Georgia Senate Republicans reopen probe into Fulton DA Willis. Dems deride it as waste of time.

by Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder
January 13, 2025

Georgia Senate Republicans voted Monday to reinstate the Special Committee on Investigations, which spent last year investigating the alleged misconduct of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Georgia state senators voted along party lines Monday to continue investigating Willis regarding her handling of the 2020 election interference case against Republican President-elect Donald Trump and a number of his allies. Republican and Democratic senators continued to argue Monday on whether to reopen an investigation designed by the GOP to hold the Fulton County top prosecutor accountable or to continue a probe that Democrats label as a political stunt.

Sen. Greg Dolezal sponsored the resolution reauthorizing a special committee tasked with not establishing similar standards for prosecutors across the state and holding prosecutors deemed as rogue accountable.

The Cumming Republican said he anticipates the new committee will reissue a subpoena demanding Willis’ testimony once the case is resolved in court. Last month, a Fulton County Superior Court judge ordered Willis to respond this week to the committee’s subpoena requesting a trove of documents and her testimony.

“Before (Willis) was fighting our subpoena, she was breaking open records laws,” Dolezal said Monday. “Before she was breaking open records laws, she was visiting the White House.”

Dolezal said the committee is designed to restore confidence in Georgia’s criminal justice system instead of just targeting a lone district attorney. 

“The other interesting thing is that when you read the court’s ruling, it speaks to the reality that she had to be removed from the case to restore faith in the justice system in the state,” he said. “I would think that’s a bipartisan issue that Democrats and Republicans would have equal interest in is restoring confidence in the criminal justice.”

Willis is appealing to the Georgia Supreme Court a December ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals that disqualified Willis and her office from the case. The case is left limping along and at risk of losing Trump as its top target. Trump’s attorneys continue to argue that an incoming president cannot be prosecuted for performing official role in office. 

Trump is scheduled to be sworn in on Monday for the start of his second term in the White House after losing his re-election bid in 2020 to Democratic President Joe Biden. Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in August 2023 on conspiracy charges for allegedly trying to illegally overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Four of the people charged took a negotiated plea deal.

Sen. Josh McLaurin, an attorney and Sandy Springs Democrat, acknowledged some missteps by the prosecution, but said a Senate committee shouldn’t investigate the actions of one district attorney in order to change state law. Republicans introduced the resolution on Monday, the first day of the 2025 legislative session.

“This is a fixation on the past,” McLaurin said. “But worse than that is a fixation on the past that is driven primarily by the obsessions of one man who is going to be president in one week. We have now spent years in this chamber, catering to, bending to and accommodating the narcissistic preferences of one man.”

Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones said Democratic lawmakers might decide not to participate in a panel he characterized as a waste of time. Jones, a Democrat from Augusta, served last year on the investigative committee, which dissolved at the start of 2025.

Jones said the panel spent too much time focused on the Fulton County prosecution of Trump and procurement issues. Rather than focusing on relevant issues, such as health care and child care, Jones said his Republican counterparts are spending more time discussing a topic that shouldn’t be the concern of state government.

Fulton County voters voted overwhelmingly in November to return Willis to lead the District Attorney’s office.  

Senators still need to decide which nine lawmakers will serve on the new bipartisan committee.

“Quite frankly, there’s nothing else that committee is going to learn,” Jones said. It’s going to be a complete waste of time again. As I said, during my 10 years that I’ve been here, I’ve never sat in a committee saying that I’ve said has wasted my time.” 

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