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Inset: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Friday, March, 1, 2024, in Atlanta (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool). Background: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks after voting in the Florida primary election in Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, March 19, 2024 (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee).
A court battle between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Republican state legislators appears to be coming to a head.
At stake are years-old investigative efforts by the GOP, a recent court decision endorsing their power of subpoena, and the Democratic prosecutor’s insistence that she will never be called to answer questions before the committee intent on putting her under oath.
On Thursday, Peach State Sen. Bill Cowsert, a Republican who represents the college town of Athens, presided over the latest meeting of the Special Committee on Investigations. Willis did not attend those proceedings, as she previously signaled she would not. But the chair recently said he would try and get her there soon.
Meanwhile, the legal maneuvering continues on.
While the committee has been looking into Willis for years, in summer 2024 Cowsert ramped up the pressure — and out-of-state interest in its work — by aiming to get the district attorney on the record about her frustrated crusade against President Donald Trump.
The focus of the committee’s investigation is how Willis spent public funds on her failed racketeering (RICO) and election interference investigation into the 45th and 47th president — and whether any funds earmarked for other purposes were improperly diverted.
A subpoena was issued by the Georgia state Senate in August 2024; but appeared superfluous at first. The prosecutor was slated to appear and speak under oath at a public hearing held by the committee that September — but ultimately she was a no-show.
Around the same time, Cowsert moved to enforce years-old subpoenas against Willis for documents and testimony — as well as the latest subpoena. In turn, Willis and her office filed for a permanent injunction to stop the subpoenas from being enforced.
In early December 2024, attorneys for the parties argued the general issues in the case as well as for and against the possibility of Willis being held in contempt. On Dec. 23, 2024, the Fulton County District Court judge overseeing the matter then ruled in the committee’s favor on the basic question of the subpoena power — denying the district attorney’s petition for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.
Then Willis pulled another card from the deck of law.
In early January, the embattled district attorney filed a new motion relying on a wholly separate argument. To hear Willis tell it, the 2024 subpoenas are moot and should be quashed or dismissed entirely. That is, the procedural posture is different but the hoped-for result is the same: Willis wants the judge to render the subpoenas dead letter.
Willis argued the November 2024 general election necessarily resulted in a brand new General Assembly being sworn in. State senators, for their part, quickly made sure to reauthorize Cowsert’s committee. But, Willis says, the details of how that reauthorization occurred preclude the subpoenas from having any real staying power because, technically, the present committee is a different committee.
“The prior General Assembly did not issue its subpoenas until late August of 2024,” the Willis motion to quash reads. “The deadline for compliance with them was September of 2024. This Court heard and resolved the matter in roughly three months. Should the new Special Committee seek to issue and enforce subpoenas as to Petitioner, it has plenty of time to do so before it expires.”
Cowsert and his colleagues responded to Willis in motions filed in late January and earlier this week — opposing the effort to dismiss and/or quash the application to enforce the witness subpoena.
“Petitioner did not appeal the denial of her Petition, and those claims along with any requested relief have been decided,” one of the GOP motions reads. “Accordingly, no other claims in the Petition remain. At this juncture, all that remains is Respondents’ Application to Enforce the Subpoena Duces Tecum and Witness Subpoena.”
The lingering motions practice over those older subpoenas, however, may prove to be somewhat perfunctory if not redundant.
During Thursday’s meeting, Cowsert suggested he and his fellow GOP members of the special committee would take Willis up on the logic of her motion to quash by reissuing the subpoena anew.
The goal of that re-issuance, the state senator said, would be to have the district attorney questioned during the current legislative session.
