Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been hit with a complaint for allegedly missing an information request deadline.
Wallis, who is leading the Georgia election-interference case against former President Donald Trump, has come under pressure amid allegations she had an affair with a special prosecutor she hired in the case, Nathan Wade.
Newsweek contacted Willis by social media and representatives for Georgia’s attorney general by email on Friday to comment on this story.
Trump and 18 others are accused in a 41-count indictment of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all 13 charges against him and has repeatedly said the case is part of a political witch hunt aimed at undermining his position as frontrunner for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination.
Former Trump staffer Michael Roman, a co-defendant, made the accusations about Willis without evidence, and sought to disqualify her and Wade from the trial. Willis previously rejected the allegations and said her critics were “playing the race card,” given that they had singled out Wade, who is Black.
As well as alleging the affair, in a 127-page filing, Rosen said two meetings took place between White House employees and Wade in 2022.
The filings from Roman’s case include a bill sent from Wade to the Fulton County district attorney’s office requesting two payments of $2,000 for separate occasions, under the project title “anti-corruption special prosecutor.”
The first, on May 23, 2022, is labeled “travel to Athens: Conf[erence] with White House Counsel,” for which Wade charged $2,000 for eight hours’ work. The bill read that Wade also had an “interview with DC/White House” on November 18, 2022, for which he also billed $8,000 at a rate of $250 per hour.
News website Just the News said it requested records of any meetings and communications between Willis or Wade with White House or Justice Department officials. The news outlet then filed a complaint with Georgia Attorney General Christopher M. Carr, after Just the News said Wallis’s office failed to meet the three-day deadline to respond to the request under the Open Records Act.
The website says that, under Georgia law, if an entity that receives a records request is unable to produce the documents in that time frame, it is required to provide a description and a timeline for production of the documents.
Just the News said it received a notice stating the request was being reviewed.
It has asked Georgia’s state attorney general to open an investigation into the apparent violations of state law and order by her office to produce any records that exist.
“Georgia’s open records law is clear and has not been followed in the case of our request. Publicly available information currently suggests Fani Willis’ team had contact with the Biden White House, something that if true, would raise significant questions of public integrity,” John Solomon, the CEO and editor in chief of Just the News, said.
“Securing these records are a matter of significant public interest. We look forward to the attorney general office’s intervention in this matter and also are considering additional legal options for securing this information for the public,” Solomon added.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Georgia state Senate Republicans introduced legislation to establish the Senate Special Committee on Investigations to look into the allegations of misconduct.
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