Posted on 02/03/2024 7:17:58 AM PST by george76
Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis defended her decision to fire an employee who blew the whistle on attempted abuse of taxpayer funds in her office, saying in a statement Friday she terminated the whistleblower for poor work performance.
But Willis sang a different tune about the whistleblower, former director of juvenile diversion Amanda Timpson, in the months leading up to her abrupt termination in January 2022, emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Willis sang Timpson’s praises in a staff-wide email on Sept. 9, 2021, saying the whistleblower had a "dynamic" skill set that would serve her well in her new role as a liaison between two departments in the office. Timpson told the Free Beacon that "file clerk" was a more appropriate description of the role, to which she said Willis demoted her after she first warned the district attorney in a July 2021 meeting that one of her top aides was trying to misappropriate a federal gang prevention grant to pay for "swag," travel, and computers.
"Amanda Timpson will become our new Liaison between Record Restrictions and Pretrial Diversion," Willis said in the email. "She has been dynamic serving with Valencia Younger and will continue in that role assisting with records, but she will now expand to also working intimately with adult diversion as directed by Deputy Toole and Deputy Chief of Staff Epiffany Henry."
"I am really excited about this dynamic group," Willis added.
That wasn’t the first time Willis praised Timpson after demoting her to file clerk. A few days prior, Timpson was informed by the district attorney’s media relations manager that Willis had personally nominated her to be the featured employee on the next issue of the monthly District Attorney Dispatch newsletter.
"You have been nominated by Madam DA to be in the next issue of the DA Dispatch," media relations program manager Robin Bryant emailed Timpson on Aug. 28, 2021. "I am sure that you have seen our fabulous newsletter by now and have seen the features thus far. Yours will be similar."
Timpson declined the nomination. "She’s over here demoting me and saying I’m not doing my job, and next thing you know she’s trying to put me in her newsletter," Timpson told the Free Beacon. "I was so flabbergasted."
Willis offered a radically different assessment of Timpson’s work performance in a statement to Politico on Friday, calling the whistleblower a "holdover employee from the previous administration who was terminated for cause."
Timpson disputed the notion she was a "holdover" from former Fulton County district attorney Paul Howard’s administration.
"I’m not a holdover. There were no holdovers," the whistleblower said. "She elected me after she and her people interviewed me in front of a nine-member panel."
Indeed, emails reported by the Free Beacon show that Willis named Timpson to her 2021 Executive Leadership Team in December 2020, saying she had bested 400 applicants to secure a role in the select group of employees tasked with playing "a critical role of changing and rebranding the culture in [the district attorney's] office."
Timpson said her troubles in Willis’s office began in March 2021, when she stopped one of the district attorney’s top aides, Michael Cuffee, from dipping into a $488,000 federal grant earmarked for the creation of a Center for Youth Empowerment and Gang Prevention to pay for "swag," computers, and travel. Timpson said Cuffee claimed the proposed purchases were part of Willis’s "vision."
The center never opened, and the county-owned building meant to house it is closed to the public behind padlocked gates. And though budget documents for the federal grant show no money was earmarked for equipment or supplies, Willis’s office in November 2022 pulled $1,245 from the grant to purchase items from Dell, county spending records show.
Timpson recorded herself telling Willis during a November 2021 meeting that she was retaliated against for warning Cuffee that his plans were illegal.
"I respect that is your assessment," Willis responded. "And I'm not saying that your assessment is wrong." The district attorney also apologized to Timpson and said Cuffee had "failed" her administration.
But less than two months later, Willis terminated Timpson and had her escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators, the whistleblower said.
Willis sent Timpson a signed termination letter on Jan. 14, 2022, saying she was an at-will employee and as such, her services were no longer needed. Weeks later, Timpson received a separation notice providing "employee discharge" as the only reason for her termination.
"If for other than lack of work, state fully and clearly the circumstances of the separation: Employee Discharge," the notice stated.
Willis told Politico on Friday that Timpson’s allegations were "false" and called her ongoing whistleblower lawsuit "baseless."
"Any examination of the records of our grant programs will find that they are highly effective and conducted in cooperation with the Department of Justice and in compliance with all Department of Justice requirements," Willis said.
Willis will soon have to answer the whistleblower’s claims before Congress. House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) subpoenaed the Fulton County district attorney on Thursday for documents related to Timpson’s allegations.
Willis admitted in a lengthy court filing on Friday to having an affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, the married man she hired to lead her racketeering case against former president Donald Trump. But Willis said she shouldn’t be booted from the case because of the relationship. Willis and Wade are set to testify in court on Feb. 15 in a motion to disqualify the pair from the case.
Wade performs well enough to lose her job over.
That woman just ain’t the brightest bulb in he pack. Look for the fired lawyer to file suit. And HER lawyer will make those to look like idiot hack.
She is a corrupt hack attacking and slandering the decent people who are exposing her corruption and malfeasance. It's really a desperation strategy because she has been caught red handed and has not legitimate defense. It's going to backfire on her too.
The longer Fani stays, the more the democrat / RINO corruption gets exposed — silence from the Georgia governor and other RINOs.
But less than two months later, Willis terminated Timpson and had her escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators, the whistleblower said.
Fani reputedly was heavily involved in the drafting of her court response filed yesterday.
It's the most asinine, ignorant and illiterate legal filing I have ever reviewed. It's like it was written by a first year affirmative action law intern from U of Bangladesh
Donald Trump would be making a huge mistake to get these incompetents kicked off the case and replaced by competent replacements
https://explainamerica.com/1767195/
“My case and Nathan Wade’s case are very similar when you break them down point by point,” she said. “Ethical violations, abuse of power, and the misuse of county, state, and federal funds.”
Fani is good at wasting the taxpayers’ money.
Well, look who just bought a Wrongful Termination lawsuit!
As in any peccadillo that escapes to public knowledge, contrition is the outward sign of regret/remorse. By her AMF church extravaganza and this latest thing, this is most definitely not that.
https://explainamerica.com/1767195/
The former employee said she wanted to warn Willis so that she would not be involved in a scandal.
“I wanted to make sure she knew because I didn’t want any scandal to be related to her. She immediately cut me off in the middle of my sentence and demoted me from the director of juvenile diversion to a file clerk,” she said to The Beacon.
After that she was wary of Willis so during their next meeting she recorded the conversation.
“I knew it was me against the entire office,” she said. “If I didn’t get any hard evidence about what I was saying, everyone was just going to write me off.”
“I have been humiliated and retaliated against for doing the right thing,” she said in a Dec 7, 2021 email. “trying to protect your administration from scandal and advocate for the youth I was charged with working on behalf of.”
Willis responded to Timpson in a letter explaining that she had been terminated.
“As you know, you serve as an at-will employee with the Office of the Fulton County District Attorney,” the District Attorney said. “Please accept this correspondence as notice that your services to this office are no longer needed.”
Timpson said she was escorted from her office by seven armed investigators.
“I am 4’11” on my best day,” she said. “Who is so scared of me that you have to walk me out of the building by seven armed investigators? I’ve never had a warning about any negative behavior that would warrant someone feeling threatened by me.”
Central to her claims was that she was a holdover from a previous political administration and she was not down with the graft and corruption of the Willis team so they cut her loose. Expect this one to get settled even faster than Wade's divorce and with an airtight NDA
She is going to have to take a leave of absence according to pundits. Because if she is removed the GOP governor appoints her replacement.
At the end of the day- the whistleblowers job performance is irrelevant. The info is whats key and it seems to be spot on.
Yup, Fani is going to cling to this job with a death grip.
The state government did what it could to force her to resign, all to no avail. She easily won re-election and continued her in her corrupt and incompetent ways. Her staff started leaving, leaving her office with too few lawyers to function. Any criticism of her was ‘racist’. Upon revelation of her latest scandal, she went to a black church to proclaim her innocence and victimhood.
It took years before she agreed to resign when it was revealed that she was spending time that she should be in the office pursuing a nursing degree.
Was the unspent grant money ever returned ??
"[E]mployee discharge" Willis "explained."
True supervisory diligence and eloquence, there!
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