FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is sharing her thoughts on former defendants in the election interference case’s attempts to recoup their legal fees.
“We’re gonna fight with everything we legally can in that particular case,” Willis told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne. “The law’s unconstitutional, and just wrong in so many ways.”
According to a state law passed last year, President Donald Trump and those who faced charges in the election interference case that Willis’ office sought can now seek to recoup their legal fees because charges were dropped.
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Willis says she will fight in court to prevent the payment of roughly $17 million in legal fees sought by defense attorneys.
“The first problem is that the law was written with the intent of legislators trying to help their friends, and so whenever you do something for a wrong purpose, it’s going to work out wrongly,” she said. “It’s terribly written. It looks like they wrote it on the back of a napkin.”
Attorney Chris Anulewicz told Winne he represents one of the former defendants. He says he does not believe the law is poorly written, and was written in response to the actions of Willis and her office, which he says were wrong.
Willis says that to collect the fees, there needs to be a finding of improper conduct by the prosecutor. She says that though there was a finding of the appearance of impropriety, no court found there was actually improper conduct.
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Anulewicz maintains that the law at issue would cover even the appearance of improper conduct.
Willis says attorneys are seeking reimbursement for things like hotel rooms costing more than $1,000 per night and seafood lunches costing hundreds of dollars.
“They should be ashamed,” Willis said of the expenses attorneys are asking for.
Anulewicz says he did not submit any outrageous expenses, but other attorneys will get a chance to defend what they spent in court.
“This law is retroactive, meaning they come up with a law for conduct that has already occurred and the Constitution says you cannot do that,” Willis said.
Anulewicz says the Constitutional protections Willis is claiming are for individuals, not the government.
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