Court: Fani Willis Must Turn Over Communications With ‘Get Trump’ Special Counsel, J6 Committee
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must forfeit any and all communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and House Democrats’ Jan. 6 Committee, a state judge ruled on Tuesday.
In his six-page order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that Willis is “in default” for failing to file court documents responding to a legal challenge brought by Judicial Watch.
The conservative watchdog group filed a lawsuit against Willis in March after the Democrat district attorney denied having any of the records the group sought in an August 2023 open records request. That request aimed to obtain communications between her office and the special counsel and/or the Jan. 6 Committee.
Judicial Watch argued in its lawsuit that Willis’ “representation about not having records responsive to the request is likely false,” citing a December 2023 letter issued to the Fulton County prosecutor by the House Judiciary Committee. The committee indicated that Willis— who indicted Donald Trump and 18 other Republicans last year — “had coordinated [her] politically motivated prosecutions” and “investigative actions” with Smith’s office and the Jan. 6 Committee, respectively.
Despite Willis having multiple opportunities to respond to Judicial Watch’s legal filing, McBurney noted that she “never moved to open default on any basis (not even during the period when she could have opened default as a matter of right), she never paid costs, and she never offered up a meritorious defense.”
“Plaintiff [Judicial Watch] is thus entitled to judgment by default as if every item and paragraph of the complaint were supported by proper and sufficient evidence,” McBurney wrote. “Here, this means Plaintiff has established that Defendant [Willis] violated the [Open Records Act] by failing to either turn over responsive records or else notify Plaintiff of her decision to withhold some or all such records.”
The Fulton County judge subsequently ordered Willis to “conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials within five business days of the entry of this Order.” A court hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 20 to decide Judicial Watch’s “request for attorney’s fees and costs.”
“We’ve been doing this work for 30 years, and this is the first time in our experience a government official has been found in default for not showing up in court to answer an open records lawsuit,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Judicial Watch looks forward to getting any documents from the Fani Willis operation about collusion with the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress on her unprecedented and compromised ‘get-Trump’ prosecution.”
Tuesday’s ruling is the latest setback for the Democrat prosecutor in her anti-Republican lawfare.
In September, as my colleague Brianna Lyman reported, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed multiple counts from Willis’ prosecution of Trump, the future of which is uncertain now that Trump has been reelected president. McAfee previously donated to Willis’ 2020 campaign.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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