A LOOK BACK ... Judge Says 'Fani Willis' Violated Open Records Law, Orders Her to Pay $54K in Attorneys' Fees & A Colleague Wonders if Willis Regrets Indicting "Mike Roman"
March 17, 2025
(Excerpt from article)
Attorney Ashleigh Merchant represents former Trump campaign staffer Michael Roman, one of the 18 people indicted in August 2023 along with President Donald Trump on allegations that they illegally tried to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss in Georgia. Merchant sued in January 2024, alleging that the district attorney's office had failed to turn over public records she had requested.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rachel Krause found that the failures to comply with the records law “were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious.” Because Willis and her office “lacked substantial justification” for not complying, Merchant is entitled to attorneys' fees and litigation expenses totaling just over $54,000, Krause found.
Merchant said she filed the lawsuit as a last resort after Willis' office repeatedly failed to produce documents.
“We definitely didn't want to file suit,” she said. “They were just ignoring it and telling us that documents didn't exist that we knew existed and resisting at every move, so we really didn't have a choice.”
ARTICLE CREDIT: Associated Press via US News
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COMMENT:
A colleague of mine noted that Ashleigh Merchant's client, Mike Roman, was not even included in the special grand jury's recommendations (see excerpt below) -- so my colleague says he now understands why Roman has been fighting so hard, and looking for any 'opening' he could find, to get his charges and case dismissed -- which is something my colleague feels Fani Willis should've known and seen coming -- and prepared for this, by not hiring a man she had a relationship with (who at the time had a 'pending' open divorce case) -- and by not hiring a man with no RICO experience, to lead the biggest RICO case in U.S. political history -- paying him more than the other two more experienced prosecutors on the team. This was the "opening" Mike Roman found -- and as his attorney, Ashleigh Merchant had an obligation to investigate.
(EXCERPT) -- "Of the 19 people ultimately indicted, only one was not included in the special grand jury’s recommendations. A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s Election Day operations, Michael Roman ... critics have accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of launching an unwieldy, overly broad investigation ..."
SOURCE/ASSOCIATED PRESS: https://apnews.com/article/georgia-grand-jury-full-report-trump-indictment-08b2cccaed514c2d8e1baae49e2f05eb
Posted Oct 2, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC