A law firm representing Trump's co-defendants filed a lawsuit Monday accusing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' office of failing to disclose required public records.
The Merchant Law Firm, which represents co-defendant Michael Roman, has disclosed information under Georgia's open records law, including the contract with the lawyer Willis hired to work on the Trump case and the analysis the lawyer prepared. The suit accused the office of denying the “right to access” certain records based on the law. A media monitoring company contracted by the office to track her coverage. The lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior Court, alleges the department “deliberately” tried to delay production of the records. (Related: Exclusive: Fani Willis hired firm to monitor media's 'newsworthiness' days before announcing investigation into President Trump)
“In an apparent attempt to delay Plaintiffs' access to various categories of documents prior to the evidentiary hearing in this case, the FCDA has, without adequate explanation, disclosed documents known to exist. “The company has refused to provide Plaintiffs with much of the requested material that is known to not exist, some of which has been outstanding since September 2023, subject to exceptions in the law,” the lawsuit states. is stated.
Roman's attorney, Ashley Merchant, filed the original documents. motion Earlier this month, Willis announced that she had a romantic relationship with Wade, who gave him a lucrative contract to take on the Trump case and that he paid for them to go on vacation together. claimed to have benefited from it.
Judge Scott McAfee is scheduled to consider the allegations in Roman's motion at a hearing scheduled for Feb. 15. Willis must file a response to the motion in court on Friday.
ATLANTA, GA – NOVEMBER 21: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis presents Scott for a hearing in the 2020 Georgia election interference case at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia on November 21, 2023. – Appeared before Judge McAfee. (Photo by Dennis Byron Poole/Getty Images)
Since September 2023, the District Attorney's Office has filed charges for Nathan Wade from July 2023 to December 2023, as well as for Wade's former law partner, Terrence Bradley, and Wade's current law partner, Terrence Bradley. One Christopher Campbell's invoice, special prosecutor Anna Cross's current contract and invoice cannot be produced. So are Special Counsel John Floyd's current contracts and invoices, according to the complaint.
Floyd, known as the state's top extortion expert, was only paid $200 as of May 2023, according to invoices previously obtained by DCNF. However, Mr. Wade was forced to work for $250 an hour. Willis falsely claimed in public remarks at Big Bethel AME Church that he paid all three special prosecutors the same hourly rate.
Other requests filed by the merchants, including information on how CARES Act funds were spent by the office and copies of analysis from media monitoring services hired by the office, also went unfulfilled, the complaint alleges. ing.
The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported that shortly before announcing the investigation into Trump, Willis' office hired Critical, a New York-based media monitoring service that tracks metrics such as mentions and publicity value. He has agreed to pay $10,000 for Mention.
Some requests were “prematurely closed” and had to be resubmitted, but the complaint says this means “Merchant simply indicates that the request was 'closed' with all documentation provided.” They speculate that this may have been done intentionally in the hope that they would be accepted and move on.
“Thankfully, she did not do so, as it is clear that numerous additional correspondence documents were in the possession of Fulton County and the FCDA but were not provided,” the article continues. She wrote, “The open records process itself appears designed to prevent Georgians from accessing public records and ignores the transparency and openness mandated by the law.”
The District Attorney's Office did not respond to a request for comment.
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