Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been ordered to pay $21,578 in attorney’s fees following her office’s noncompliance with Georgia’s Open Records Act (ORA). The ruling results from a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch—a legal watchdog group—after they filed an open records request regarding Willis’s communications with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots. Initially, Willis’s office claimed no such records existed.
However, the court discovered that Willis had withheld key documents, including a letter she sent to the chair of the January 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). Under legal pressure, she acknowledged the documents’ existence but insisted they were exempt from disclosure, a claim the court dismissed.
Judge Robert McBurney, who issued the ruling, criticized the DA’s office, pointing out that the records request was ignored until Judicial Watch’s lawsuit. He asserted that the “Records Custodian’s own admission” highlighted this noncompliance. McBurney noted, “No one searched until prodded by civil litigation.”
In his decision, Judge McBurney revealed the extent of the violations, mandating that Willis’s office cover Judicial Watch’s legal fees. Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch’s President, criticized Willis for her actions, stating the court was correct in penalizing her and demanding the payment. He emphasized that the ultimate goal was to uncover what he described as Willis’s “political collusion” with the January 6 committee, allegedly aimed at targeting President-elect Donald J. Trump. The payment must be made by January 17, 2025.
Meanwhile, in December last year, a Georgia appeals court removed Willis from her prosecution of President-elect Trump. The appellate judges ruled that an earlier decision by a lower court to allow Willis to remain as prosecutor failed “to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety.”
