ATLANTA, Ga. — August 24, 2023: Demonstrators and others are seen near the Fulton County Jail prior to the booking of former President Donald J. Trump on state charges. (Photo credit: Ben Von Klemperer / Shutterstock)
A right-wing legal group cheered Tuesday after a Fulton County judge granted a motion for default judgment against District Attorney Fani Willis in a lawsuit to gain access to communications Willis had with special counsel Jack Smith and the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6.
New York Times reporter Sean Keenan posted the order. The court granted Judicial Watch’s request seeking attorneys’ fees and ordered Willis to hand over releasable records to Judicial Watch within five business days.
"Lest any of this appear unfair to Defendant -- who arguably was without notice that Plaintiff had filed the return of service on 13 March 2024 until 15 April 2024 when Plaintiff again filed it and the Clerk caused the original 13 March filing to appear in the docket -- Defendant could have opened her default as a matter of right on 15 April 2024 or soon thereafter, as she remained well within the fifteen-day grace period established by O.C.G.A. § 9-11-55(a)," Judge Robert McBurney wrote.
Willis could have taken any number of actions within the "statutory grace period" but largely ignored the filing, he said.
"But Defendant did none of that: she never moved to open default on any basis (not even during the period when she could have opened default as a matter of right), she never paid costs, and she never offered up a meritorious defense. Plaintiff is thus entitled to judgment by default as if every item and paragraph of the complaint were supported by proper and sufficient evidence. O.C.G.A. § 9-11-55(a). Here, this means Plaintiff has established that Defendant violated the ORA by failing to either turn over responsive records or else notify Plaintiff of her decision to withhold some or all such records," the ruling said.
The court set a hearing on the attorney fees award for Dec. 20.
“Fani Willis is something else. We’ve been doing this work for 30 years, and this is the first time in our experience a government official has been found in default for not showing up in court to answer an open records lawsuit,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Judicial Watch looks forward to getting any documents from the Fani Willis operation about collusion with the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress on her unprecedented and compromised ‘get-Trump’ prosecution.”