Trump co-defendant threatens legal action against Fani Willis over alleged phone recording

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - A co-defendant in Georgia's election interference case against former President Donald Trump is threatening legal action against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis if she does not recuse herself from the case.

Harrison Floyd claims that Willis' office illegally recorded a phone call with his attorney in an unrelated criminal case in Maryland.

According to Newsweek, Floyd says that Willis and her office may have violated the Maryland Wiretapping Act, which requires both parties to agree to be recorded during all in-person or telephone communication.

In a video posted to the social networking platform X, Floyd claimed that Willis was targeting him to further a "racist agenda."

"Deep down she wants to make me pay for what she feels is a betrayal to Black culture," Floyd said, claiming that Willis had made the case against him and his co-defendants "about race."

Willis has been criticized by the judge overseeing the case in a ruling over a speech at an Atlanta church in January in which she claimed she and Nathan Wade, the former special prosecutor on the case whom she had a romantic relationship with, were being scrutinized because of their race. 

"First thing they say, ‘Oh, she’s gonna play the race card now," Willis said. "But no God, isn’t it them that’s playing the race card when they only question one? Isn’t it them playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve been doing almost 30 years?"

While Willis later claimed not to be referring to the defendants in her accusations of racism, McAfee warned that such a distinction was not clear and said that one of her references left ambiguous who she accused of racial motivations.

Harrison Floyd in court

"More at issue, instead of attributing the criticism to a criminal accused’s general aversion to being convicted and facing a prison sentence, the District Attorney ascribed the effort as motivated by ‘playing the race card,'" McAfee wrote. "She went on to frequently refer to SADA Wade as the ‘black man’ while her other unchallenged SADAs were labeled ‘one white woman’ and ‘one white man.’ The effect of this speech was to cast racial aspersions at an indicted Defendant’s decision to file this pretrial motion."

While he found Willis's speech "legally improper," McAfee ruled that the questionable statements regarding race had not denied the defendants the "opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial."

Willis and her office have not responded to Newsweek's request for comment.

Who is Harrison Floyd?

Floyd, the former director of Black Voices for Trump, was the only one of the 19 defendants in the case to spend time behind bars at the Fulton County Jail in August. While the other defendants in the case had their lawyers reach out to prosecutors for a bond agreement before turning themselves in at the jail, Floyd showed up on Aug. 24 without a lawyer or a bond agreement. He was released Aug. 30 after his lawyer negotiated a $100,000 bond.

The charges against Floyd stem from allegations of harassment of Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker who had been falsely accused of election fraud by Trump and his supporters. Floyd took part in a Jan. 4, 2021, conversation in which Freeman was told she "needed protection" and was pressured to make false statements about election fraud, the indictment says.

Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, were vilified and harassed by Trump supporters after lawyers for the then-president played surveillance video footage from the arena during a meeting of Georgia state lawmakers in December 2020. State and federal officials investigated and found no evidence of election fraud at the arena.

Stephen Cliffgard Lee, a pastor from Illinois, went to Freeman’s home in December 2020. He intended to claim to be offering her help in order to get her to make false statements about what happened at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where ballots were being tallied, the indictment says.

OTHER RECENT STORIES

• Fulton County DA Fani Willis claims she's only DA with 'courage' to prosecute Trump
• Fulton County DA Fani Willis says despite efforts to slow down Trump case, ‘the train is coming’
• Trump vs. Fani Willis: Judge grants request to appeal Willis disqualification rulingFani Willis’ ‘sordid scandal’ could make finding a jury in the Trump case ‘much harder’

After Lee failed to connect with Freeman at her house, he sought help from Floyd, saying that Freeman was afraid to talk to him because he was a white man, the indictment says. Floyd solicited the help of Trevian Kutti, who had worked as a spokesperson for R. Kelly and Kanye West. She traveled to Atlanta from Chicago in early January 2021 to try to connect with Freeman.

Kutti arranged to meet Freeman at a suburban police precinct and they spoke for about an hour, with Floyd joining the meeting by phone. Kutti and Floyd told Freeman that she needed protection and that they could help her, but in reality, they were trying to influence her testimony and get her to lie about what happened at State Farm Arena as votes were being counted, the indictment says.

In addition to the charges in Georgia, Floyd also faces federal charges that accuse him of aggressively confronting two FBI agents sent to serve him with a grand jury subpoena.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.