House Republicans have notified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis that she could face contempt of
Congress proceedings for alleged non-compliance with a subpoena to produce records related to her office’s use of federal funds related to her case against former President
Donald Trump. In that letter, Mr. Jordan said that, last summer, the committee asked Ms. Willis to provide documents regarding her use of federal funds but that she had “failed to comply voluntarily with any of our requests,” even after the committee sent her two letters. Accordingly, Mr. Jordan issued a subpoena to Ms. Willis on Feb. 2, requesting that she produce a series of specific records and documents related to the federal fund use or allegations regarding their misuse. In his March 14 letter, Mr. Jordan said Ms. Willis only partially complied with that subpoena. “We appreciate that you have produced a narrow set of documents in response to the subpoena, but your compliance with the subpoena to date is deficient,” Mr. Jordan wrote in the March 14 letter. “If you fail to do so, the Committee will consider taking further action, such as the invocation of contempt of Congress proceedings,” he added, while giving Ms. Willis until March 28 to produce the requested documents. Ms. Willis’s office did not respond to a request for comment but, in a Feb. 23 letter to Mr. Jordan, she called his subpoena “overbroad and unduly burdensome.” Mr. Jordan also wrote that in her Feb. 23 response letter, Ms. Willis had “smeared” the whistleblower, though he did not elaborate, saying only that “we will not dignify your attacks on this brave whistleblower, or your continued attempts to distract from your conduct through misdirection and personal insults.” Ms. Willis heads the case against
President Trump and over a dozen co-defendants, which the former president has denounced as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Ms. Willis provided what Mr. Jordan described as a “narrow” set of documents in response, including around a dozen award letters from the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and Office of Violence Against
Women (OVW) and around two dozen screenshots of expense budget summaries that were available to her office. However, Mr. Jordan said Ms. Willis failed to produce any documents in several requested categories, including documents and communications relating to allegations of misuse of federal funds, as well as communications between employees of the Fulton County DA’s office regarding the receipt or use of federal grants. Ms. Willis’s Feb. 23 response letter to the subpoena directed Mr. Jordan’s committee to “engage” with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain the requested documents. “As a part of our oversight, the Committee has engaged with the
Justice Department about its administration of federal grant programs,” Mr. Jordan wrote in the March 14 letter. “The Committee’s separate requests to the Justice Department do not alleviate your legal obligation to comply with the subpoena.” He also addressed Ms. Willis’s objection to the subpoena as supposedly “overbroad and unduly burdensome,” insisting that the committee has exercised restraint in its request by limiting the scope to a limited time period and prioritizing certain categories of documents. Earlier, Ms. Willis was accused of engaging in an “improper” relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade, and of benefiting from it financially. Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have acknowledged their romantic relationship but denied any financial benefit or conflict of interest. The judge has said that Ms. Willis could only be disqualified if there’s an actual—or apparent—conflict of interest.