Embattled Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis must turn over all communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 committee to a conservative watchdog group, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Fulton County, Ga., Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that Willis – the last person still prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump – violated open-records laws when she failed to respond to an August 2023 request filed in Fulton County by Judicial Watch, the group said.
The accountability group had filed a lawsuit in March after it sought the communications between the Democratic prosecutor’s office and the special counsel, as well as the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riots and was rebuffed.
The state judge Tuesday rendered Willis in default and ordered her to search for and hand over the requested records to Judicial Watch within five business days.
“Fani Willis is something else. 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 press release.
“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.”
The court ruling is the latest scandal surrounding the inflamed district attorney.
Willis, 53, is prosecuting the only court case left against Trump before he returns to office January. The case involved Trump’s alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia.
Two federal cases against the incoming president have already been dropped by Smith given the Republican’s re-election last month, and Trump’s sentencing in the Manhattan state hush-money case has been indefinitely postponed by a judge.
Willis has come under fire in the past year for her admitted affair with lawyer Nathan Wade, whom she hired to lead the prosecution against Trump.
A court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 20 to determine Judicial Watch’s request for attorney fees in its successful document-seeking case.