Georgia Senate to Question Fani Willis Over Trump Prosecution

ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate's Special Committee on Investigation is set to question Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis about her prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in the 2020 election interference case. The probe, created in January 2024, is examining allegations of misconduct related to Willis' leadership of the case and, in particular, the decision to hire a special prosecutor and the circumstances surrounding a reported relationship with that prosecutor.

Willis invoked Georgia's anti-racketeering law in August 2023 to charge Trump and others with conspiring to overturn the state’s 2020 results in Trump’s favor, a move that drew intense political heat from Republicans and contributed to tensions that fueled the inquiry. The committee’s resolutions have described the relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, the elected special prosecutor who led the case, as a potential conflict of interest and a possible misallocation of taxpayer resources. The probe has sought to determine whether those factors affected prosecutorial decisions or the integrity of the process.

The prosecutions began to unravel in January 2024 after a defense attorney raised questions about Willis’s relationship with Wade. In a highly scrutinized hearing, Willis and Wade testified about the nature of their relationship, denying there was a disqualifying conflict. Wade resigned hours after the hearing. The defense subsequently appealed, and the Georgia Court of Appeals cited an appearance of impropriety and removed Willis from the case. The state Supreme Court declined to hear Willis’s appeal in September, leaving the case effectively defunct as prosecutors were reassigned.

Despite the collapse of the underlying prosecution, the Senate committee has pressed ahead with its inquiry, arguing that its purpose is to examine process and ethics rather than to relitigate the merits of the Trump indictment. Democrats have framed the panel as a partisan exercise intended to damage Willis and diminish accountability for political foes. Four Republicans on the committee are seeking statewide office in 2026, including Chairman Bill Cowsert, who is running for attorney general, and Sens. Greg Dolezal, Blake Tillery, and Steve Gooch, who are pursuing the lieutenant governor nomination. Another member, John Kennedy, recently resigned from the Senate to pursue a bid for lieutenant governor.

Willis has previously faced challenges to her ability to appear before the committee. A court ruling established that she could not ignore a subpoena, and an agreement allowed her to appear when the subpoena was reissued this year. The ongoing dispute over the committee’s authority to compel testimony has underscored the broader political frictions surrounding the case and the district attorney’s office as Georgia and national observers watch for any narrowing or shift in the legal process.

In the wider arc of Georgia politics, the clash between Willis and her critics reflects a broader national debate over prosecutorial independence, investigative oversight, and the accountability of officials whose work intersects with high-profile partisan disputes. While the Trump indictment has become a touchstone in national politics, the committee’s work is framed as a state-level examination of governance and ethics in the prosecutorial process, rather than a direct nullification of the former president’s legal exposure. The outcome of the inquiry could shape perceptions of Willis’s tenure and inform the tactics of both parties as they prepare for future statewide contests.