According to the authors of a newly released book, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had to leave a courthouse in disguise last August due to a disturbing death threat posted on the dark web after she announced the racketeering indictment against Donald Trump.
In “Find Me the Votes,” authors Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman detail what they discovered during their two-year, deep-dive investigation into the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and Willis’ subsequent efforts to bring Trump and his co-conspirators to justice for allegedly attempting to tamper with the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
As Willis was building her case for the criminal indictment, she and her family members faced numerous heinous death threats. Reports showed she was receiving threats related to the election indictment even before she dropped it and also in connection to another high-profile case against rapper Young Thug.
The authors revealed how Willis responded to one threat that her security staff found particularly unsettling in the days before she announced the charges.
“In the days before the indictment, these threats are intensifying against her, and her security staff noticed an assassination threat on a deep web, dark web MAGA site,” Klaidman told MSNBC. “The best time to shoot her is when she leaves the building, so they set up an elaborate operation that involves a body double.”
Right after announcing the indictment, Willis went into a back room and changed into plain clothes before discreetly exiting the courthouse. She also employed a body double to use the main exit where members of the media and the public were waiting.
“After the midnight indictment is – she announces the indictment, which she – after the indictment, about 1 in the morning, she and her team go to the back office, where she changes out of her business attire into sweats, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap. Meanwhile, someone on her staff, a woman about the same size, an investigator, changes into clothes that are – that resemble what Fani Willis was wearing – black business suit, a string of pearls and a black bob wig.”
Not only did the security personnel take on Willis’ likeness, but she also wore body armor for protection.
“The body double goes out the front of the courthouse. She is wearing a bulletproof vest,” Klaidman added. “Goes out to the front of the courthouse, gets in the official black SUVs. Meanwhile, Fani Willis and her team go out, slip out the back of the courthouse, get into civilian cars and leave for an undisclosed location. Really, a dramatic moment.”
Willis is still facing attacks and threats inside and outside the courtroom from Trump’s legal team and his camp of loyalists. Right now, she’s dealing with the fallout of some allegations that recently surfaced claiming that she was involved in an improper relationship with a special prosecutor assigned to the election interference case.
Attorneys for Trump have been working to undermine the case for months, claiming that the indictment is racially motivated and questioning Willis’ credibility. Recently, they joined a motion filed by attorneys for co-defendant Michael Roman who are working to remove Willis from the case and get the indictment dismissed altogether, using the affair allegations as the basis for their argument.
