Attorneys representing Fani Willis and the Senate investigative committee probing her conduct are still fighting over whether the Fulton County district attorney must testify under oath.
The different interpretations of the law became evident on Wednesday, seven months after their subpoena fight began.
Early in the day, Josh Belinfante, the outside attorney for the GOP-led Senate Special Committee on Investigations, suggested to senators that the question of whether Willis must testify before the committee was a settled one. He said he had been speaking to the DA’s attorney and that they were discussing spring dates to summon her, though the DA was reserving the right to object.
“The answer I got was due to the district attorney’s travel schedule and court schedule she would not be available until late April or early May,” Belinfante said.
Later Wednesday, Willis’s attorney, former Gov. Roy Barnes, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution there was no deal in place for her to testify before the panel.
“The District Attorney and Special Committee have not reached an agreement to testify, and the District Attorney continues to challenge the witness subpoena in court,” Barnes said in a statement.
But Barnes confirmed that Willis has “agreed to produce certain already publicly produced documents, and will do so at an appropriate time.”
Subpoena fight
The back-and-forth suggests that the long-simmering subpoena fight between the panel and Willis is not yet over.
The special committee first issued a pair of subpoenas to Willis in August. It sought the Democrat’s testimony at a September hearing, as well as a bevy of records related to, among other things, Willis’ romantic relationship with former deputy Nathan Wade, which ultimately led an appeals court to disqualify her from the Trump election interference case.
The veteran prosecutor then challenged the subpoenas in Fulton Superior Court. She argued the committee lacked the legal authority to subpoena her, and that the panel’s requests were overly broad and seeking privileged information.
In December, a Fulton judge ruled the committee has the authority to subpoena Willis but gave the DA time to detail objections she had to the scope of the documents being requested.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
The committee believes its win is clear-cut and that Willis will need to appear and offer her testimony.
“As we have set forth in our pleadings, the court has already decided a witness subpoena is enforceable,” Belinfante told the AJC. “If the district attorney chooses to object that is her prerogative, but to us the issue appears decided.”
Belinfante said the panel and Willis’ lawyer have agreed that the DA’s office will hand over records previously provided to the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, which has also been scrutinizing Willis. They will also share records provided to the defendants in the election interference case who successfully sought the DA’s disqualification, he said.
Barnes did not specify what exactly Willis had committed to sending the special committee.
‘Not above the law’
The special committee’s leaders suggested they were skeptical Willis would ultimately follow through.
“The DA has thumbed her nose at this committee … and I just have limited confidence that she’s acting in good faith,” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming. “So I do believe that we may be at the point where we need to escalate this to the next step.”
Chairman Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, told reporters Wednesday that he would not hesitate to do so if Willis drags her feet.
“She is not above the law, and I think that there are legal processes to force her to comply,” he said. “We’re going to try one more time to reach out to her and let her and her attorney agree upon a date that is convenient with her and convenient with us in the next few weeks … If not we’ll go to court and we’ll ask the court to force her to obey our subpoena.”
Credit: AJC file photo
Credit: AJC file photo
The Senate’s Republican leaders pushed for the formation of the committee a year ago after news emerged of Willis’ romantic relationship with Wade, the outside lawyer she hired as a special prosecutor in her election interference case.
The committee held a handful of hearings throughout 2024, which in addition to Willis’ conduct scrutinized how the DA’s office spent public funding and how Fulton oversees those funds.
While the panel lacks the power to prosecute, disbar or directly discipline Willis, it can recommend changes to the state budget or draft legislation regulating prosecutors’ conduct more broadly.
The special committee was also recently tapped to investigate another prominent Democrat: Stacey Abrams.
The back-and-forth comes as Willis tries to regain control of the election interference case at the state Supreme Court after the Georgia Court of Appeals in December disqualified the Fulton DA’s office from the prosecution.
Willis has accused the special committee of being overly partisan and seeking to punish her for prosecuting Trump.
Cowsert on Wednesday insisted that wasn’t the case.
“This is not about trying to interfere with her prosecution of Donald Trump or any of the other defendants that she went after,” he told reporters. “ … That’s not our problem. We’re looking at the underlying conduct and the public confidence in the judicial system.”
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