Free Republic

Atlanta News First reports that Atlanta taxpayers endured extensive queues outside the city’s Tax Assistance Center, but not everyone was looking for last-minute help from the IRS ahead of the April 15 tax filing deadline. The center was open Saturday with extended hours, allowed individuals to engage directly with IRS representatives regarding their refunds, but the demand to do so led to hours-long waits under the sun. A majority of the people in line had received an email or letter from the IRS stating they had to verify their identity in person. The notification went on to say their refund...

Fulton County, Georgia's District Attorney Fani Willis just seems to keep finding trouble. Earlier this past week, we reported new information on the whistleblower who came forward alleging misuse of federal grant funds in Willis' office. Whistleblower Amanda Timpson has said that when she informed Willis about the situation, she was subsequently terminated. In the past week, the DOJ said that they found "inconsistencies" and "reporting discrepancies" in Willis' use of the federal grant money. ... The Justice Department did not provide any further details on the nature of Willis’s reporting "inconsistencies" on the $488,000 federal grant, which was earmarked...

Former President Donald Trump was greeted by enthusiastic supporters at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, Georgia, while on the campaign trail and ordered 30 milkshakes and chicken for everybody. Video shows the former president speaking to workers at the location, asking, “Can I have 30 milkshakes and also some chicken? We’re going to take care of the customers.” He then asks if business is good, to which the workers reply, “Yes.” Milkshakes for everyone at Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, Georgia pic.twitter.com/9kWnLpgGTv — Karoline Leavitt (@kleavittnh) April 10, 2024 Donald Trump just walked into a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta and ordered 30 milkshakes for...

Beth Widner is a mother who lives in Canton, a middle-class suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. She has four kids, whom she homeschools while her husband, Glenn, telecommutes. In August of 2018, the Widner kids—then ages 13, 11, nine, and seven—were members of a swim team at their local YMCA, which was about two blocks from their house. One day, after swim practice, the 7-year-old, Jackson, lagged behind while the rest of his siblings walked home, and stopped by the grocery for a free cookie. A store employee thought it was so unusual to see an unaccompanied 7-year-old that a store...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that a driver rammed into the front gate at its Atlanta offices. The crash happened just after 12 p.m. at the offices off Flowers Road in Chamblee. A photo shared by a Channel 2 Action News viewer shows the car and the damaged gate. A bureau spokesperson confirmed that DeKalb police arrested the man, but had no further information at this time. The man’s name has not been released.

A property owner in Atlanta, Georgia, is fighting back against squatters who have taken over his land, which spans nine acres. Approximately ten years ago, David Morris, who now resides in California, allowed four individuals to live on the property for a while at no charge, Fox News reported Wednesday, noting the agreement was they would assist with the upkeep of the land. Morris used to run a nonprofit on the property that assisted needy people with food. However, he shut down operations during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, as people suffering from addiction and mental health problems moved onto the...

An Atlanta property owner is frustrated after he says people have been living on his land without permission for years. David Morris, who now lives in California, says squatters have been living on his southeast Atlanta property since the pandemic, and it's been quite an ordeal getting them to leave. However, according to his attorney, David Perrie, they were granted Writ of Possession on March 21. Morris says he now plans to install fencing to keep unwanted visitors out. Meanwhile, he says he was contacted by code enforcement to clean up the property. "It's frustrating that I'm having to spend...

As tens of millions of Americans routinely carry guns when they travel, some are bound to be stolen by thieves. A passenger who recently traveled through Atlanta believes he is the victim of such a theft. From fox5atlanta.com: “I said, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘Your bag is delayed.’ I said, ‘What do you mean, delay?’ She said, ‘It didn’t make the flight.;”The gun owner says a helpful Delta agent in Fort Lauderdale told him the airline map indicated the gun was still in Atlanta.But once he returned to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday, that story changed.“He goes to type...

Breaking now.

A key witness testified Wednesday morning before the Georgia state Senate's special committee investigating the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as she seeks to take down former President Donald Trump ahead of Election Day. In front of the Republican-led investigative panel, defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who's defending Trump co-defendant Michael Roman in the George election interference case, laid out exactly how she exposed the snowballing FaniGate scandal. Willis stands accused of misusing public funds for personal gain. Merchant alleges that Willis had hired her longtime lover Nathan Wade, a private-practice lawyer with scant prosecutorial experience, to act...

[...] Confiscated property held by the Fulton County DA's office includes, for example, $150,000 in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry seized from the rapper Young Thug when he was arrested in May 2022 on organized crime charges. Paying lawyers from the forfeited property account would be inappropriate for any district attorney's office. In admitting the clerical error, the spokesman included an email from Willis's chief operation officer, who noted that the expenses document prepared by the Fulton County government "incorrectly states that Invoices 9, 10 and 11 were paid out of a forfeiture account." The chief operating officer...

Three corporations own 19,000 homes in the metro Atlanta area. “A recent study by Georgia State University researchers found that three corporations own more than 19,000 homes in Atlanta’s five metro counties,” WSB-TV in Atlanta reports. The study found that “Invitation Homes, Premium Partners (which operates Progress Residential), and Amherst Holdings (which operates Mainstreet Renewal) own around 11 percent of all single-family homes for rent in the state.” “In smaller neighborhoods, sometimes that’s upwards of 50 percent,” GSU professor Taylor Shelton said. “Just a decade ago or so ago, none of these companies even existed.”

CNN legal analyst Michael Moore on Friday cast doubt on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ Thursday testimony in which she claimed she always reimbursed her romantic partner with cash. Willis testified during a hearing on whether she should be disqualified from her election interference case against former President Donald Trump for improperly benefiting financially from appointing special prosecutor Nathan Wade to the case. They both asserted Willis reimbursed Wade with cash for their vacations and outings, so there was no record of it, which Moore described as “convenient” on “CNN This Morning.” Moore criticized both the defense lawyers and...

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is strongly pushing back against claims she violated federal law and ethical standards by having a personal relationship with a lead prosecutor on the 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump and others. In a court filing Friday, Willis said the relationship with Nathan Wade, who was hired to work the case in 2021, did not begin until 2022 and allegations that the pair financially benefit from prosecuting the case are "meritless." The filing asks a judge to deny a Trump codefendant's motion last month to dismiss charges. "To be absolutely clear,...

On Thursday, Atlanta authorities arrested a male suspect on arson charges in connection to an attack that occurred in protest of the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, dubbed "Cop City" by left wing agitators. John Robert Mazurek, 30, has been charged with first-degree arson. He is accused of being involved in the arson of a police special operations center that occurred in July 2023, according to Atlanta News First. Police said that officers had been occupying the center when the arson occurred. According to authorities, eight police motorcycles were set on fire in the parking deck...

A woman was treated to an asphalt sandwich by an Atlanta police officer after prancing onto the tarmac and then trying to outrun the frustrated cop. Excessive force? Perhaps. But trespassing on an airport ramp is a serious offense. Cop Takes Down Runaway Woman As She Sprints Past Spirit Airlines Plane At Atlanta Airport We don’t know quite why or how the woman got onto the ramp, but we can observe several things based on a pair of videos captured by ground staff: * She’s talking to cops, then decides to skip away before breaking into a run * She...

Squatters are ruining entire neighborhoods in Atlanta and police response to evict is so slow, some homeowners have resorted to paying nuisances to leave. Brazen squatters even opened an illegal strip club on a property they had taken over — one of the 1,200 homes which has been squatted in the city, according to the National Rental Home Council (NRHC) trade group. “I’d be terrified in Atlanta to lease out one of my properties,” Matt Urbanski, who manages a local home-cleaning company, told Bloomberg. Urbanski’s company cleans out homes for corporate landlords, and in some cases has to remove squatters’...

Squatters are ruining entire neighborhoods in Atlanta and police response to evict is so slow, some homeowners have resorted to paying nuisances to leave. Brazen squatters even opened an illegal strip club on a property they had taken over — one of the 1,200 homes which has been squatted in the city according to the National Rental Home Council (NRHC) trade group. “I’d be terrified in Atlanta to lease out one of my properties,” Matt Urbanski, who manages a local home-cleaning company, told Bloomberg. Urbanski’s company cleans out homes for corporate landlords, and in some cases has to remove squatter’s...

Atlanta is battling a squatting crisis as 1,200 homes have been overtaken and landlords have to clear the unwanted residents themselves or wait months for police. The situation has become so dire that some homeowners offer to pay off squatters to get them out of their homes - rather than risk losing months of rent. One squat in the Georgia city was even being run as illegal secret strip club and had to be cleared out by an entire FBI swat team.

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis defended her decision to fire an employee who blew the whistle on attempted abuse of taxpayer funds in her office, saying in a statement Friday she terminated the whistleblower for poor work performance. But Willis sang a different tune about the whistleblower, former director of juvenile diversion Amanda Timpson, in the months leading up to her abrupt termination in January 2022, emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. Willis sang Timpson’s praises in a staff-wide email on Sept. 9, 2021, saying the whistleblower had a "dynamic" skill set that would serve her well...