Judicial Watch announced today that the Superior Court in Fulton County, GA, issued an order granting $21,578 “attorney’s fees and costs” in the open records lawsuit for communications Willis had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. The order followed a previous order finding that Willis was in default in the lawsuit.
Judicial Watch filed this lawsuit in March 2024 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 Smiths office and/or the January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).
After finding Willis in default, the court ordered a court hearing on December 20, which resulted in the order yesterday, finding Willis liable for fees and expenses that “shall be paid within two weeks of the entry of this Order.” The order recounts the timeline of events after Judicial Watch filed its records request:
Plaintiff [Judicial Watch] submitted an Open Records Act (ORA) request to Defendant on 22 August 2023 by way of Fulton County’s ORA on-line “portal”. That same day, Plaintiff received confirmation that its request had been delivered and would be channeled to the “appropriate department” (presumably the District Attorney’s Office). The following day, the County’s Open Records Custodian sent Plaintiff [Judicial Watch] an email confirming that the District Attorney’s Office had received the inquiry and asking Plaintiff to “simplify” its ORA [Open Records Act] request…. Literally five minutes later, before any simplification had occurred, Plaintiff received a second e-mail from the Records Custodian: “After carefully reviewing your request. (sic) We do not have the responsive records.”
This response was perplexing and eventually suspicious to Plaintiff, given that Plaintiff subsequently uncovered through own effort at least one document that should have been in the District Attorney’s Office’s possession that was patently responsive to the request.
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Defendant [Willis] ultimately defaulted and this Court entered an Order on 2 December 2024 directing Defendant “to conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials” and to provide any responsive records that were not legally exempted from disclosure….
Defendant’s compliance with the Court’s 2 December Order consisted of an undated, unsigned two-page memo to Plaintiff from Defendant’s “Open Records Department.” … In this memo, Defendant announced that there still were no records responsive to one set of Plaintiff’s requests (communications with former Special Counsel Jack Smith) but that there were in fact records responsive to Plaintiff’s second set of requests (communications with the United States House January 6th Committee) – but those were exempt from disclosure….
Despite having previously informed Plaintiff four separate times that her team had carefully searched but found no responsive records, now there suddenly were – but they were not subject to disclosure under the ORA….
The ORA is not hortatory; it is mandatory. Non-compliance has consequences. One of them can be liability for the requesting party’s attorney’s fees and costs of litigation.
The court concludes its criticism of Willis’ actions, stating:
Most basically, by operation of law Defendant acknowledged violating the ORA when she defaulted. But actual evidence proves the same: per her Records Custodian’s own admission, the District Attorney’s Office flatly ignored Plaintiff’s original ORA request, conducting no search and simply (and falsely) informing the County’s Open Records Custodian that no responsive records existed. We know now that that is simply incorrect: once pressed by a Court order, Defendant managed to identify responsive records, but has categorized them as exempt. Even if the records prove to be just that – exempt from disclosure for sound public policy reasons – this late revelation is a patent violation of the ORA. And for none of this is there any justification, substantial or otherwise: no one searched until prodded by civil litigation.
Given this, the Court finds that relevant and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs of litigation are properly awardable to Plaintiff … Defendant is thus liable to Plaintiff for $21,578 pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(b). That amount shall be paid within two weeks of the entry of this Order.
In early December, 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 is one already public letter to January 6 Committee Chairman Benny Thompson (D-MS). (Read more: Judicial Watch, 1/07/2025) (Archive)