A Republican Georgia state senator is opening a new front in the scrutiny of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, announcing plans to investigate a $2 million federal grant her office received from the Biden Justice Department while she was building her case against Donald Trump over the 2020 election.
State Sen. Greg Dolezal told Just the News' "No Noise TV" that the grant, which was listed as a competitive award but appears to have been delivered as a sole-source, noncompetitive contract, raises serious questions about whether the Biden administration used federal money to encourage Willis' prosecution of Trump.
Dolezal, who has already led a state-level investigation into Willis' handling of the Trump case, framed the grant as the next logical thread to pull. As the Daily Caller reported, the senator wants to determine whether the funding functioned as a reward, or an incentive, for a politically useful prosecution.
"That's really going to be the next phase of what we're looking into is the tie to what could have been a carrot from the time that Joe Biden put up the bat signal on November 13."
That date, November 13, 2022, is central to Dolezal's theory. He told the outlet that on that same day, Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor Willis hired to run the Trump investigation, "spent eight hours on the phone with the White House." Wade, Dolezal said, later told him under a March subpoena that he could not recall much about those conversations or his role with the House Jan. 6 committee.
The $2 million award was granted under the DOJ's 2022 Office of Justice Programs Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative. The grant was opened in April 2022 as a competitive solicitation. But Just the News reported that documents show the award to Fulton County appears to have been made as a sole-source grant, meaning no other applicant competed for it.
The DOJ's own fact sheet classifies sole-source procurement as "noncompetitive," since only one entity is considered. That distinction matters. A competitive process carries at least the appearance of merit-based selection. A sole-source award handed to a county whose district attorney happened to be pursuing the sitting president's chief political rival carries a very different appearance.
Willis' office did not return the Daily Caller's request for comment.
Dolezal's investigation draws a line between the grant and public statements Joe Biden made in November 2022. Four days before the date Dolezal flagged, Biden held a presidential press briefing on November 9 in which he addressed Trump's political future directly.
Biden said at the briefing that Americans would "have to demonstrate that [Trump] will not take power," adding, "I'm making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again." Dolezal paraphrased the sentiment more bluntly in his interview, characterizing Biden's posture as: "We're going to ensure, by any means possible, that we demonstrate that Donald Trump will not take office."
Whether Biden's public rhetoric translated into behind-the-scenes coordination with Willis' office is exactly the question Dolezal says he intends to answer. The timeline, at minimum, is tight. Willis had already opened her investigation into Trump and allies by early 2021, after Trump made allegations of election fraud in Georgia and pressed state officials to act. By 2022, Willis was allegedly "invited" to apply for the DOJ grant, during the same period her office was actively building the case.
The broader investigation into Fulton County's role in the 2020 election has drawn federal attention as well. The FBI conducted a search at a Fulton County election facility as part of a separate probe into the Georgia vote, underscoring how many threads now run through the county's political and legal apparatus.
Dolezal has not been shy about his assessment of Willis. He previously said she participated in four hours of questioning as part of his state-level investigation and described her performance in unflattering terms.
"Her demeanor and conduct was unacceptable for anyone, let alone a District Attorney for Fulton County."
On April 12, Dolezal posted on X: "Hope everyone has a great Masters Sunday, even unhinged lunatics like Fani Willis!", a remark that, whatever its tone, signals the senator views Willis not as a cooperative witness but as a target of sustained oversight.
Willis, for her part, laid out the scope of her Trump-related investigation in a letter to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. She described the probe as covering "solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration." The breadth of those charges, leveled against a former president and his associates, made the case one of the most consequential and politically charged prosecutions in modern American history.
That case has since collapsed under its own weight. A judge barred Willis from a legal fee dispute as Trump sought $6.2 million from the failed Georgia RICO prosecution, a case that cost taxpayers dearly and delivered nothing resembling accountability.
Nathan Wade's role remains one of the murkiest elements. Dolezal's claim that Wade spent eight hours on the phone with the White House on November 13, 2022, and then could not recall the substance of those calls when subpoenaed, raises an obvious question: what were they discussing?
Just the News has reported, citing documents, that Willis' office worked extensively with Biden's DOJ, the White House, and House Jan. 6 committee Democrats during the course of the investigation. If that coordination extended to the terms or timing of a $2 million federal grant, the implications move well beyond ordinary intergovernmental cooperation.
Meanwhile, the federal government's own interest in Fulton County has not subsided. A federal judge ordered Fulton County ballot seizure documents unsealed as the county sued for their return, another sign that the legal and political battles in Georgia's most populous county are far from over.
Dolezal has not specified the exact investigative body or mechanism he will use to probe the grant. The details of the award itself, including whether it went directly to Willis, to her office, or to Fulton County government, remain unclear. Those gaps will need to be filled before any definitive conclusions can be drawn.
But the known facts already paint a troubling picture. A district attorney pursuing the Biden administration's most prominent political opponent received a $2 million federal grant that was structured as competitive but awarded without competition. The special prosecutor she hired to lead the case spent hours in contact with the White House and later claimed memory loss under oath. And the president himself publicly declared his intent to prevent Trump from returning to power.
Federal activity in the area continues to intensify. An FBI search in Georgia was overseen under Trump's guidance, reflecting the current administration's interest in getting to the bottom of what happened in Fulton County, on multiple fronts.
None of this proves coordination. But it demands answers. And the fact that Willis' office has declined to provide them only sharpens the need for the kind of investigation Dolezal is promising.
When a local prosecutor receives millions from the same administration whose political rival she is indicting, taxpayers deserve more than silence. They deserve a full accounting, and if the facts warrant it, consequences.
