Fani Willis' office must pay $54K to Donald Trump co-defendant's attorney: court ruling
Category: News & Politics
Via: vic-eldred • 3 weeks ago • 3 commentsBy: Tim Darnell ( httpswww. atlantanewsfirst. com)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Fulton County Superior Court judge has ordered District Attorney Fani Willis' office to pay more than $54,000 in fees to the attorney who has effectively brought down Willis’ election interference case against Donald Trump.
In a ruling this past Friday, Judge Rachel Krause ordered Willis to pay $54,103.23 to the Merchant Law Firm. The firm’s principal, Ashleigh Merchant, first brought attention to Willis' romantic and business relationship with Nathan Wade , who Willis hired to investigate her historic interference case against Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants.
Merchant represents Michael Roman , one of those co-defendants.
Merchant has been attempting to force Willis into disclosing the funds the DA’s office has used in its prosecution of Trump. Willis has been arguing her office is not subject to Georgia open record laws.
Krause said Willis' office has 30 days to submit the open records requests and pay the restitution to Merchant’s law firm.
“Defendants — through the Open Records custodian, Dexter Bond — were openly hostile to counsel for Plaintiff, Ms. Merchant, and testified that Ms. Merchant’s requests were handled differently than other requests,” Krause’s order said.
“While there is no requirement under the ORA for Mr. Bond to call any requestor about a particular request, Mr. Bond’s handling of Ms. Merchant’s requests in this manner indicates a lack of good faith,” the order said. “Defendants’ failures were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who chairs the powerful U.S. House Judiciary Committee, has also been attempting to compel Willis to testify in Congress regarding the use of taxpayer funds in her now-stalled investigation.
Willis is also under pressure from a special Georgia state senate subcommittee empaneled to investigate her prosecution of Trump. The Georgia Court of Appeals has already removed Willis from her role as prosecutor of her indictment.
In August 2021, Willis handed up a historic series of indictments against Trump, accusing him and 17 of his GOP allies — including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
That election saw Joe Biden defeat Trump in Georgia by less than 17,000 votes. On his way to the White House, Biden became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to carry Georgia or any other deep Southern state.
But a since-acknowledged romantic relationship between Willis and Wade threw the case into an entirely new political and judicial spectrum. And now that Trump has become the 47th president-elect , Willis — who was reelected in her own right on Election Day — and her prosecution was faced with even more uncertainty.
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I have a feeling that Fani paying $54,103.23 is just the beginning.
The very scary part is she was reelected after that clown show.
Somebody on here once asked "What would be wrong with a minority majority country?"
I think the voting in Fulton Country, Chicago and NYC kind of answers that question.