Georgia Senate Committee Investigating Fani Willis Case Pushes for More DA Accountability – WABE

A Georgia Senate special committee investigating the professional conduct of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis spent several hours Friday hearing testimony about the broad authority district attorneys have over their budgets.

Republican state lawmakers raised concerns about the DA’s discretionary spending after a hearing in Fulton Superior Court revealed that Willis had hired a special prosecutor with whom she had a romantic relationship.

Much of the focus of the Senate Special Investigations Committee hearing was on the rules and regulations that apply to district attorneys’ offices across the state, including district attorneys’ ability to hire special prosecutors and allocate other budget expenditures.

Committee Chairman Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican, said the purpose of the hearing was to discuss concerns that county commissioners, the public and others may have that Georgia district attorneys have too much control over how their offices are run.

Cowsert said he is concerned about budget differences between less populated counties and “wealthy counties” that can afford to provide significantly more funding to their district attorneys.

“I hate it when we see smaller counties feel like they don’t have enough staff because their counties can’t fill them, they don’t have effective enough policies, or they’re not on the right side of the blue or red line to get a cut in federal funding,” he said.

Friday’s Senate hearing was the committee’s first meeting since May 23, when the former director of Fulton’s juvenile rehabilitation program accused Willis’ staff and the district attorney of misusing federal funds for gang prevention and strengthening programs.

Willis’ 2020 election interference case in Fulton Superior Court is currently on hold while the Georgia Court of Appeals considers a motion filed by Trump and several co-defendants seeking to remove Willis from the case. Their argument is that Willis should be disqualified because of an undisclosed romantic relationship he had with Nathan Wade, whom she hired as a special prosecutor to oversee the case. Wade was paid about $700,000 by the county as the lead prosecutor in the case before he resigned in March amid the scandal.

Over the past few months, the commission has heard from experts including the attorney who helped uncover Willis’ affair, high-ranking Fulton County officials and others.

Willis continues to disagree with the Cowsert committee on whether she should be forced to comply with a subpoena to testify before the committee.

The next meeting of the special commission of inquiry is scheduled for September 13.

On Friday, three current and former district attorneys testified about how state, local and federal funding gets to district attorneys’ offices.

The Georgia State Council of District Attorneys oversees how district attorneys allocate state funds, as well as how they provide resources, such as assigning independent prosecutors to help district attorneys’ offices handle specialized cases.

The board has no duty to discipline or remove district attorneys for misconduct, witnesses said Friday, because that matter is handled by a committee of the Georgia State Bar that determines whether a lawyer has violated state rules of professional conduct.

Lawmakers at a hearing Friday considered ways they could help develop more ethical guidelines for district attorneys, including tasking a controversial new prosecutorial oversight commission with developing a code of conduct for local prosecutors

Most of the state’s 50 district attorneys handle cases from several counties within a judicial district, operating on much smaller budgets than larger metropolitan areas, said T. Wright Barksdale III, district attorney for the Ocmulgee Judicial District.

Wright said there are significant differences between county and district court cases and that while the county covers the operating costs of prosecutors, the responsibility of district attorneys rests with the citizens who vote to determine whether the money is spent appropriately.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office was recently criticized during a county audit in which attorneys for the district attorney said Willis, as a constitutional officer, has the authority to hire special prosecutors and case experts.

“The county can come in next year and say, ‘We don’t agree with this,’ but the public needs to understand that county commissioners give a lot of money to people who spend it, but they have a responsibility and an obligation to make sure that the money they spend is appropriate,” Wright said.

Porter suggested that county officials could try to cap funds they believe have been misused in the next budget cycle, which could further encourage district attorneys to comply with county rules.

Porter said district attorneys have the same legal authority to control their budgets as other constitutional officers, such as sheriffs, who generally can spend state money as they see fit. The new prosecutorial oversight commission will develop similar ethics guidelines to the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the panel that oversees Georgia judges, Porter said.

The DA’s disciplinary committee is also reviewing complaints filed against district attorneys, including the current complaint filed against Willis in connection with a 2020 case. Willis has called the attacks by Trump and the GOP machine a “witch hunt” against her because she is a Democrat and a Black woman who opposes Trump’s attempts to illegally overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

Cowsert said he is concerned that Georgia does not have a universal, consistent code of conduct for prosecutors.

“What are the ethical guidelines? What are the fair expectations of our citizens?” Cowsert said. “The reason is that, as far as I can tell, they are only bound by the disciplinary rules and ethical guidelines of the Georgia State Bar, which apply to all lawyers.”

This article was provided by Georgia Recorder, WABE’s content partner.