A Georgia state subcommittee and its attorney expressed during a hearing Wednesday that having Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis arrested for flouting subpoenas remains an option, though they fell short of saying they’d take that action yet.
The Georgia Senate Special Committee on Investigations had its attorney, Josh Belinfante, provide an update on the months of back-and-forth in the courts and with Willis’ lawyers on a subpoena for documents related to her investigation into President Donald Trump for alleged election interference, as well as a second subpoena for her to testify.
Willis has been challenging the subpoenas since Sept. 3, 2024, but the court has ruled the subpoenas are lawful.
FANI WILLIS ORDERED TO PAY $54K FOR VIOLATING OPEN RECORDS LAWS IN TRUMP CASE
Committee Chair Sen. Bill Coswert instructed Belinfante to reach out to Wade’s counsel again and “suggest either a Thursday or Friday at the beginning of the last week of April or the first two weeks of May.”
“And if they will agree to a date, then we’ll issue the subpoena, and I think they will honor their word. If not, we’re going to have a whole other problem,” he said. “And same thing on the documents, just say we’ve hit the end of our road. We need them by April 15th. You’ve already agreed to give them to us, and if they say they won’t, we’re going to have to circle back with you.”
Sen. Steve Gooch asked what would typically happen if a district attorney, such as Willis, issued a subpoena for someone to show up in court and if that person neglected to appear.
“That person could be held in criminal contempt,” Belinfante said.
“Arrested?” Gooch asked. To that, the attorney replied, “Could be.”
Members, including Sen. Greg Dolezal, stressed that the committee had already been given the runaround as Willis had challenged their subpoenas and the court backed them, then she challenged them again.
“The DA has thumbed her nose at this committee, she has thumbed her nose at Georgia’s open record law, and I just have limited confidence that she’s acting in good faith. So I do believe that we may be at the point that we do need to escalate this to the next step,” he said.
GEORGIA APPEALS COURT DISQUALIFIES DA FANI WILLIS AND HER TEAM FROM TRUMP ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE
The hearing comes as the Daily Mail obtained photos of Willis and former special prosecutor in the Trump case Nathan Wade traveling together at Los Angeles’ airport.
“What is our legal obligation to show deference to her personal travel schedule?” Dolezal said.
“There’s not one,” Belifante said.
Dolezal said the courts, in a separate open records case, called her office “openly hostile” and “substantially groundless and vexatious.” “I think that we have here is an individual who thinks she’s above the law, and I don’t think that the people of Georgia want this committee to wait for her to decide that she wants to appear based on her travel schedule with Mr. Wade, her travel schedule otherwise,” he said.
Belifante said that in December, as repeated judges recused themselves from the case and it was passed to a different county, the committee assured Willis that they would not send the sergeant at arms or consider her in contempt. But months have passed since then.
Belifante said Willis’ attorney told him this month her “travel schedule” meant she wouldn’t be available to testify until late April or May. The attorney testified that some of the documents the committee is seeking Willis has already handed over to the U.S. House of Representatives and Court of Appeals, and her counsel has no further legal avenue to appeal the subpoenas.
“That has expired and there is no appealable order at this time because we reached [an] agreement with them. There is nothing to appeal on the prior documents subpoena. It is moot because there is that agreement,” Belifante said. “On the witness, we think they’ve waived the argument long ago, and so that time is gone and even then, it would take both superior courts to decide whether to allow an appeal to proceed, but that time is gone. There’s no final order right now.”
