William Barr, a former U.S. Attorney General during President Donald Trump’s first term, reportedly teamed up with Fani Willis, the Democratic Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney who filed 2020 election-related RICO charges against Trump several others, in an attempt to convict his one-time boss.
According to whistleblower Patrícia Lélis, Barr conspired with Willis to prevent Trump’s return to the White House by orchestrating her prosecution, which led to charges against Trump and 18 co-defendants for allegedly attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Lélis alleges that Barr participated in secret meetings in Washington, D.C., alongside Willis and others—including media personality Armstrong Williams—to hatch the plan.
Lélis, who was employed by Williams’s public relations firm in 2021, claimed to have attended “dozens” of meetings where Barr and Willis discussed various legal strategies aimed at obstructing Trump ahead of the 2024 election.
She provided Project Veritas with boxes of handwritten notes she took during these meetings, which took place between 2021 and 2023.
One meeting on September 6, 2021, included Barr and CNN commentator Shermichael Singleton, during which the group developed a media strategy to complement Congress’ January 6 investigation.
“The investigation will be focused on people close to Trump and make efforts to formally prosecute these people,” Lélis wrote, according to her interview with Project Veritas.
According to her notes, Barr identified additional targets of the investigation, including Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Stewart Rhodes, Enrique Tarrio, Jeffrey Clark, the Oath Keepers, and the Proud Boys. In the months that followed, most of these individuals received subpoenas to testify before the January 6 committee, highlighting the influence Barr apparently wielded after publicly breaking with Trump.
Photos from March 15, 2022, show Barr entering Sinclair Broadcast Group, where he met with Willis and federal prosecutor Jack Smith to discuss the impending charges Smith planned to file against Trump in Florida. Smith’s case focused on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents that he refused to return to the National Archives.
Lélis recorded Barr predicting at the meeting that an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago would happen “soon.” Five months later, agents raided Trump’s residence, searching for documents and security footage.
Meeting notes from January 19, 2023, indicate that Barr and Willis planned to meet again, with notes from February 27, 2023, confirming the meeting occurred. It was reportedly during this meeting that Barr advised Willis to pursue RICO charges against Trump.
“Bill Barr was like, we should bring RICO because it’s a very difficult type of charge to defend,” Lélis told Project Veritas, adding that Trump’s former attorney general then described racketeering charges as complicated and difficult to challenge under U.S. law.
Several of Trump’s co-defendants ultimately pleaded guilty in exchange for agreeing to testify against him and other alleged co-conspirators—an indication of the growing desperation within their ranks as Willis neared a potential victory.
According to Lélis, the primary objective of these meetings was to prevent Trump from returning to the presidency.
“One thing that I understood very well is like Bill Barr and Armstrong and all the politicians too, they’re very focused like in how they go to stop Trump,” she said.
However, those efforts extended beyond the courtroom. According to Lélis, Willis reportedly collaborated with a social media team to create “anti-Trump” posts and other content aimed at bolstering the prosecution.
