A Georgia state senator is preparing to investigate whether a $2 million federal grant from the Biden Justice Department to Fani Willis' office had any connection to her prosecution of Donald Trump over the 2020 election results in Fulton County.
State Sen. Greg Dolezal told Just The News that the grant and its timing sit at the center of the next phase of a state-level inquiry into Willis' conduct. The money arrived in 2022, while the Fulton County District Attorney's office was actively building its case against Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants.
Documents cited in the reporting indicate the award was given to Fulton County as a "sole source" grant. Under DOJ definitions, that means the funding was noncompetitive, bypassing the standard process in which multiple applicants vie for federal dollars. For Dolezal, that detail raises a pointed question: why did the Biden DOJ hand Willis' jurisdiction a seven-figure grant outside normal channels at the same time her office was pursuing the former president?
Dolezal did not mince words about where the inquiry is headed. He described the grant as a potential incentive tied to the Trump 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."
He added that lawmakers have deep reservations about how the money was awarded and spent.
"We have a lot of questions about that."
The Daily Caller reported that the Georgia lawmaker's planned probe marks a significant new front in the political and legal scrutiny Willis faces. Her office already weathered months of controversy over the relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired for the Trump case, and an appeals court granted Trump's effort to have Willis disqualified from the prosecution.
The grant inquiry now threatens to widen the lens from personal conduct to institutional questions about whether federal money shaped or supported the prosecution itself.
Dolezal is not the only elected official asking hard questions about money flowing into Willis' office. On Capitol Hill, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson have opened a separate congressional investigation into whether Willis' office misused federal grant funding, as Fox News reported.
The senators' probe focuses on a different pot of money but paints a similar picture of an office with serious accountability gaps. Grassley and Johnson alleged that Fulton County grant money earmarked for at-risk youth and gang prevention may have been diverted to buy computers, promotional "swag," and travel expenses instead.
A youth empowerment and gang prevention center funded with nearly $500,000 in federal money had, at the time of the senators' inquiry, still not opened. The building was allegedly closed to the public. The broader legal battle between Fulton County and the Trump DOJ over seized 2020 ballots has only intensified scrutiny of the county's handling of election-related matters and federal resources.
Grassley and Johnson put their concerns bluntly in a letter:
"The waste or misuse of taxpayer funds is unacceptable."
They went further, writing that "the apparent and significant discrepancy between the purpose of the federal award of taxpayer money and the actual use of that money raises alarms that it hasn't been used as Congress intended."
The state and federal investigations target different grants but converge on the same institutional concern. Willis' office received substantial federal funding during a period when it was making national headlines for the Trump prosecution. Lawmakers at both levels now want to know whether those dollars were spent as intended and whether any of the funding created a conflict of interest or improper incentive.
The $2 million sole-source grant is especially difficult for Willis' defenders to wave away. Competitive grant processes exist precisely to prevent the appearance that federal money is being steered for political reasons. When the DOJ bypasses that process and sends a large award to a prosecutor's jurisdiction during a high-profile political case, the burden falls on both the DOJ and the recipient to explain why.
Investigators at the state level have not publicly confirmed whether they have subpoena authority or a formal timeline for the next phase of the inquiry. Dolezal's comments suggest the focus will be on obtaining documents related to the grant's approval, any communications between Willis' office and Biden administration officials, and the actual expenditure of the funds. The FBI's raid on a Fulton County election warehouse has already drawn national attention to the county's role in the 2020 election controversy, and this new line of inquiry adds another layer.
The grant investigation lands at a moment when Willis' professional standing has already taken serious hits. The Trump disqualification appeal succeeded, pulling her off the highest-profile case of her career. Questions about her relationship with Wade consumed months of courtroom proceedings and dominated cable news cycles.
Now, instead of prosecuting Trump, Willis faces the prospect of answering questions herself, both in Atlanta and in Washington. The parallel probes suggest that Republican lawmakers believe the financial trail may reveal more than the personal-conduct controversy ever did.
Federal involvement in Fulton County has become a recurring flashpoint. The ODNI's defense of federal participation in the Georgia election raid illustrates how deeply intertwined Washington and Fulton County have become on election-related matters. Each new revelation feeds the broader question of whether federal agencies and local prosecutors coordinated in ways that went beyond standard law enforcement cooperation.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the $2 million grant came with reporting requirements that would show how the money was spent. Investigators will need to determine whether Willis' office maintained proper records, whether the funds touched any aspect of the Trump prosecution, and whether Biden DOJ officials had contact with Willis or her staff about the case before, during, or after the grant was awarded.
For conservatives, the Willis saga has long represented a case study in what they see as the weaponization of local prosecutors against political opponents. The grant revelation sharpens that argument considerably. If federal dollars flowed to Willis' office on a no-bid basis while she was building a case against the sitting president's chief political rival, the implications extend well beyond Georgia.
Similar concerns about prosecutor conduct have surfaced in other Trump-related cases. The Trump legal team's push to force New York Attorney General Letitia James to produce communications reflects a broader pattern of defense efforts aimed at exposing what Trump's lawyers characterize as coordination and bias among prosecutors who targeted him.
Dolezal's investigation could produce documents that either confirm or dispel suspicions about the grant. Until those records surface, the $2 million sole-source award sits as an unanswered question at the intersection of federal power, local prosecution, and presidential politics.
When prosecutors receive millions in no-bid federal money while investigating a president's political opponent, the public deserves a full accounting. So far, nobody has provided one.
