ATLANTA — A Fulton County judge has ruled in favor of a defense attorney and her husband in a lawsuit against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office on Monday.
The judge's decision brought the case to somewhat a conclusion. Judge Rachel Krause ruled in favor of the Merchant Law Firm and against the Fulton County District Attorney's Office for failure to timely provide the documents that were requested. She added that the plaintiffs could be awarded attorneys' fees at a later date. It's unclear how much the county and district attorney's office will owe the law firm at this time.
The hearing is a continuation of the saga regarding the Fulton County election interference case, where former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants face charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election.
It stemmed from a lawsuit in which Ashleigh Merchant accused the Fulton County District Attorney's Office of violating the state's Open Records Act.
On Monday, Merchant, who represents Michael Roman in the election interference case, took the stand. She testified that although the lawsuit started with documents requested for her client related to the criminal case, she got those documents through a subpoena during an earlier hearing.
The lawsuit accused Willis of "hiding documents" related to a media monitoring company, alleging the district attorney had used taxpayer dollars to pay for it. It also accused the Fulton County District Attorney's Office of not wholly fulfilling open records related to nondisclosure agreements of employees.
"She is the elected DA. It's her office. I think that every government agency has a duty to respond to open records requests. I think when you have an elected official that they are the ones who are held accountable by the public. They are the ones who set the policy," Merchant said.
In the previous hearing, Merchant questioned Dexter Bond Jr., an employee of the district attorney's office who oversees open records requests. During his testimony, Merchant questioned Bond about emails regarding communications with the media monitoring company. The emails included several quotes for service, invoices, payments allegedly made to the company and communications with the company.
On Monday, Merchant mentioned the compilation of email communications that she said was not fulfilled because she felt like critical information was missing.
"The first one is what I would call a compilation of documents. It was 44 pages. It was clearly cut and pasted. Someone had removed dates, times, parties, subject matter, things like that. So someone had to actively take those documents and redact them. From the cut outs it literally looked like they copy-pasted them," Merchant added.
County lawyers claimed subpoenas haven't been properly served and that the Merchant Law Firm is harassing the district attorney and her office.
"The reason why we here is not because of this open records act. We are here because of the criminal case that is pending against Michael Roman,” said Fulton County District Attorney Legal Counsel Andrea Alabi. “This open records suit has been filed in order to essentially get information to relitigate the disqualification that was heard in the criminal case.”
Judge Krause stated her decision could still be upended if the Georgia Supreme Court gives an opinion on whether or not the Fulton County District Attorney's Office can be sued in the open records act.
11Alive streamed Monday's proceedings. You can watch it in the video player below.