Judicial Watch: Court Raises New Questions About Fani Willis’ Trump Anti-Collusion Records Scandal

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a Georgia state court ordered Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis to provide new information and potentially conduct a new search for Trump-related records because her recent affidavit to the court made no reference to whether any searches of the devices of former Fulton County Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade or those of Chief Investigator Michael L. Hill, who was involved gathering evidence and coordinating investigative efforts, and likely met with the January 6 Committee.

The court order was issued in a Judicial Watch lawsuit filed after Willis falsely denied having any records responsive to Judicial Watch’s earlier Georgia Open Records Act (ORA) request for communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and/or the January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)). 

A March 7, 2025 court order directed Willis to turn over 212 pages of records and provide an affidavit detailing how the records were found and the reason for withholding them from the public. The records were belatedly found in response to Judicial Watch’s request and lawsuit. In a February 28 hearing Willis’ lawyers admitted to finding the records after what was believed to be a fifth search of her office.

The court awarded Judicial Watch $21,578 “attorney’s fees and costs.” (Willis’ office made payment to Judicial Watch 10 days after the court-ordered deadline.)

The new court order states:

On 7 March 2025, this Court, after hearing about Defendant’s desultory efforts to determine the full universe of responsive information, ordered Defendant to produce for in camera review the records that had been identified — after repeated denials of their existence — but which were being withheld on the basis of being exempt from disclosure under the State’s Open Records Act…. Defendant timely complied with the March 2025 Order, providing the Court with (1) an affidavit from her Legal Counsel summarizing the steps taken to conduct an actual, meaningful search for the requested information and (2) a digital storage device containing 212 pages of search protocols, e-mails, text messages, and written correspondence. The Court has since reviewed these materials and concurs with Defendant that, at this point, given that the criminal case related to these materials remains open (if not particularly active), pursuant to the exceptions set forth in O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72, these records are not presently subject to disclosure. Specifically, the Court finds that the documents are “[r]ecords of law enforcement, prosecution, or regulatory agencies in any pending investigation or prosecution of criminal or unlawful activity” (and they are not “initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports”)….

Defendant’s work is not yet done, however. In reviewing the submitted materials, in particular the search protocols prepared by each employee of Defendant whose records and devices were reviewed, the Court noticed the following omissions:

1) There was no search protocol produced for or by Investigator Michael L. Hill II indicating what accounts, devices, etc. were searched and for what terms.

2) It is unclear4 if anyone consulted with Nathan Wade, who is now employed elsewhere but who at the relevant time was, among other things, Defendant’s lead counsel for her office’s investigation into “possible criminal disruptions that occurred during the administration of the 2020 general elections in Georgia” (to use her office’s phrasing).

3) While Legal Counsel’s affidavit avers that Defendant’s own records were searched, the responsive materials do not include the search protocol used to do so nor is the scope of the search described.

Consequently, Defendant shall, within fourteen days of entry of this Order, submit to the Court the search protocols (i.e., search terms used and data sources searched) for Investigator Hill and Defendant as well as a clarification of whether Attorney Wade’s materials were searched. If they were not, they shall be and any responsive records forwarded to the Court. If they already were, then the same requirement of supplying the search protocol applies. Any additional materials that are generated by this effort will be received in camera and will remain in camera pending an analysis similar to the one the Court performed with the first set of submitted materials.

In December 2024, Willis finally admitted to having records showing communications with the January 6 Committee but refused to release all but one document in response to the court order that found her in default. She cited a series of legal exemptions to justify the withholding of communications with the January 6 Committee. The only document she did release was one already-public letter to January 6 Committee Chairman Benny Thompson (D-MS).

Judicial Watch subsequently filed a motion, asking the court to conduct a private inspection of any records found.

“Fani Willis can’t be trusted. Every time we go back to court there are new excuses and new documents that she said never existed. And now we find that entire universes of records may have been ignored,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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 on the lawfare 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.

In his book Rights and Freedoms in Peril Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton details a long chain of abuses officials and politicians have made against the American people and calls readers to battle for “the soul and survival of America.”

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