Fani Willis Fails to Answer Public Records Lawsuit – Judicial Watch Files Motion for ‘Default Judgment’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it asked the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, to declare a default judgment against District Attorney Fani Willis in Judicial Watch’s lawsuit seeking records of communications Willis had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee.

The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of Fulton County, GA, after Willis and the county denied having any records responsive to an August 2023 Georgia Open Records Act request for communications with the Special Counsel’s office and/or the January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)). (Judicial Watch dismissed Fulton County from the lawsuit.)

In its motion Judicial Watch noted that Willis was served with the lawsuit on March 11, 2024, but that she has not yet answered it:

Defendant has not filed an answer and no answer has been served upon [Judicial Watch].… Defendant’s answer was due 30 days after service, or on April 10, 2024. Pursuant to [Georgia law] the case automatically became in default when an answer was not filed by the due date. Further pursuant to that Code section, Defendant was permitted as a matter of right to open the default within 15 days of the day of default, or by April 25, 2024.

Judicial Watch asserts it is now entitled to a verdict and judgment by default.

In its lawsuit Judicial Watch states that Willis’ “representation about not having records responsive to the request is likely false.” Judicial Watch refers to a December 5, 2023, letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to Willis that cites a December 2021, letter from Willis to then-House January 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson. In that letter Willis requested assistance from the committee and offered to travel to DC.  

Judicial Watch also cited news reports and other records which “indicate that representatives of Willis’s office traveled to Washington, DC, and met with January 6 Select Committee staffers in April, May, and November 2022, as Willis proposed in her December 17, 2021 letter …”

“I think this is the first time in Judicial Watch’s 30 years that a government official failed to answer an open records lawsuit in court,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “This further shows Ms. Willis has something to hide about her collusion with the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress on her unprecedented and compromised ‘get-Trump’ prosecution.”

Judicial Watch is assisted in the case by John Monroe of John Monroe Law in Georgia.

Judicial Watch has several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits related to the prosecutorial abuse targeting Trump:

In February 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court to allow the agency to keep secret the names of top staffers working in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office that is targeting former President Donald Trump and other Americans.

(Before his appointment to investigate and prosecute Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith previously was at the center of several controversial issues, the IRS scandal among them. In 2014, a Judicial Watch investigation revealed that top IRS officials had been in communication with Jack Smith’s then-Public Integrity Section about a plan to launch criminal investigations into conservative tax-exempt groups. Read more here.) 

In January 2024, Judicial Watch filed lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, for records regarding the hiring of Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor by District Attorney Fani Willis. Wade was hired to pursue unprecedented criminal investigations and prosecutions against former President Trump and others over the 2020 election disputes.

In October 2023, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ for records and communications between the Office of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney’s office regarding requests/receipt of federal funding/assistance in the investigation of former President Trump and his 18 codefendants in the Fulton County indictment of August 14, 2023. To date, the DOJ is refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records, claiming that to do so would interfere with enforcement proceedings. Judicial Watch’s litigation challenging this is continuing.

Through the New York Freedom of Information Law, in July 2023, Judicial Watch received the engagement letter showing New York County District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg paid $900 per hour for partners and $500 per hour for associates to the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm for the purpose of suing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an effort to shut down the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight investigation into Bragg’s unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.

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