House Judiciary Committee threatening Fulton DA Fani Willis with contempt charges – Atlanta News First
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – As the nation awaits a Fulton County Superior Court ruling on whether she will be disqualified from her prosecution of former President Donald Trump, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is threatening to hold DA Fani Willis in contempt if she doesn’t comply with its subpoena.
On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) – who has sparred repeatedly with Willis and has frequently criticized her investigation into Trump – and the committee sent a letter to Willis demanding she turn over a long list of requested information related to her indictment of Trump and several GOP allies.
“While you have indicated that additional documents may be forthcoming in response to the Committee’s subpoena, the Committee has yet to receive any additional responsive materials in the three weeks since your initial response,” Jordan wrote. “Accordingly, the Committee expects that you will produce all responsive documents to the subpoena in the categories prioritized by the Committee no later than 12:00 p.m. on March 28, 2024. If you fail to do so, the Committee will consider taking further action, such as the invocation of contempt of Congress proceedings.”
2024-03-14 JDJ to Willis Re Subpoena Noncompliance and Contempt by Lindsey Basye on Scribd
This story is developing.
Willis is the locally elected district attorney who issued dozens of indictments in August 2023 accusing the nation’s 45th president and his allies of trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
But Willis has been facing allegations she misused taxpayer funds and crossed ethical boundaries during her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
On Wednesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote that six of the charges in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump. But the order leaves intact many other charges in the indictment and McAfee wrote prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.
Last month, two days of often-explosive testimony rocked the internationally watched criminal indictment of the nation’s 45th president. During those hearings, Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade both said their romantic relationship began after Willis hired Wade, and that it had since ended.
However, three weeks ago, Trump’s Georgia attorneys filed a court document showing a private investigator’s review of Wade’s cell phone calls and texts. The document shows the couple engaged in thousands of calls and texts months before Wade was hired.
The questioning started in early January, when a court filing by Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, and Merchant, his attorney, accused Willis and special prosecutor Wade of having a romantic relationship.
Roman is a former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations. Prosecutors allege Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election, a charge to which Roman has pleaded not guilty.
Roman’s court filing claims Willis and Wade took lavish vacations together and that Wade used part of his salary from the district attorney’s office to travel with Willis. Merchant also claims to have discovered “outside of court filings” that Willis and Wade went on trips together.
Trump and 18 of his GOP allies were indicted by Willis and her office in August 2023 on charges they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That election saw Democrat Joe Biden become the first Democrat to carry a deep Southern state in a presidential election since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992.
Merchant became the the first person to be subpoenaed before a newly formed special Georgia senate committee empaneled to investigate Willis.
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