Georgia Court Orders Fani Willis to Pay More Than $20,000 in Records Dispute

‘Non-compliance has consequences,’ a judge wrote in the case.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis during a hearing in the case of The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump et al. at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on March 1, 2024. Alex Slitz/Getty Images

A court in Georgia ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to pay a legal group more than $21,000 in legal fees amid an open records lawsuit against the prosecutor.

Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, submitted an Open Records Act (ORA) request to Fulton County in August 2023 to obtain possible communications that Willis’s office may have had with special counsel Jack Smith and a now-defunct House committee that was investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Willis brought criminal charges against President-elect Donald Trump and more than a dozen others for alleged criminal activity following the 2020 election.