ATLANTA – A California man has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta for sending death threats to District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the prosecution of former President Donald Trump and 18 others on charges of illegally trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. in Georgia.
Marc Shultz, 66, of Chula Vista, faces charges of transmitting interstate threats to injure Willis. Prosecutors alleged that Shultz posted comments on live-streamed YouTube videos in October 2023 that threatened Willis, including stating that the prosecutor “will be killed like a dog.”
“Sending death threats to a public official is a crime that will not be tolerated,” Ryan Buchanan, U.S. attorney in Atlanta, said in a statement Friday.
The April 24 indictment was unsealed Thursday. A federal public defender listed as representing Shultz did not immediately return emails seeking comment.
Records show Shultz appeared before a judge in San Diego on Thursday and was released on bond. Buchanan said Shultz would be formally arraigned in Atlanta in June.
Also on Friday, Fulton County leaders testified before a special state Senate committee that they had no legal power to control Willis’ spending or the hiring of former special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
The Republican-led committee is investigating Willis’ hiring of Wade to lead the team that investigated and charged Trump, lawyers and other aides in the Georgia case. Willis and Wade have acknowledged a romantic relationship.
Trump and some other defendants in the case sought to remove Willis and his office from the case, saying the relationship with Wade created a conflict of interest.
Wade resigned from the prosecution after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee concluded in March that no conflict of interest existed that could force Willis to drop the case. But he ruled that Willis could only continue prosecuting Trump if Wade left. Trump and others are appealing that ruling to a higher state court.
Allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous few months in the case, when intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were revealed in court in mid-February. The serious accusations in one of the four criminal cases against the former Republican president were largely overshadowed by the prosecutors’ love lives.
Willis told reporters Friday that he did nothing wrong.
“They can look all they want,” Willis said. “The prosecutor’s office did everything by the books. We are following the law. I’m sorry that people get angry when everyone in society can be sued.”
Willis is running for re-election this year and faces a Democratic opponent, Christian Wise Smith, in the May 21 primary. Early voting for this election is underway.
But the lawyer who initiated the effort to remove Willis, Ashleigh Merchant, also argued that Wade’s firing violated a state law that required approval of the hiring of a special prosecutor by the county commission.
Fulton County Commission Chairman Rob Pitts, a Democrat, and Fulton County Attorney Soo Jo told the committee that while the law appears to require county commission approval, judges have decades interpreted the law in order to give Willis the freedom to hire whoever she wants without approval. Jo, who represents the commission, cited three separate cases from the Georgia Court of Appeals that support this point.
“What I found is that the court rejected the proposition that this particular statute requires a district attorney to obtain explicit permission from a county before appointing a special assistant district attorney,” Jo said.
State Sen. Bill Cowsert, the Athens Republican who chairs the committee, disputed that interpretation when questioned by reporters after the hearing.
“I think the clear language of the statute says this requires county approval, especially when it’s funded by the county,” Cowsert said.
He went on to suggest that the committee, which does not have direct power to sanction Willis, could change the law to give counties more control over the spending of county-funded state employees, including district attorneys and sheriffs. Fulton County officials said they do not believe they can currently control how Willis spends the money since it is appropriated for her.
Cowsert said increased county oversight would be “extraordinarily complex” for district attorneys who manage funds contributed by more than one county. While Willis and 15 other district attorneys in Georgia only prosecute cases from one county, others prosecute cases from as many as eight counties.
Senate Democratic leader Harold Jones II of Augusta said hours of questioning about the details of how Fulton County budgets money shows the panel is “on its last legs,” noting that three of the six Republicans did not attend to a committee meeting called at short notice.
“They’re not even interested in it anymore,” Jones said. “There’s nothing more to talk about, frankly. And we discovered that today.”
