The lawfare against Donald Trump has not only been corrupt but also sloppy.
TOM FITTON OF JUDICIAL WATCH
The Superior Court in Fulton County entered an order granting a motion for default judgment against District Attorney Fani Willis in our lawsuit for communications Willis had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. In doing so, the court grants our request for attorneys’ fees and orders Willis to search for and provide releasable records to us within five business days.
We filed our March 2024 lawsuit 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 (ORA) 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)).
In our lawsuit we stated that Willis’ “representation about not having records responsive to the request is likely false.” We referred 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 (D-MS). In that letter Willis requested assistance from the committee and offered to travel to DC.
In May 2024, we asked the court to declare a default judgment, noting that Willis was served with the lawsuit in March 2024 and had “not filed an answer,” which “was due 30 days after service.”
The recently issued default judgment states: “The Court finds Defendant [Willis, in her official capacity] is in default and has been since 11 April 2024.” Further, Willis “never moved to open default on any basis (not even during the period when she could have opened default as a matter of right), she never paid costs, and she never offered up a meritorious defense.”
Plaintiff is thus entitled to judgment by default as if every item and paragraph of the complaint were supported by proper and sufficient evidence. O.C.G.A. § 9-11-55(a). Here, this means Plaintiff has established that Defendant violated the ORA by failing to either turn over responsive records or else notify Plaintiff of her decision to withhold some or all such records.
In its complaint, Plaintiff sought the following relief:
1) a declaration that Defendant has violated the ORA;
2) an order for Defendant to search for all records responsive to Plaintiff’s request without further delay;
3) an injunction ordering Defendant to cease withholding non-exempt public records responsive to the request;
4) an award of attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(b);
5) a writ of mandamus, ordering Defendant to provide the requested records; and
6) any other relief the Court deems proper.
By finding Defendant in default, the Court has in effect declared that she has violated the ORA. 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. If Defendant is required or decides to withhold all or part of a requested record, she should follow the procedures set forth in the ORA (see O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71(d)). If the records are stored electronically, they may be produced electronically in a commonly used format such as PDF. The Court expects that such production will include the correspondence identified by Plaintiff in its complaint. If it does not, Defendant is further ORDERED to provide an explanation why such correspondence does not exist in Defendant’s records (or why it is being withheld). Beyond that, no other relief, injunctive or otherwise, is necessary at this time (to include striking Defendant’s answer, which is of no effect based on the Court’s finding of default).
The court set a hearing on our attorneys’ fees for December 20.
Fani Willis is something else. We’ve been doing this work for 30 years, and this is the first time in our experience a government official has been found in default for not showing up in court to answer an open records lawsuit. We look forward to getting any documents from the Fani Willis operation about collusion with the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress on her unprecedented and compromised “get-Trump” prosecution.
We have several Freedom of Information Act 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, Smith 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, we filed a 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, we 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 co defendants 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,we 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.
Be sure to check back next week to find out what, if any, documents Fani Willis finally does turn over to Judicial Watch!