While Fulton County Goes After Donald Trump, It Leaves Thousands Languishing in Jail
Democrats are calling Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis a “national hero” for her high-profile case against Donald Trump. Meanwhile, thousands of incarcerated people live in squalor in Fulton County jails, some dying without a day in court.

A rally to protest the death of LaShawn Thompson last year at the Fulton County Jail. (Erik S. Lesser /EPA-EFE / Shutterstock)
It was the mugshot seen around the world. On Thursday, Donald Trump was briefly processed in an Atlanta jail, and his dour booking photo went viral, especially among #Resistance Democrats who celebrated as if they’d just won the Super Bowl.
Their MVP? Fulton County’s district attorney. “Fani Willis is a national hero,” Joy-Ann Reid proclaimed on MSNBC.
But not everyone in Atlanta is so enamored with Willis’s dogged pursuit of Trump and eighteen of his allies related to a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Some local activists and criminal justice reformers say there’s been a human cost to this massive, resource-intensive case and another sprawling racketeering case, this one against Young Thug and the Young Slime Life (YSL) collective, local rappers accused of operating a criminal gang.