A Georgia court ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to pay over $21,000 in legal fees to Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, following an open records lawsuit.
Judicial Watch submitted an Open Records Act (ORA) request in August 2023 seeking communications Willis’s office may have had with special counsel Jack Smith and the now-disbanded House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Willis brought charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others for alleged misconduct following the 2020 election.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney noted in his recent ruling that Judicial Watch uncovered a document the District Attorney’s office should have disclosed under the ORA. He wrote, “Non-compliance has consequences.”
According to the court order, after Judicial Watch filed its request, Fulton County confirmed it would channel the request to the “appropriate department.” However, the county later asked the group to “simplify” the request, and then claimed no responsive records existed.
The judge highlighted discrepancies, including multiple occasions when officials claimed no records existed, only to later assert such records were exempt from disclosure. Judge McBurney concluded that the office had violated the ORA, stating, “The ORA is not hortatory; it is mandatory. Non-compliance has consequences.”
The court ordered Willis’s office to pay $21,578 in legal fees and directed it to release the requested documents.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton welcomed the decision, saying his organization seeks the “full truth” from Willis regarding any potential communications with the January 6 committee.
In July 2023, Willis denied any coordination with Smith’s office, stating, “I don’t know what Jack Smith is doing and Jack Smith doesn’t know what I’m doing… In all honesty, if Jack Smith was standing next to me, I’m not sure I would know who he was.”
Smith has made no public comments on Willis’s case. In December, he dropped charges against Trump after Trump’s November election victory, while Willis was disqualified from her case by Georgia’s Court of Appeals amid allegations of misconduct.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s office has not commented on the ruling.
