Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been ordered by a local judge to release all communications between her office, Special Counsel Jack Smith's office, and the January 6th Committee regarding her RICO case against President Donald Trump and his allies, after she was found to have violated federal law by withholding them.
"The Court also hereby ORDERS Defendant to conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials within five business days of the entry of this Order. Within that same five day period, Defendant is ORDERED to provide Plaintiff with copies of all responsive records that are not legally exempted or excepted from disclosure," reads a Tuesday order.
If Willis can't find them, she is mandated to follow court-ordered procedures to "provide an explanation why such correspondence does not exist."
BREAKING: A judge in Georgia just ordered Fani Willis to release all communications she had with Jack Smith and the January 6th Committee to plot the RICO case against President Trump.
— George (@BehizyTweets) December 3, 2024
The court also declared that she violated Georgia's Open Records Law.
"The Court also hereby… pic.twitter.com/MvpsMgKz7E
Willis, who had been served on March 11, 2024 in the suite involving conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, failed to respond by an April 10 deadline. After later claiming she 'misunderstood' the court's directive, she then said that the document release would jeopardize her RICO case.
Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton responds:
HUGE: Court finds Fani Willis in default on @JudicialWatch lawsuit for records on her Lawfare collusion with Biden gang and Pelosi's operation to destroy @RealDonaldTrump! Orders her to search and produce releasable records within 5 business days!pic.twitter.com/cV585vjA9Y
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) December 3, 2024
As the Epoch Times notes further...
“I don’t know what Jack Smith is doing and Jack Smith doesn’t know what I’m doing,” Willis said in July of that year. “In all honesty, if Jack Smith was standing next to me, I’m not sure I would know who he was. My guess is he probably can’t pronounce my name correctly.”
Since then, however, she has made no comments about Smith’s investigation. Smith, meanwhile, has never commented on Willis’s case against Trump.
Smith in November filed court papers confirming he would be dropping his election case against Trump and would stop the appeals process in his classified documents case. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said he would terminate Smith as special counsel upon taking office.
Willis has been critical of House Republicans’ investigation into her office and the Trump case, accusing House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of trying to interfere in the case at one point.
In a letter issued to Republicans in 2023, Willis said Republicans are trying to “obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations.”
Her case against Trump has stalled in recent months after one of the president-elect’s co-defendants submitted a court filing earlier this year claiming Willis and then-special prosecutor Nathan Wade were engaged in a romantic relationship. The pair confirmed they were in a relationship but denied any wrongdoing.
A judge overseeing the case issued an order in March allowing Willis to remain on the case if Wade resigned, which he did hours later. Trump and several of his co-defendants appealed the decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals earlier this year, where the case is still pending.
