ATLANTA (AP) — 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, is facing charges of transmitting interstate threats to injure Willis. Prosecutors alleged that Shultz posted comments to YouTube livestream 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 criminal offense that will not be tolerated,” Ryan Buchanan, the 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 didn’t immediately return emails seeking comment.
Records show Shultz appeared before a judge in San Diego on Thursday and was released on bail. Buchanan said Shultz would be formally arraigned in Atlanta in June.
Also Friday, Fulton County leaders testified before a special state Senate committee that they had no legal power to control Willis’ spending or her hiring of former special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
The Republican-led committee is probing 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 with each other.
Trump and some other defendants in the case have tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, saying the relationship with Wade created a conflict of interest.
Wade stepped down from the prosecution after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case. But he ruled that Willis could continue prosecuting Trump only if Wade left. Trump and others are appealing…
Read the full article here
