The order that the office of the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis — meaning taxpayers — is required to pay more than $54,000 and hand over records for violating Georgia’s open records law is a stinging rebuke to the scandal-plagued prosecutor.
The punishment was handed down by a Fulton County judge, Rachel Krause. Judge Krause found that Ms. Willis’s stratagems to avoid compliance “were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious.” The request for records was initially filed by an attorney, Ashleigh Merchant.
Ms. Merchant, who represents one of the defendants in the sprawling racketeering case Ms. Willis brought against President Trump and 18 others for election interference, was the first lawyer to flag the “impropriety” of Ms. Willis’s secret romance with her handpicked special prosecutor, Nathan Wade. Ms. Merchant adduced cellular data that show thousands of phone calls and texts between Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis before he was hired.
The trial judge, Scott McAfee, reckoned that Ms. Willis’s behavior emitted an “odor of mendacity” and a “significant appearance of impropriety.” Mr. Wade was paid more than $650,000 by Ms. Willis’s office, and the two took trips together to Napa Valley, Belize, and Aruba. Mr. Wade paid, and Ms. Willis testified that she paid him back in cash stored at her house. Her father testified that this practice was a “Black thing.” Judge McAfee ruled that Ms. Willis could stay on if Mr. Wade departed the case, which he did.
The amorous pair denied under oath that they began dating before he was hired, but the Georgia court of appeals did not credit that testimony and eventually found this to be the “rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”
Judge Krause found that Ms. Willis, who won re-election in a route this fall, was “openly hostile” to Ms. Merchant and that her requests “were handled differently than other requests,” a disparity that “indicates a lack of good faith.” Ms. Willis intends to appeal this decision, just as she has vowed to appeal her disqualification to the Georgia supreme court. That body, though, possesses the power of discretionary review, meaning it could opt not to take the case.
This is not the first time in recent months that Ms. Willis has been ordered to pay attorneys’ fees with respect to an open records request. She has also been ordered to pay more than $20,000 in costs for defaulting on a request from a conservative legal organization, Judicial Watch. The group seeks correspondence between Ms. Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 committee.
Judge Krause found that Ms. Willis’s lack of responsiveness to Ms. Merchant’s request “lacked substantial justification” and was motivated by animus toward the attorney, who was seeking, among other documents, reports by companies hired by Ms. Willis to “track the impact of Willis’ statements to the media and whether such statements were viewed favorably by the public” in the months before she indicted Mr. Trump and the other defendants.
Ms. Willis now has 30 days to comply with this order. Her client, Mr. Roman, a longtime aide in Trump world, still faces charges in the case because the Georgia court of appeals, while disqualifying Ms. Willis, reckoned that dismissing the charges against all the defendants would be an “extreme” measure.
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