JUST IN: Fani Willis Punished By Judge, Forced To Pay Thousands

Fani Willis, the embattled District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, has been ordered to pay $21,578 in attorney’s fees and litigation costs following her failure to comply with Georgia’s Open Records Act (ORA). The ruling by Judge Robert McBurney comes after months of legal wrangling initiated by Judicial Watch, a watchdog organization that sought records of Willis’s communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee.

The controversy began in August 2023 when Judicial Watch filed a request under Georgia’s ORA. The request was met with conflicting responses from Willis’s office, which initially claimed no such records existed. However, evidence uncovered by Judicial Watch suggested otherwise, prompting the organization to file a lawsuit in March 2024. Court documents reveal a troubling pattern of evasion by Willis’s office.

After initially claiming no records existed, her office repeatedly denied the existence of responsive documents, even after the lawsuit was filed. It wasn’t until a December 2, 2024, court order that the DA’s office conducted what was described as a “diligent search.” This search suddenly unearthed records Willis had previously claimed did not exist—records her office then deemed exempt from disclosure. In a memo submitted to Judicial Watch, Willis’s office provided a copy of a letter to the January 6 Committee as part of its compliance.

However, Judicial Watch had already identified this letter as a responsive record that was improperly withheld. The memo, unsigned and undated, underscored what the court described as a clear violation of the ORA. Judge McBurney’s order, issued on January 3, paints a damning picture of Willis’s handling of the records request. The court noted that the DA’s office failed to conduct any search for records until the lawsuit forced its hand. Even then, efforts to comply were lackluster, with no comprehensive examination of emails or case files.

McBurney wrote in his ruling, “This response was perplexing and eventually suspicious to Plaintiff, given that Plaintiff subsequently uncovered through own effort at least one document that should have been in the District Attorney’s Office’s possession that was patently responsive to the request.” He found that Judicial Watch had successfully demonstrated both a violation of the ORA and a lack of “substantial justification” for the violation.

“The ORA is not hortatory; it is mandatory. Non-compliance has consequences,” McBurney continued. “One of them can be liability for the requesting party’s attorney’s fees and costs of litigation. To recover its relevant and reasonable fees and costs under the ORA, Plaintiff must do two things. First, it must show that Defendant violated the ORA. Second, Plaintiff must also demonstrate that Defendant lacked “substantial justification” for the violation(s).”

The result: Willis was ordered to pay $19,360 in attorney’s fees and $2,218 in related litigation expenses, to be paid within two weeks. The court’s order also highlighted the troubling admission from the DA’s Records Custodian, who confessed under oath that no search for records had been conducted when Judicial Watch first submitted its request. Instead, the response was a curt denial, later revealed to be false. The ruling is the latest blow to Willis, whose high-profile role in cases related to the January 6 Capitol protests has already drawn scrutiny. As of now, Willis has two weeks to comply with the court’s order to pay the $21,578 penalty.