with the special prosecutor on the Trump case. Her complaint came two days after one of Trump's co-defendants in the sweeping RICO case filed invoices from Wade's office that showed Willis office was billed approximately $650,000 in legal fees since he was appointed to the role.
In a Monday filing pushing for both Willis and Wade to be removed from the case, co-defendant Michael Roman, who has pleaded not guilty, submitted invoices that included one billing "for 24 hours on a single day" and another for two trips to Washington, D.C. The filings did not provide direct evidence of a romantic relationship between Willis and Wade, but cited "sources with knowledge" for its claims.
Willis' office has said it will respond to the claims in subsequent court filings.
On Wednesday, Greene argued that the latest allegations were part of Willis' "unlawful partisan pattern... to illegally politicize and weaponize her public office to wage lawfare against President Trump for the purpose of interfering in the 2024 presidential election."
The accusations spurred the latest calls for action against Willis. When the Trump indictment was first released over the summer, several Georgia Republicans made calls to defund and impeach the attorney general. But Kemp and Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns poured cold water on those efforts from their colleagues, saying that defunding her office "flaunts the idea of separation of power, if not outright violates it."
Kemp's refusal to investigate Willis drew harsh criticism from Trump, who accused the governor of "fighting hard against the impeachment of the crooked incompetent & highly partisan D.A. of Fulton County."
Newsweek reached out to Greene via email for comment.
Update 01/12/24, 9:57 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Kemp's office.
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