'We're showing up': Fani Willis will testify before state Senate committee

Rosie Manins, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Dec 9, 2025

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ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will testify about her conduct before a state Senate committee next week, her lawyer told the Georgia Supreme Court.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes said Tuesday that Willis will comply with a witness subpoena issued earlier this year by the Georgia Senate’s Special Committee on Investigations, though she has spent more than a year trying to avoid testifying. He said she will answer the committee’s questions Dec. 17.

“We’re showing up,” said Barnes, a lawyer for Willis in her ongoing fight against an earlier subpoena issued by the committee in 2024.

The committee — chaired by state Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens — is investigating the operation of Willis’ office, including her romantic relationship with onetime deputy prosecutor Nathan Wade. The committee has been trying since August 2024 to compel Willis to testify.

Willis maintains that the committee did not have the authority to issue the 2024 subpoena. A Fulton County judge rejected her arguments last December, and the DA asked the state Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.

Willis now argues the fight over the 2024 subpoena is moot, but the committee members disagree.

Barnes said the committee’s 2024 subpoena was void from the beginning because it lacked full General Assembly support and was issued outside the legislative session. He said it is now “dead.”

Willis is not fighting a second subpoena, issued by the same committee earlier this year. That subpoena was delivered after Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a bill clarifying the investigative powers of the Georgia Legislature, including lawmakers’ ability to subpoena witnesses, administer oaths and compel testimony — even outside of the 40-day legislative session.

Willis has also agreed to hand over certain documents to the committee, based on another subpoena in 2024 that she stopped challenging. The documents largely relate to her scuttled election interference case against President Donald Trump and more than a dozen others.

During oral arguments Tuesday, the state Supreme Court justices probed whether Willis’ case against the 2024 subpoena for her testimony is moot.

Barnes said it is, in part because of the new law.

“I will leave to another day whether I think that statute is appropriate,” he told the justices.

But Josh Belinfante, a lawyer representing the committee members, said the 2024 witness subpoena is not voided by the fact that it was issued during a previous legislative session.

“Nor does the fact that the witness has agreed to testify on Dec. 17 change the calculus today,” he said.

Belinfante said that if Willis testifies to the satisfaction of the committee, he will notify the court then.

In September, Republican state senators said they had struck a deal with Willis’ lawyers that paved the way for her to testify in November. But that didn’t happen.

“Remember that we had dates before and it did not work out,” Belinfante told the court Tuesday. “We hope that it does.”

The court is expected to decide the case by the end of March.

While the Senate committee lacks the power to prosecute, disbar or directly discipline Willis, it can recommend changes to the state budget or draft legislation regulating prosecutors’ conduct.

Senate Republicans, led by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, have been eager to keep the spotlight trained on Willis as they head into the 2026 election cycle, where both Cowsert and Jones are seeking higher offices. The committee was also recently tapped to investigate another prominent Democrat: Stacey Abrams.

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