Atlanta church honors DA Fani Willis as she faces scrutiny amid Trump prosecution
The Georgia district attorney who is prosecuting former President Donald Trump embraced the negative publicity she has faced as "weapons" ordained by God to make her "stronger."
In remarks shared on X by the account Woke Preacher Clips Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis addressed the congregation at Atlanta's Berean Church Sunday.
Willis has been in the headlines a lot over the past year as her office brought charges against Trump, who remains the frontrunner to receive the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.
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Last summer, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump on a variety of charges, including racketeering, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings as well as conspiracy to commit filing false documents in connection with a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger shortly after the 2020 presidential election asking him to "find 11,780 votes."
President Joe Biden won the state election with 11,779 votes, and the former president insists that voter fraud affected the outcome of the election in the state. Critics of the president believe his actions amounted to election interference.
Amid the indictment in Fulton County, Willis has faced media attention and scrutiny. One of the co-defendants in the case sought to have Willis disqualified after allegations that she was in a romantic relationship with Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she appointed to work on the case. Willis and Wade have dismissed all allegations of wrongdoing and improper behavior.
As she addressed the congregation at the Seventh-day Adventist church, Willis expressed gratitude for people who have sent her Scripture passages as a show of support.
"Different people from all different walks of life keep sending me this one Scripture, and I don't think I ever really heard it till maybe two days ago," she said.
"The Scripture they keep sending me is 'no weapon formed against you shall prosper,'" Willis noted.
The passage in question comes from Isaiah 54:17.
As the crowd erupted into thunderous applause, Willis stressed that "they did not say the weapons will not form, and that's the part I didn't hear until recently." She added, "just because they won't prosper, it doesn't mean that they won't form."
"Even if you feel like everything you are doing in your life is the right thing and you're making mistakes all along the way, but you are trying, you should not think that those weapons will not form," she said. "The other lesson that I've learned in these three years is God ordains those weapons. He puts those weapons in your life to form against you and if you really understand Him, you become in your maturity to understand He does it for a reason and it's to grow you and it's to make you stronger and it is to prepare you."
After describing her job as "really hard" and acknowledging that she is an "imperfect human being," Willis remarked, "I can literally feel the people who loves me's prayers."
She urged the congregation to "throw my name in a prayer" because "God hears his children."
As Berean Church Pastor Sherwin Jack explained before introducing Willis, the prosecutor has direct ties to the house of worship.
"Her daughter went to our school just across the way," he noted.
Willis was on stage to accept a "Black History Achievement Award" from the church "in appreciation for outstanding service rendered to our church and to our community." The congregation also gave her the Conflict of the Ages book series written by Seventh-day Adventist Church co-founder Ellen White in addition to flowers in appreciation for being a "beautiful person."
A member of church leadership prayed for Willis, asking God "to be with Sister Willis" and to "cover her from her head to her toe" in addition to expressing hope that "your power that's above any other power will reside not just around her but in her."
"We ask, Lord, that you'll open up the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that is so mighty and so bold and so brave and so precise that she could not help but to say 'my help cometh from the Lord.' Lord, we pray in a real way that tomorrow will be better than yesterday, that Lord she will stand and give You the due honor and praise for You're a God that inhabits the praises of Your people."
In a court filing earlier this month, Willis described the motion filed by one of Trump's co-defendants as an attempt to "cobble together entirely unremarkable circumstances of Special Prosecutor Wade's appointment with completely irrelevant allegations about his personal family life into a manufactured conflict of interest on the part of the District Attorney."
The court document states that "District Attorney Willis and Special Prosecutor Wade have been professional associates and friends since 2019, there was no personal relationship between them in November 2021 at the time of Special Prosecutor Wade's appointment." Additionally, it insists that "any relationship between members of the prosecution team does not amount to a disqualifying conflict of interest or otherwise harm a criminal defendant."
The court filing pushes back on allegations that Willis and Wade have "any financial interest in the conviction of any defendant" and rejected the notion that "payment of earned compensation to Special Prosecutor Willis" has benefitted Wade.
The document came in response to a request from Trump's co-defendant Michael Roman to dismiss Willis, citing concerns that both she and Wade lied about the timeline surrounding their intimate relationship.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
