Internal emails from the Biden White House show staffers cheering on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as she pursued racketeering charges against Donald Trump in 2023, with one senior adviser gushing that Willis was "an ICON." The emails, obtained by Senate investigators, are expected to be released at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing this week, adding fresh detail to an already troubling picture of federal involvement in a state-level prosecution that has since collapsed entirely.
The correspondence, reported by Just the News, centers on two Biden White House employees: associate White House counsel Beth Mueller and senior legislative affairs adviser Rachel Martinez. Their exchanges from late August and early September 2023 tracked Willis's public confrontation with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, and ended with Martinez openly celebrating the prosecutor.
The timeline matters. Willis had just filed sweeping racketeering charges against Trump and numerous Republican allies. Jordan responded with a letter questioning her motives, pointing out that Willis had launched a campaign fundraising website highlighting her Trump investigation just four days before the indictment. Willis fired back with a combative letter accusing Congress of unconstitutional interference in a Georgia criminal case. And inside the Biden White House, staffers were watching it all unfold, with apparent enthusiasm.
In late August 2023, Mueller sent an email to colleagues flagging Jordan's letter to Willis. Her message read: "flagging that House Judiciary sent a letter to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis regarding the Trump indictment." Days later, in early September, Mueller followed up: "For those tracking, Fani Willis sent a response to House Judiciary that is detailed in the following story."
That same day, Martinez chimed in with her assessment of the Fulton County DA. As Just the News reported, Martinez wrote:
"Fani Willis is an ICON, I can't help but to stan."
Martinez held the title of senior legislative affairs adviser in the Biden White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Her praise landed the same day Willis sent Jordan her defiant response, in which the DA wrote that his "attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution."
Willis added: "There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution. That violation of Georgia's sovereignty is offensive and will not stand."
The White House staffers, in other words, were not merely monitoring a politically charged prosecution. They were rooting for it.
The emails do not exist in a vacuum. Senate investigators led by Chairman Chuck Grassley have been probing whether the Biden Department of Justice used local prosecutors like Willis to pursue legal theories against Trump that federal prosecutors themselves were not considering. The documents released alongside Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Eric Schmitt of Missouri add to a growing body of evidence suggesting the relationship between Willis's office and the Biden administration went well beyond casual awareness.
As previously reported memos have shown, the coordination between the Biden DOJ, the Jan. 6 committee, and Willis's team was extensive. The Biden White House waived claims of executive privilege to allow Willis's team to interview former Trump administration officials. The Biden Justice Department invited Willis to apply for a $2 million "sole-source" grant in 2022. And Willis's office received more than $18 million in federal funding during her tenure.
That $2 million grant invitation has drawn particular scrutiny. The DOJ did not simply approve a routine application, it actively recruited Willis's office to apply for the money while she was building her case against a former president who happened to be the sitting president's chief political rival. The grant's timing and structure raised obvious questions about whether federal dollars were flowing to support a politically motivated prosecution.
Newsmax reported that a September 2022 letter from White House special counsel Richard Sauber told Fulton County prosecutors that President Biden would not invoke executive privilege to block former Trump officials from testifying before the Georgia special purpose grand jury. Sauber wrote that Biden determined "an assertion of executive privilege is not in the public interest with respect to efforts to thwart the orderly transition of power under our Constitution." Email records also showed Willis's office communicated with Jan. 6 committee chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy, who offered oral witness summaries and in-camera access to committee documents. Fulton County staff traveled to Washington to meet with committee staff.
Then there is the matter of Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor Willis hired, and with whom she had a personal relationship that eventually helped unravel the entire case. Wade billed Fulton County in November 2022 for an "interview with DC/White House." The nature of that meeting has never been fully explained.
House Judiciary Chairman Jordan pressed for answers. In a letter to Willis, Jordan noted that Willis had launched a campaign fundraising website spotlighting her Trump investigation just four days before the indictment. He also pointed out that the forewoman of the special grand jury Willis convened "bragged during an unusual media tour about her excitement at the prospect of subpoenaing President Trump and getting to swear him in."
The New York Post reported that Jordan requested Wade's communications and records involving the White House Counsel's office, DOJ, and the January 6 Committee. Court filings cited by the Post said Wade billed Fulton County for two 2022 meetings at the White House, including entries described as "Conf with White House Counsel" and "interview with DC/White House." Wade was paid more than $650,000 by Fulton County, and filings alleged he traveled with Willis to Florida, the Caribbean, and Napa Valley while receiving compensation from her office.
Separately, Breitbart reported that anonymous sources alleged a senior Fulton County official named Jeff DiSantis, who had previously served as Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Georgia and Deputy Director of Compliance for the DNC, served as a key link between the Biden administration and Willis's prosecution. "DiSantis is the one pulling the strings on this whole thing," one source told Breitbart.
Willis herself has been no stranger to controversy beyond the Trump case. She made headlines more recently with inflammatory public remarks about ICE agents, further raising questions about her judgment and temperament.
For all the federal assistance, White House cheerleading, and millions in grant money, Willis's prosecution of Trump ended in failure. Georgia's Court of Appeals ruled in December 2024 that Willis could not keep pursuing the case. The Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal over her removal. And Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that the full case was being dismissed.
Trump celebrated the outcome on Truth Social, writing: "LAW and JUSTICE have prevailed in the Great State of Georgia, as the corrupt Fani Willis Witch Hunt against me, and other Great American Patriots, has been DISMISSED in its entirety."
McAfee also ruled that Willis cannot intervene in a fight over nearly $17 million in compensation for legal fees stemming from the failed racketeering case, a bill that Fulton County taxpayers may ultimately bear.
The broader federal involvement in the Trump prosecution continues to draw congressional attention. The DOJ's conduct under Attorney General Merrick Garland has faced scrutiny on multiple fronts, including questions about Jack Smith's legal tactics in the parallel federal case.
Grassley made clear he views the emails as part of a larger institutional failure that Democrats in Congress refused to investigate when they held power. In a statement ahead of the hearing, Grassley said:
"This committee's investigative work is necessary because during the entire Biden administration my Democratic colleagues didn't lift a finger to investigate this political rot."
He continued: "They protected the treachery of the Biden-Harris administration. And now you'll hear them wanting to continue sweeping this under the rug. Don't listen to them. They've lost all credibility on this matter."
Sen. Schmitt is chairing the subcommittee hearing where the documents are expected to be released publicly. The hearing is tied to the FBI's Arctic Frost investigation into Trump's efforts to contest the 2020 election. Meanwhile, federal investigators have also turned attention to the Fulton County election office itself, adding yet another layer to the tangled story of Georgia's 2020 vote and its aftermath.
The Willis prosecution began after audio surfaced of Trump's early January 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump said, "I just want to find 11,780 votes." Willis launched her inquiry and eventually brought racketeering charges, a sprawling legal theory that required enormous resources, federal cooperation, and years of effort. It produced nothing.
The question was never whether Biden administration officials followed the Willis case. Of course they did. The question is whether the relationship between the White House, the DOJ, and a county prosecutor amounted to something more than passive interest, whether it crossed the line into active support for a prosecution aimed at the president's political opponent.
The emails suggest the answer. White House counsel's office tracked every move. A senior legislative affairs adviser called the prosecutor an "icon." The DOJ waived executive privilege, offered a $2 million grant, and funneled more than $18 million in federal funding to Willis's office. A special prosecutor hired by Willis billed the county for meetings at the White House. And none of this was investigated by Democrats in Congress while it was happening.
Grassley's committee is now doing the work that should have been done years ago. The emails heading into the public record this week won't surprise anyone who has been paying attention. But they put the enthusiasm in writing, and writing has a way of lasting longer than talking points.
When the people inside the White House are calling the prosecutor chasing the president's rival an "icon," the word for that isn't justice. It's coordination.
