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Washington, DC – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Georgia Open Records Act lawsuit against District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County, Georgia, for records of any communication Willis and the county had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).
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:
All documents and communication sent to, received from, or relating to Special Counsel Jack Smith or any employees in his office.
All documents and communication sent to or received from the United States House January 6th Committee or any of its employees.
Judicial Watch states in the lawsuit that Willis’ and the County’s “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. Jordan writes:
Specifically, you asked Rep. Thompson for access to “record [sic] includ[ing] but . . . not limited to recordings and transcripts of witness interviews and depositions, electronic and print records of communications, and records of travel.” You even offered that you and your staff were eager to travel to Washington, D.C, to “meet with investigators in person” and to receive these records “any time” between January 31, 2022, and February 25, 2022.
Judicial Watch argues in its complaint: “Willis’s letter to [former] Chairman Thompson is plainly responsive to the request, yet it was neither produced to Plaintiff in response to the request nor claimed to be subject to exemption from production under the Open Records Act.”
Judicial Watch also cites recent 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 …”
Judicial Watch states that a January 2024, Politico report titled “Jan. 6 committee helped guide days of Georgia Trump probe” and a January 2024, letter from the House Judiciary Committee to Fulton County Special Prosecutor Nathan J. Wade are examples that “Such meetings plainly had to be coordinated and likely generated communications if not other records about or memorializing these meetings.”
Any such records would be responsive to Judicial Watch’s request, the lawsuit states.
“Fani Willis and Fulton County seem to have provided false information about having no records of communications with Jack Smith and the Pelosi January 6 committee,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
On January 30, 2024, Judicial Watch announced it filed a lawsuit against Fulton County for records regarding the hiring of Wade as a special prosecutor by 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.
