The House Judiciary Committee announced Tuesday that it is launching an inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for allegedly colluding with the January 6 Committee.
“We have learned that Willis’s office coordinated its investigative actions with the partisan Select Committee,” The Judiciary Committee Republicans wrote in a post on X.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) fired off letters to Willis and Select January 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) demanding documents and communications between or among the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and the Select Committee.
“Although we were aware that your office had coordinated its politically motivated prosecutions with the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith, we recently learned that your office also coordinated its investigative actions with the partisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol (“January 6 Select Committee”),” Jordan wrote in his letter to Willis.
Read the letter between DA Willis and Chairman Thompson ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/XrYb0PXgDF
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) December 5, 2023
The House Judiciary Committee announced in August that it was investigating the motives behind Willis’ decision to indict former President Donald Trump and 18 other Americans.
“On August 24, 2023, we wrote to you requesting production of three categories of documents to advance the Committee’s oversight of politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials,” Jordan wrote.
1 Your reply letter dated September 7, 2023, failed to adequately address the Committee’s requests and made several baseless excuses for refusing to provide the requested documents.
2 We wrote again on September 27, 2023, explaining in detail the legal deficiencies in your position and offering, as a sign of good faith, to prioritize the production of certain documents so as to minimize any potential burden on your office.
3 You responded to the Committee on October 11, 2023, rejecting our offer at accommodation and instead resorting to ad hominin attacks on the Committee’s oversight.
4 Your response letter largely rehashed the same arguments that we considered and addressed in our detailed September 27 letter.
5 You again failed to produce any documents in response to the Committee’s oversight. Recently, the Committee became aware of cooperation between your office and the partisan January 6 Select Committee.
6 We are in possession of a letter, dated December 17, 2021, and enclosed herein, from you to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the partisan January 6 Select Committee, requesting access to congressional “records that may be relevant to our criminal investigation.”
7 Specifically, you asked Rep. Thompson for access to “record [sic] includ[ing] but . . . not limited to recordings and transcripts of witness interviews and depositions, electronic and print records of communications, and records of travel.”8 You even offered that you and your staff were eager to travel to Washington, D.C, to “meet with investigators in person” and to receive these records “any time” between January 31, 2022, and February 25, 2022.
9 Although it is not clear what records, if any, you obtained from your coordination with the partisan January 6 Select Committee, this new information raises additional questions relevant to the Committee’s oversight of your politically motivated prosecution of a former President of the United States and several former senior federal officials. The partisan January 6 Select Committee had a troubling track record of procedural abuses and due process violations. It only solicited evidence from a select set of relevant individuals, ignored exculpatory evidence, and did not pursue witnesses with evidence that would not advance its partisan narrative.
10 It fabricated and publicly released doctored evidence.11 It cherrypicked selective information to create false and misleading public narratives.
12 To the extent that your politically motivated prosecutions are now relying in any way on records obtained from the partisan January 6 Select Committee, it only reinforces concerns about your commitment to due process and whether you have fulfilled your obligations to properly disclose this material.
13 We are aware, of course, of allegations in an unrelated high-profile prosecution that your office has been withholding materials from the defendant’s attorneys. Ashley Oliver, Fani Willis’s Young Thug RICO trial opens in turmoil, Wash. Exam., Nov. 27, 2023. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress “[a]ll legislative powers,”
14 and the Supreme Court has held that “Congress may conduct inquiries into the administration of existing laws, studies of proposed laws, and . . . surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purposes of enabling Congress to remedy them.”
15 Further, as we have previously articulated to you, Congress “has authority to consider, and to investigate . . . legislative reforms to insulate current and former presidents from state prosecutions . . . .”
16 Pursuant to Rule X of the House of Representatives, the Committee is authorized to conduct oversight of criminal justice matters to inform potential legislation.
The Committee requested all documents and communications between or among the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 riot for the period July 1, 2021, to January 3, 2023; and all documents and communications referring or relating to records in the possession of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office obtained from the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 riot.
Jordan gave Willis until 5:00 p.m. on December 19, 2023 to produce the materials.
Loudermilk, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight Committee on House Administration, requested from Thompson a similar list of official communications between the Select Committee and Willis or her office, as well as list of all individuals who were deposed or interviewed by the Select Committee, and an itemized list, and copies, of every record of communications and travel the Select Committee provided to Ms. Willis or her office.
Thompson was given until Tuesday, December 11, to provide the materials.