Even before Project 2025 made it a Republican goal to use federal power to target progressive prosecutors, Fulton, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis found herself in the crosshairs of conservative state lawmakers angered by her prosecution of Donald Trump.
That conflict found its way into yet another courtroom on Tuesday. Willis’ office was defending itself against a subpoena from a Senate committee that had demanded her appearance to explain how she allegedly spent money on Nathan Wade, her former special counsel and lover, in the prosecution of now President-elect Trump and others charged in the election interference case. She rejected two subpoenas from the Senate special investigative committee demanding her testimony and a barrel of documents about the relationship, her office’s finances and the case.
The future of the Trump election interference case in Georgia remains unclear. The state appeals court canceled a hearing scheduled for this week in which Trump and other defendants had sought to dismiss Willis as prosecutors in the case. The appeal cited Willis’ relationship with Wade, arguing that the financial entanglement between the two created a conflict of interest that should force a denial.
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The appeals court could – and often does – rule without hearing oral arguments. It could bring the case to a complete close, order Willis’ removal as prosecutor, separate Trump from the trial or allow the case to proceed as is.
Federal prosecutors picked up their cases after Trump won election to a second term, noting that the federal government cannot prosecute a sitting president. The Georgia case remains the only one pending against Trump, with fourteen co-defendants still in legal jeopardy.
The anger about that prosecution comes from several sides within the Republican party. Even as former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes argued on behalf of Willis before Fulton Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram on Tuesday that the Senate subpoenas were unconstitutional, another judge issued an order suspending her office in another case declared in violation of the state’s Open Records Act.
Conservative legal activists with Judicial Watch have sued Fulton County after Willis’ office refused to turn over records of her communications with special counsel Jack Smith and the Jan. 6 House committee. Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered her office to turn over the documents within five days.
Republicans want to know how Willis allegedly coordinated Trump’s prosecution with the Justice Department and ultimately the Biden White House. But they are also considering how the results of the committee investigation could lead lawmakers to rewrite laws to take away the authority of prosecutors, cut Willis’ budget or otherwise limit her power to prosecute wayward Republicans.
Willis has said she views this as political intimidation and fights it to the hilt, likening it to the legislative move that created a state panel that could fire local prosecutors.
Willis’ office previously argued that committees representing only the state House or Senate do not have subpoena power: Both chambers must issue a subpoena as a joint act under Georgia’s state constitution.
“The operative word is ‘general meeting,’” Barnes argued. The term refers to both chambers of the Georgia legislature together, he said. “Only the general meeting has the right of summons. Not the Senate. Not the house.”
Willis’ office argued that a subpoena cannot be issued if the general meeting is not in session, as the commission did in this case, and that the subpoenas are too broad relative to the limitations set in Georgia’s Open Records Act and the common law sense of separation between the two parties. forces. Barnes argued that legislative oversight of state spending is being used as intimidation by hostile politicians on a fishing expedition, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Mazars decision to obtain Trump’s financial records from his accountants.
“This committee, created by a group of members of the General Assembly, says, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice for us to just bring in the district attorney and see what she has on old Donald Trump,’” said Barnes. “Well, Fani Willis had an affair with Nathan Wade. This is a pretext. We would be blind if we did not see what we all see. This was nothing but singling out one person who has been duly elected and re-elected in this circuit to embarrass her. It is not for a legitimate legislative reason.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Rep. Josh Belinfante argued that the district attorney is calling into question the constitutionality of the subpoena power for all legislative committees and is coming between lawmakers and their duties.
“They are investigating these allegations, which may demonstrate that existing state laws — including those that establish the processes for selecting, hiring and compensating special assistant district attorneys — are inadequate,” Belinfante said. “It is necessary to determine whether District Attorney Willis’ alleged conduct, if found to be true in whole or in part, should be addressed by the implementation of new laws or result in a change in state appropriations, or both.”
Lawmakers began looking at the prosecutor’s actions before the Trump case came to their attention, Belinfante said. Arguments were made that one provision of the state statute could be used to limit the authority of the legislature that passed that statute in the first place.
“It is assumed that the general assembly can act unless the constitution provides otherwise,” Belinfante said. “There is no constitutional ban on investigations.”
Belinfante noted that the state constitution gives each chamber the power to create legislative committees, and — absent an express prohibition — gives each chamber the power to issue subpoenas without consulting the other chamber.
No court in Georgia has ever examined the state legislature’s subpoena power, as Ingram was asked to do Tuesday, legal experts say.
