by John Solomon and Steven Richards
Just the News and America First Legal win access to 8,000 pages of documents after extensive open records litigation. The memos include revelations on how Joe Biden waived Trump's executive privilege specifically to aid Georgia prosecutors.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis coordinated extensively with the Biden Justice Department and White House as well as Democrats on the House Jan. 6 investigative committee as she built a failed criminal case against President Donald Trump and his allies related to their challenge to Georgia's 2020 election results, according to a trove of internal communications obtained by Just the News.
The memos show that President Joe Biden's top White House lawyer personally opened the door for Willis' prosecutors to interview Trump administration officials by waiving claims of executive privilege, that federal prosecutors waived certain rights to allow the interviews to proceed before a state grand jury and that Willis's team spoke glowingly of the congressional efforts to expose Trump's involvement in the disputed election.
"Our initial review of the report confirms you all have accomplished amazing things in the past year," F. Donald Wakeford, a top deputy to Willis, wrote in a December 2022 email to Tim Heaphy, chief investigative counsel for the Democrat-run Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Just the News, alongside the nonprofit public interest law firm America First Legal (AFL), sued Willis for the records, under Georgia's Open Records Law. Willis, a longtime Trump nemesis, sought to hide many of the records with claims of legal privilege during a prolonged legal fight.
In a reaction to the lawsuit, Willis' office this week dropped all privilege claims and released all the documents without any redactions, providing to Just the News — and the public — more information than it did to congressional Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
"These documents reveal that the Biden Administration and the January 6 Committee were much more involved in District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of President Trump than was previously believed. AFL was happy to represent Just the News to get Americans this new information," said Will Scolinos, an attorney at America First Legal.
A cozy relationship, and a big gift from the Biden White House
The documents show a cozy relationship between the Biden administration and Willis' staff, one that included a meeting between her outside special prosecutor Nathan Wade and the Biden White House.
Wade, who admitted to a "personal relationship" with Willis outside the office, billed Fulton County $2,000 for an "interview with DC/White House" on Nov. 18, 2022, just as Willis' probe was accelerating, according to the new records Willis was forced to disclose.
There is no further explanation in the documents for that interaction, and Fulton County told Just the News and its lawyers at AFL that Wade did not keep any records of what happened at that meeting. Calls to Willis for comment were not returned by publication time.
The new memos show that the Biden White House counsel's office gave Willis' prosecution team a major gift, waiving Trump's ability to claim executive privilege and to block former administration officials from testifying.
Executive privilege is the implied authority of the U.S. president to withhold information that the executive branch possesses from Congress or the Judiciary on the grounds that a president is entitled to confidential advice before making decisions. It is a long-standing American tradition and the secrecy of presidential communications was first referenced by Chief Justice John Marshall in the landmark case Marbury v. Madison.
Ironically, President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder asserted the same privilege during investigations of the botched "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scheme. The Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press noted that "When a president invokes executive privilege, it may be among the most difficult walls to penetrate because the number of potential leakers with access to White House documents is limited and closely monitored.” In some instances, reporting has simply been prevented from reporting on an important issue because the blockade worked.
Biden, however, believed that the “extraordinary events” surrounding the “insurrection” on Jan. 6 in the U.S. Capitol, warranted waiving this historical understanding of the privacy of presidential communications, the new memos show.
In a letter to Fulton County prosecutors in September 2022, Biden’s Special Counsel, Richard Sauber, informed Willis’ deputy, Wakeford, that the White House would not invoke executive privilege for the testimony of former Trump White House officials before the Georgia grand jury.
"These events threatened not only the safety of Congress and others present at the Capitol, but also the principles of democracy enshrined in our history and our Constitution,” Sauber wrote.
“In light of these unique circumstances, President Biden has determined, as he did with respect to the Congressional investigation of these events, that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the public interest with respect to efforts to thwart the orderly transition of power under our Constitution,” the special counsel added.
This waiver would apply to any events in the White House on or about Jan. 6, Justice Department efforts to investigate allegations of fraud in the 2020 election, and any effort to “alter valid 2020 election results or obstruct the transfer of power,” Sauber explained.
You can read the Biden White House letter below:
It has been known for years that Biden waived Trump's executive privilege for the congressional inquiry and the federal prosecution of Trump led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, but the Georgia memo appears to be the first document to show how Biden extended that waiver in coordination with a prosecution at the state level.
Willis made Georgia first state to indict Trump over Jan. 6
Willis announced in August 2023 that she had indicted Trump and allies on racketeering, conspiracy and other charges after a more than two-years-long investigation into alleged 2020 election interference in that state. Under Willis, Georgia became the first state to do so, followed later by fellow Democrat prosecutors in Arizona and Wisconsin who also went after Trump allies.
Eighteen other people, including Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, were also indicted in Georgia, accused of aiding Trump in a bid to change the outcome of the state's 2020 election. You can read that indictment here.
The state prosecution came days after Smith filed a similar federal indictment in Washington, D.C.
"Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," Willis told a news conference at the time, matching a narrative that the Biden White House, congressional Democrats and Smith also echoed.
Trump's legal team portrayed the state indictment as a pile-on, and alleged that Willis was part of a political conspiracy to defame Trump and drain his resources as he was running again to return to the White House in 2024. Eventually, the president would prevail in getting Willis removed from the case, and the charges were dismissed.
The documents now show that Fulton County prosecutors working for Willis received significant assistance from the Biden administration beyond the waiver of executive privilege, in what could legally only be considered a boost to her targeting of Trump and allies.
Justice Department coordinated Willis with J6 committee
Before impaneling the grand jury to weigh charges against Trump, the records show that Willis’ office approached the local U.S. Attorney’s office with requests to interview several former Trump Justice Department officials, including former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel.
They submitted several requests, known as "Touhy Requests" to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. Touhy requests are formal requests to a U.S. government agency not involved in the case to secure testimony from current and former federal officials.
One of the earliest communications in the production, an email from Willis' deputy Wakeford to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Beranek in March 2022, indicates that the office had already made several such requests to the feds for testimony.
“We anticipate that we might have to make a few more Touhy requests and thought it would be beneficial to have a conversation about the process. Please just let me know if that's something we might be able to work out,” Wakeford wrote.
Though provided in unredacted form, Just the News has for privacy purposes redacted all email addresses and phone numbers contained in documents published here.
By May, the Justice Department told Willis’ that it was “premature” to provide these officials for interviews because the case was still in its “information-gathering phase.” However, the Justice Department, in a letter to Wakeford, notified the Fulton County prosecutor that many of the former officials had already testified to Congress about their roles on Jan. 6.
“While we are unable to evaluate your request at this point, we can share that, for at least some witnesses, much of the information you seek, and for which the Department would consider providing an authorization, is already publicly available,” Jay Macklin, General Counsel in the DOJ’s Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys wrote on May 11, 2022.
“For example, Messis. Rosen, Donoghue, and Engel each participated in interviews before congressional committees, and they discussed the issues that you identified in your letter,” he added. As a “courtesy,” the Justice Department official attached the congressional transcripts to assist the local prosecutors’ investigation against Trump, the letter shows.
You can read the letter to Wakeford below:
Outreach to J6 committee Democrats for more information
Around the same time, the communications show the Fulton prosecutors began reaching out to Democratic members of the Jan. 6 Select Committee for information related to their investigation. One of the outreaches went directly to the committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
"Our office is currently engaged in an ongoing investigation related to possible criminal disruptions that occurred during the administration of the 2020 general elections in Georgia," Willis' office wrote Thompson's team. "As we discussed, my team and I would like a brief audience with Congressman Thompson related to the aforementioned subject matter."
At least one office connected Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Michael Hill with the committee’s chief investigative counsel, Tim Heaphy. The records indicate that Heaphy called Hill on April 20, 2022 and their discussion was memorialized in a follow-up email.
“As we discussed yesterday, we’re willing to provide an oral summary of what certain witnesses have told the committee in interviews and depositions,” Heaphy wrote. “We are also prepared to give you access to some committee documents, in camera in our office.”
“We’d like to do this in Washington, sometime next week,” Heaphy added, inviting the Georgia prosecutors to the capital. The email chain indicates that a team from Fulton County eventually made the trip and met with the committee staff.
You can read the emails below:
Investigations launched into Willis, and the case is dismissed
House Republicans launched an investigation in Dec. 2023 into the Fulton County prosecutor’s office over indications that Willis had collaborated closely with the Jan. 6 committee. According to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Willis asked Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson as early as Dec. 2021 for any evidence relevant to her investigation.
The records turned over to Just the News show that Willis made at least two additional requests for committee materials, one on Aug. 4, 2022 and another on Mar. 31, 2023.
Willis was eventually removed as the prosecutor overseeing the Georgia case against Trump and the indictment was eventually dismissed by a Georgia judge in November last year, shortly after Trump won his second non-consecutive term in the White House. The lead prosecutor on the case said that his office would not pursue the case any further, citing the difficulty of compelling a sitting president to stand trial.
“There is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment,” wrote Peter Skandalakis, the prosecutor in a Nov. 26, 2025 court filing. “Donald J. Trump’s current term as President of the United States of America does not expire until January 20, 2029; by that point, eight years will have elapsed” since the alleged crimes.
When the case was dismissed, Georgia's prosecution, led by Willis, was the last remaining probe of the president’s conduct during the 2020 election dispute after Smith dropped his own federal case following Trump’s election victory.
Georgia court: "Willis’ misconduct created an "odor of mendacity"
The Georgia Court of Appeals issued a decision holding Willis accountable for prosecutorial misconduct and conflict of interest during her hunt to get Trump.
“The court highlighted that Willis’ misconduct created an ‘odor of mendacity’ and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by the disqualification of her and her entire office,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement, according to The Georgia Reporter.
“As the court rightfully noted, only the remedy of disqualification will suffice to restore public confidence. This decision puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next President of the United States.”
John Solomon and Steven Richards
Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/wedfani-files-georgia-prosecutor-coordinated-trump-case-closely
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