It’s unfortunately commonplace to see the most powerful people in our government wear the cloak of unaccountability around their shoulders to ward off justifiable criticisms.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wore this cloak with bravado Sunday at Atlanta’s historic black Big Bethel AME Church.
After accusations against her of impropriety and an affair with the married special prosecutor she hired to oversee President Donald Trump’s RICO case, Nathan Wade, circulated for a week, Willis spoke for the first time, giving a 35-minute sermon to the predominantly black congregation.
“They only attacked one,” Willis lamented. “First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now.’ But no God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one?
“Why are they so surprised that a diverse team that I assembled, your child, can accomplish extraordinary things?”
The affairs accusation came through a court filing made by Trump 2020 campaign official and co-defendant Michael Roman, who argues that Willis should be disqualified from the case and the charges against Roman dropped because “the district attorney chose to appoint her romantic partner, who at all times relevant to this prosecution has been a married man.”
Roman says Wade used the nearly $654,000 in legal fees the Fulton County DA’s office paid for his work on the Trump case to take Willis on expensive trips to “Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean.”
Willis claimed in her sermon that she paid all three of her special prosecutors “the same hourly rate.”
But Monday, court records came out showing she paid John Floyd, the state’s top RICO expert, $100 an hour less than Wade, who has no experience in RICO law.
Willis complains about being singled out with constant scrutiny and reflexively blames her sex and race as the primary reasons for it without considering the most obvious: She’s prosecuting a former president.
Outside Fulton County, no one cared to know who she was until she embarked on an unprecedented case.
I don’t doubt she’s received death threats and messages filled with racial epithets and her safety was put at risk, which is abhorrent.
Yet Willis refuses to delineate among fair critique, politically motivated actions and racially charged attacks because wearing her identity as a cloak takes less effort than taking accountability for her faults.
What’s really unforgivable is she wore the cloak in the house of God while delivering a political sermon at a pulpit.
Draped in black victimhood, she bemoaned how tough her job is as a black female and conjured up her Republican adversary Marjorie Taylor Greene, implying she doesn’t know what it’s like to be constantly harassed — even though MTG has been “swatted” and subject to other attacks.
Willis used her status and race to stand in front of a congregation of Christians as an elected official to garner political sympathy — and worse, church leaders applauded her political rhetoric in God’s house.
They nodded their heads in agreement and murmured with pleasure as she used the pulpit for self-promotion.
The imagery of Willis figuratively pounding her chest and bragging about Atlanta’s crime rate percentages in comparison with those of other cities in America in front of a church congregation makes me sick to my stomach as a Christian.
Her performance was another example of what is wrong with America’s churches, especially black churches, as they’re always trying to serve two masters when there is only one.
They’re too often run by charlatans who care more about currying favor with influential figures than influencing others to follow God’s word.
Atlanta’s church leaders stood by as Willis gave a campaign speech mixed with the invocation of God and embraced her after she finished poisoning His house with political rhetoric.
The cloak might work on flawed men, but God sees right through it.
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on Substack: adambcoleman.substack.com.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
