Embattled District Attorney Fani Willis’ office must fork over $54,000 in legal fees after a Georgia judge found it was “openly hostile” to a lawyer in the Trump election interference case.
Criminal defense lawyer Ashleigh Merchant — who represents Trump co-defendant Mike Roman and blew the whistle on Willis’ affair with her lead prosecutor in the case — won the judgment against Willis’ office in Fulton County.
Merchant claimed in her lawsuit that the office stonewalled her requests for records the public has the right to access.
Fulton County Justice Rachel Krause noted in her Friday decision that people in Willis’ office who handled Merchant’s records requests “were openly hostile” to the defense lawyer and testified that they handled her request differently than normal, including by not calling her to clarify her request, as was customary.
The judge said this was a violation of the state’s Open Records Act, Fox 5 first reported.
The office’s failure to give Merchant the documents at the time she requested them was “intentional, not done in good faith, and [was] substantially groundless and vexatious,” the judge wrote.
Merchant sought a list of lawyers who Willis hired and when, any confidentiality agreements her employees had to sign and any promotional or rebranding materials from her office.
Krause said all of these documents must be turned over to Merchant within a month from the ruling, along with the legal fees it cost Merchant to fight for the information.
“Proud that we have judges willing to hold people in power accountable when they ignore the law!!!!” Merchant posted on X about the decision Friday.
Merchant came into the national spotlight last year when she filed papers on Roman’s behalf to get Willis, 53, booted from the criminal case against President Trump on alleged misconduct grounds after it was discovered the DA had a romantic relationship with case prosecutor Nathan Wade
Willis appointed Wade to lead the prosecution against Trump and a slew of co-defendants for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in the Peach State.
The affair scandal derailed the criminal case when Willis and Wade were forced to testify in open court about their romance — which they claimed began after Wade started working the case and ended months before it became public.
Wade was forced to step down in March 2024 while Willis was booted from the case by an appeals court in December. Her entire office was barred from any further involvement in the Trump prosecution, which has been in limbo since.
The case Willis brought against Trump, 78, is the last remaining criminal case against him after two federal cases were dropped by the federal Justice Department since his reelection and after he was given a slap-on-the-wrist in a New York hush-money case.
