The weekend brought very bad news for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
A Georgia judge ruled Willis must pay more than $54,000 in legal fees after her office violated the state’s open records laws during her failed prosecution of President Donald Trump
Superior Court Judge Rachel Krause ordered Willis on Friday to pay $54,264 in attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. The judge also directed Willis to turn over documents requested by attorney Ashleigh Merchant within 30 days.
Merchant represents Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer who was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in August 2023. The group faced charges that alleged they illegally tried to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Merchant filed the lawsuit in January 2024, claiming Willis’ office refused to provide public records she had requested. The documents sought included a list of lawyers Willis hired, confidentiality agreements employees sign, and reports from companies tracking public perception of Willis’ statements to the media.
Judge Krause ruled that Willis’ office treated Merchant unfairly different from other defendants requesting public records.
“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,” the court order said.
Bond refused to directly communicate by phone with Merchant, even though calling a requestor to clarify information was his usual practice.
“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 stated.
Judge Krause said the failures to comply with records law “were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious.”
A spokesperson for Willis’ office said Monday they plan to appeal the order.
This ruling comes after Merchant gained national attention for exposing Willis’ secret sexual relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Despite their personal relationship, Wade was hired by Willis with taxpayer cash to lead the prosecution against Trump. He was later forced to resign in March 2024 due to this undisclosed relationship.
The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled in December that Willis and her entire office could not continue prosecuting the case because of an “appearance of impropriety” created by the controversial secret relationship. Willis has asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review and reverse that ruling, but the high court has not yet decided whether to take the case.
In fact, the weekend’s blow was just the latest in a series of court rulings against Willis’ office misconduct. In January, her office was ordered to pay nearly $22,000 in legal fees to conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch after reportedly ignoring their open records request.
Merchant celebrated the recent ruling on social media platform X —
Proud that we have judges willing to hold people in power accountable when they ignore the law!!!! #faniwillis #openrecords #fultoncounty https://t.co/r1FFPMFf6J
— Ashleigh Merchant (@AshleighMerchan) March 14, 2025
Recently, two federal cases against Trump were dropped by the Justice Department since his reelection, and he received a “slap-on-the-wrist” in the controversial New York hush-money case.