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A judge ruled earlier this week that Georgia Republicans can subpoena disgraced Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis about her affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram “rejected Willis’ arguments that GOP leaders of a state Senate committee didn’t have the authority to issue a pair of subpoenas in August seeking documents and her testimony,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
However, Ingram did cut Willis a slight break by giving her until Jan. 13th to file documents explaining why the subpoenas shouldn’t be allowed.
“[Willis] claims that the subpoenas are overbroad and seek privileged and/or confidential information,” the judge wrote. “This may very well be true, but this court needs more details on the basis for these objections from [Willis] before ruling on [the committee members’] application for enforcement.”
Willis’ lead lawyer, former Democrat Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, responded to the ruling by vowing to appeal it.
Senate Republicans meanwhile responded as follows:
Judge Ingram has ruled the state Senate does indeed have the power to subpoena D.A. Fani Willis.
We’ll see you soon, Madam D.A. pic.twitter.com/yZXjmDS07w
— Senator Greg Dolezal (@dolezal4senate) December 27, 2024
The state senator above, Greg Dolezal, also told the Journal-Constitution that Ingram’s ruling “follows the plain reading of the law as outlined in our committee.”
“From open records laws to lawfully issued subpoenas, D.A. Willis seems to think she is above the law,” he added. “Once again, the courts ruled otherwise.”
Willis previously argued in court that the subpoenas should be void because the committee that filed them lacked legislative subpoena power, issued the subpoenas while the Senate was adjourned, and violated a part of the Georgia Constitution.
Ingram again disagreed.
“It is undisputed that the General Assembly has the unenumerated and implied constitutional power to conduct investigations and the statutory authority to issue subpoenas for the purposes of such investigations,” she ruled. “Here, the Senate, as a chamber, empowered itself to issue subpoenas, which it was authorized to do.”
The judge also “said Willis failed to identify any authority to support her theory that the subpoenas could not be issued after the Legislature adjourned its regular session on March 28,” and that “the Georgia Constitution allows members of one branch of government to investigate members of another branch,” according to AJC.
The GOP state senators reportedly created the state Senate’s Special Committee on Investigations in January of 2024, weeks after the news broke that Willis had had an affair with Wade.
“Members sought years worth of communications between Willis and Wade as well as information about his hiring and pay, the DA office’s federal grant funding and interactions with the White House, Justice Department and members of Congress regarding the elections case,” AJC notes.
This latest ruling comes just a week or so after Willis and her entire office were removed from the Georgia election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump.
Fani Willis dealt a major blow just as she was reigniting her fight with Trump https://t.co/xNdxPNEHfr
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) December 19, 2024
“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the Georgia Court of Appeals wrote in its ruling.
The bad news was that the court declined to dismiss the case itself.
“We cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment,” the court ruled.
This means the case will continue for the time being, albeit under someone else’s tutelage.
“The new ruling means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take over the case and to decide whether to continue to pursue it, though that could be delayed if Willis decides to appeal to the state Supreme Court,” the Associated Press confirmed.
Judge Benjamin Land, one of the three justices involved in the ruling, dissented by arguing that the court was overstepping its authority by overturning a previous ruling from Judge Scott McAfee allowing Willis to continue with the case.
“It is not our job to second guess trial judges or to substitute our judgment for theirs,” Land wrote in his dissent. “We should resist the temptation to interfere with that discretion, including its chosen remedy, just because we happen to see things differently,” he continued. “Doing otherwise violates well-established precedent, threatens the discretion given to trial courts, and blurs the distinction between our respective courts.”
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