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).
A court in Georgia shot down a request by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to quash subpoenas issued by state legislators intent on quizzing the prosecutor about her and her office’s efforts to investigate and prosecute 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.
Willis has resisted those efforts at every turn.
Now, a court has rejected the prosecutor’s latest argument by finding it would set an “absurd” precedent for investigations conducted by state legislators going forward. And, in a twofold blow, the judge cast doubt on efforts by Willis to limit the scope of the subpoenas.
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.
In January, the embattled district attorney filed a new motion relying on a wholly separate argument. Willis argued the 2024 subpoenas were moot and should be quashed or dismissed entirely because the November 2024 general election necessarily resulted in a brand new General Assembly being sworn in.
The state senators, for their part, quickly made sure to reauthorize Cowsert’s committee. But, Willis essayed, the details of how that reauthorization occurred precluded the subpoenas from having any real staying power because, technically, the present committee is a different committee than the one that issued the original subpoenas.
In a 2-page order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura L. Ingram rejected that argument out of hand, noting, “this Court disagrees.”
The judge said she was sympathetic to Willis’ arguments that the original subpoenas were issued near the end of the last legislative term — and that compliance is perhaps better achieved if subpoenas are issued by legislators early on. Still, the judge cautioned, “there are myriad ways to tie these disputes up in court.”
“If, every time a subpoena is issued by a Special Committee, a recipient can simply litigate its validity and enforcement until the General Assembly reconstitutes and then they have to start over, this would be an absurd result indeed,” the judge opined. “Not least because this would mean that if the need for a subpoena did not arise well towards the beginning of a term, the General Assembly would be forced to defer issuing said subpoena until the beginning of the next term in order to maximize their window of opportunity to enforce it. This could and would result in lost evidence, fading memories, and general inefficiency.”
In the end, however, the court was not persuaded by any of the timeline considerations offered by the district attorney.
“Moreover, suppose the production of documents were ongoing during the transition from one term to the other — would everyone simply have to start over?” the court’s order goes on. “This Court cannot in good conscience facilitate such a result. As such, Petitioner’s Motion is DENIED.”
Notably, while entertaining the concerns raised by Willis, the court said the district attorney was also wrong on the law about subpoenas.
“[T]his Court agrees with [the GOP] that the authority cited does not stand for the proposition that the original subpoenas must be declared void because the General Assembly and Special Committee have been reconstituted post-election,” the order goes on.
In another 2-page order, Ingram warned Willis that her efforts to evade certain — elucidated — requests in the subpoenas are lacking.
“Petitioner timely filed her elaborated objections; however, they are still deficient,” the court observed.
Willis claims the attorney-client privilege to three requests lodged by the state senators. The judge suggests those claims are off-base.
“Here, who is the attorney? Who is the client?” Ingram asked. Moreover, the communication must have been made for the purpose of getting or giving legal advice. How does that apply here? These are questions that Petitioner needs to answer, or else abandon her objection to these requests on the basis of attorney-client privilege.”
Willis also claims the work-product privilege — a form of privilege closely-related to the attorney-client privilege based on work done specifically in regards to litigation or a trial — in response to those same three requests.
Again, the judge suggests this privilege does not apply. The judge prods by noting the questions have to do with Willis’ hiring of, and personal relationship with, former special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Finally, Ingram strongly suggests Willis is improperly claiming the law enforcement privilege to one request and all-but counsels the district attorney to abandon the current exemption in favor of “another law enforcement privilege and/or law enforcement material assertion.”
