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Judicial Watch scores legal victory after Fani Willis ordered to surrender Jack Smith, J6 Docs

March 14, 2025 | | Print Article

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ ties to former special counsel Jack Smith and the Jan. 6th committee have just finally been exposed thanks to a lawsuit from Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, originally filed suit last March after Willis denied having any records showing she’d communicated with Smith and the Jan. 6th committee.

The lawsuit noted that her “representation about not having records responsive to the request is likely false.” As proof, they cited a December 2021 letter written by Willis to Jan. 6th committee chair Bennie Thompson requesting assistance from the committee.

Two months after the suit was filed, a court ruled against Willis, ordering her “to conduct a diligent search” for any related records and then pass the records to Judicial Watch for review. Willis eventually responded by claiming the search had produced zero such records.

Fast-forward to late last month, when, after being repeatedly pressed by the court, Willis’ attorneys finally “found” the desired records but chose to only release one to Judicial Watch — namely a copy of the letter sent by Willis to the Jan. 6th committee in 2021.

In a new court ruling issued this Thursday, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney ordered her to turn over the rest of the records to Judicial Watch.

McBurney also ruled that Willis must explain how exactly the 212 pages of records were finally found after so many months of them seemingly remaining hidden from her team of lawyers.

In issuing his ruling, McBurney further slammed Willis for the games she’d been playing.

“Defendant claimed to have no responsive records,” he wrote. “Plaintiff sued and has since secured a default judgment against defendant, who, it turns out, does have responsive records.”

“After several non-searches, one court order, and at least one actual search of unknown thoroughness, defendant revised her answer to, in essence, ‘I do have records, but you can’t have them,'” he added.

“Fani Willis can’t be trusted,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Every time we go back to court there are new excuses and new documents that she said never existed.”

This ruling comes a month after another judge ordered the Department of Justice to turn over to Judicial Watch any records showing communication between Smith and Willis.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich came following the conclusion of Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump and his subsequent resignation from the role of special counsel.

Judicial Watch initially sought to obtain the records itself via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, but the DOJ responded by claiming releasing the records would hurt the prosecution’s case against Trump.

In a January ruling, Friedrich argued that since Smith is no longer pursuing a case against Trump, there is nothing to jeopardize my releasing the records.

“Since DOJ filed its motion for summary judgment and supporting Declaration in March 2024, the Special Counsel’s criminal enforcement actions have been terminated,” he wrote. “The cases are ‘closed — not pending or contemplated — and therefore are not proceedings with which disclosure may interfere.’ … Thus, the agency’s sole justification for invoking the Glomar doctrine under Exemption 7(A) is no longer applicable.”

“Accordingly, the court will deny DOJ’s motion for summary judgment and grant the plaintiff’s cross motion. DOJ is directed to process the plaintiff’s FOIA request and either ‘disclose any [responsive] records or establish both that their contents are exempt from disclosure and that such exemption has not also been waived,'” he added.

Despite the ruling, Fitton was nevertheless aghast at the Trump DOJ’s behavior in the case.

“President Trump truly needs to overhaul the Justice Department from top to bottom,” he said. “It is a scandal that a federal court had to order the Justice Department to admit the truth that their objections to producing records about collusion with Fani Willis had no basis in reality.”

As for Willis, critics now say it’s beyond time for her to be disbarred.

Look:

Vivek Saxena
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