by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court heard oral argument Tuesday in a dispute over the extent of the Georgia General Assembly’s authority to compel testimony, but the case may become irrelevant next week now that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has agreed to testify.
Willis, who has been fighting efforts by a Senate committee that wants her to appear under subpoena, has agreed to talk with them on Dec. 17, her lawyer, former Gov. Roy Barnes, said at the hearing.
The dispute stems from Willis’ decision to pursue criminal charges against Donald Trump and his allies after they disputed the outcome of the 2020 election.
Republicans in the legislature issued two subpoenas, once last year and again this year.
A lower court ordered Willis to comply, but she appealed to the state Supreme Court, prompting Tuesday’s hearing.
Republicans say they want to explore what led Willis to prosecute Trump before he became president for a second time.
Democrats have derided the Senate’s work as a political stunt, an assertion that Barnes, a Democrat, repeated outside the courthouse.
He noted that several members of the Senate Special Committee on Investigations are running for statewide office.
“They’re putting out fundraising [that] says ‘we’re going to go after Fani Willis, and you need to send me $100.’ I mean, that’s ridiculous. It is in bad faith,” he said.
Five of the committee’s members are running for higher office. The Chairman, Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, wants to be Georgia attorney general.
Four others, also Republicans, are running for lieutenant governor, although one of them, Sen. John F. Kennedy, R-Macon, announced hours before the court hearing that he was resigning immediately to focus on his campaign.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, serves on the committee and is also among those running for lieutenant governor. He attended the hearing and said afterward that the Supreme Court would not have had to listen to the lawyers argue about subpoena power if it were not for Willis’ “stonewalling” the committee.
“I think the question for her is how much of this is political,” Dolezal said. He said Willis benefitted politically from the media coverage.
“The case was unfounded from the very beginning,” he said. “It was rooted in its core in a scheme of prosecution for personal profit and we need to ensure that lady justice indeed keeps her blindfold on.”
Willis indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants.
Four took plea deals, but the rest were cleared last month when a special prosector dismissed the case after Willis was sidelined due to an ethical issue.
The courts removed her from the case because she had employed a romantic partner to help prosecute it.
Barnes downplayed that.
“If they disqualify every member of the General Assembly that has a romantic relationship with a secretary or a lobbyist,” he said, “you’re not going to be able to have a quorum next session.”
Lawmakers return to the Capitol to conduct another round of state business on Jan. 12, though some will be back next week to hear Willis testify.
