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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis arrives during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Friday, March, 1, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool)
Subpoena enforcement and compliance are the words of the day for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as the embattled Democrat is set to finally provide documents and appear for testimony under oath about her prosecution of President Donald Trump.
Peach State Sen. Bill Cowsert, a Republican who represents the college town of Athens, is the chair of the Senate Special Committee on Investigations. That committee has been looking into Willis for years. Since the summer of 2024, Cowsert has been intent on getting Willis to talk under oath about her long-frustrated Trump crusade.
Though Willis has resisted those efforts at every turn, earlier this month she told Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura L. Ingram her stonewalling had come to an end — by and large at least.
During a Thursday meeting, Georgia state senators discussed the lay of the legal landscape with outside counsel Josh Belinfante.
The prospect of waxing defiance took center stage even as Willis’ court-filed positions suggest such obfuscation is on the wane.
“She is objecting in our subpoena to documents that she has already produced in other litigation that went to the court of Appeals?” Cowsert asked at one point during the meeting with counsel.
“Presumably,” the committee’s lawyer said. “I can’t say for certain what documents that are being objected to because we’ve never received an itemized list of, you know, as you normally would.”
The lawyer went on to say that efforts were being made to have Willis turn over a tranche of documents that had already been provided to opposing counsel in the underlying litigation as well as documents previously turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives after congressional investigators issued their own subpoenas.
“We candidly don’t know what documents they are objecting to and what documents are there,” Belinfante explained.
The underlying litigation referenced during the meeting is what sounded the death knell for the district attorney’s inquiry into Trump and most of his co-defendants: the successful effort to have Willis disqualified over allegations that her romantic relationship with now-former special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest.
Still, the lawyer told the committee, a certain number of those documents were being voluntarily produced despite an initial number of attorney-client, work-product, and law enforcement privilege claims offered by Willis and her office in an earlier court filing.
“There’s documents that were relevant in that action to disqualify her from further prosecution of the 16 or 18 defendants that we know exist and have been produced to somebody before and you have an agreement with opposing counsel that we will at least receive those documents with no objection?” Cowsert asked.
Belinfante answered in the affirmative. That accord, the attorney said, was reached on March 10 — with the right to issue additional subpoenas should the committee find the district attorney’s responses lacking. The court overseeing the matter was apprised of the agreement over the limited production promised. Exactly when those documents would be received, however, is unclear.
On March 18, Belinfante emailed “opposing counsel” to request the documents, he said. Willis’ attorney wrote back to say they would confer with their client. Days passed. No documents were provided. So, Belinfante emailed Willis’ attorneys on March 24 and March 25. In a final message, Belinfante said, he reminded the district attorney’s lawyers the committee was meeting the next day and eagerly awaiting those documents — or at the very least, a timeline.
“So, as of today I do not have the documents,” Belinfante said.
At the same time, the committee’s lawyer said he was working toward an agreed upon time for Willis to testify under oath and fulfill her obligations under the witness subpoena. After some back and forth, Willis’ office said her travel and trial schedule precluded an in-person appearance before “late April or early May,” according to Belinfante.
The committee’s attorney went on to reference a separate-but-related case in which Willis violated state open records laws. In that case, intentional failure to comply with the law resulted in substantial attorneys fees being awarded to the plaintiffs.
“This is the first time since Oct. 8 of last year that we don’t have a court order dictating the next step,” Belinfante also said.
The upshot of the lawyer’s parting points in his presentation were to suggest that the committee might consider asking the court to compel production or make a finding of contempt.
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At least one member took the lawyer’s final comments to heart.
“This has been going on for a year now,” Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican who represents the small town of Cumming, said. “The DA, when we first issued the subpoena, declared in the paper that it was unlawful. When it clearly was lawful. The courts now have agreed with us that it was lawful.”
Dolezal referenced “eyewitness reports” that Willis is again traveling with Wade — and asked the attorney for any advice on enforcing compliance in light of such news, specifically inquiring as to whether “personal travel” could be distinguished from work-related travel.
Belinfante more or less repeated his earlier advice that senators could try to enforce the existing witness subpoena by moving to compel Willis, issue a new subpoena, or reach an agreement with her attorney.
Dolezal appeared to reject trusting any agreement.
“The DA has thumbed her nose at this committee,” he said. “She has thumbed her nose at Georgia’s open records laws. And I just have limited confidence that she’s acting in good faith. So, I do believe we may be at the point where we need to escalate this to the next step.”
The state senator went on to say the issue was not with trusting the opposing side’s attorney — former Georgia governor Roy Barnes, a Democrat — but likely with the attorney’s client.
In the end, the committee voted on a deadline of May 10. By that date, Willis will have to appear in person to testify under oath. If the district attorney continues to stonewall past then, the committee voted on filing another request with the judge to compel her to appear.
