The legal integrity organization Judicial Watch (JW) announced on December 10 that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was prosecuting Donald Trump and several prominent Republicans over their concerns about election fraud in Georgia’s 2020 election until she was removed earlier this month for “impropriety,” colluded with the Biden administration to conduct the prosecutions. The group has been repeatedly stonewalled in its attempts, including litigation, to obtain public records from Willis’ office revealing any coordination.
“Judicial Watch and a state court forced Fani Willis to confirm additional documents exist about her collusion with the partisan Pelosi January 6 Committee to ‘get Trump,’” JW President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “But Willis, citing legal exemptions for a prosecution that’s essentially dead in the water, now wants to hide these records from the American public. Judicial Watch plans to push back in court against this disingenuous secrecy.”
JW cited evidence of collusion with the Biden White House. Nathan Wade, Willis’ former lover who she assigned to lead the prosecution against Trump and the others, admitted during questioning by the House Judiciary Committee that he visited the Biden White House multiple times. He claimed not to remember any details about the meetings, despite heavily billing for them.
However, his attorney, Andrew Evans, told Fox News Digital “that if he met with current White House employees, it would have been because prosecutors wanted to interview individuals like former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.” Meadows was one of the 19 defendants charged by Willis and had left the White House long before one of Wade’s White House meetings in 2022, which was during the Biden administration.
JW also sued the DOJ in October 2023, demanding records showing collusion between Special Counsel Jack Smith and Willis. The DOJ refused to “confirm or deny the existence of records, claiming that to do so would interfere with enforcement proceedings.” The litigation is ongoing.
JW initially requested public records from Willis’s office revealing any communications between the office and the J6 committee or Smith in August 2023. Willis claimed there weren’t any, so JW filed a lawsuit demanding them in March 2024. JW said in the complaint that Willis’ “representation about not having records responsive to the request is likely false,” citing Willis’s letter.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) sent a letter in December 2023 to Willis referencing a letter that Willis sent to then-House January 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS-02) requesting assistance from the committee and offering to travel to Washington D.C.
Willis failed to respond to JW within the 30-day court-imposed deadline, so JW asked the court for a default judgment against her. The court granted it, ordering Willis “to conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials within five business days of the entry of this Order.” The order noted, “She never paid costs, and she never offered up a meritorious defense.”
Willis doubled down on her refusal in a letter responding in early December to the order that “no such documents or communication exist” regarding communicating with Smith. Regarding the J6 committee, she refused to turn them over, but admitted having them. “[T]he records are exempted/excepted from disclosure because they arose from the investigation, subsequent indictment, and prosecution in case number 23SC188947; are subject to attorney-client privilege; and are confidential work product,” she said. “As a result, they are records in a pending, ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution.”
JW filed a lawsuit a year ago against the Fulton County DA’s office over Willis hiring Wade to “pursue unprecedented criminal investigations and prosecutions against former President Trump and others over the 2020 election disputes.” The organization filed the complaint because Willis refused to turn over public records that JW had requested related to Wade’s hiring.
Willis was disqualified from handling the RICO case in December due to her affair with Wade. The Georgia appellate court judge said there was a “significant appearance of impropriety” and “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings” than disqualifying Willis from the case.
In November, a coalition of 23 Republican attorneys general demanded that Willis end the prosecution. Texas Attorney General Paxton filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the DOJ for records related to Smith’s “unconstitutional” investigation and sued the DOJ on November 11 to prevent the destruction of any of those documents.
In late December, a Georgia judge ordered Willis to appear before Georgia lawmakers to answer questions about why she pursued the RICO case against Trump and the others. The legislators accused her of “various forms of misconduct.”
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Fani Willis” by Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. Photo “Nathan Wade” by Wade & Campbell.
